In Sue Townsend's riotously funny novel, Edward Clare, prime minister of England, has a problem. For five years, since his landslide election, he has been universally viewed as the perfect leader and representative of the working man. But then something happens that turns the public against him. Who would have thought that not knowing the price of a liter of milk could put you in the doghouse?

Jack Spratt is the constable who guards Number Ten, the PM's mansion. When Edward decides that the only way to get closer to the men and women on the street is to travel around the country, in drag, as Edwina St. Clare, he enlists Jack's help. Leaving his high-powered, ambitious wife (voted the cleverest woman in Europe by People Magazine) to attend to things in his absence, he and Jack set out on an odyssey that begins in Edward's childhood city of Edinburgh and ends in Jack's mother's house in Leicester.

In this comic romp that breaks down social and political barriers, neither Jack nor Edward can anticipate how their extraordinary journey will impact world affairs or, for that matter, their own lives.