DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY
MONDAY Fab write-ups of our top secret meeting with unions. (Another great U-turn!) Of course, what we couldn’t reveal is how embarrassing it was when they told Dave how fantastic he is. It was bordering on creepy.
The guy from the Long List of Letters which have something to do with manual labour asked him to autograph his son’s hooded sweatshirt. ‘He’ll laugh his head off when he sees this.’ Honestly, how gauche! Couldn’t he have waited till the end and asked us to send him one like everyone else?
Was a bit odd having all those lefties round. Lot of faffing trying to work out what to give them to drink. Poppy got into a right state trying to buy something called ‘real ale’. Dave said he wanted to serve tea, but then we had huge row over what type of tea as, obviously, Earl Grey would send wrong message, and PG Tips would be insulting. In the end we just gave them water, from the tap. No one could agree on whether socialists had views on sparkling versus still, so mineral was just too big a risk, even Jed’s suggested ‘Third Way’ of Badoit. Anyway, we got through it without dropping a bullock. Ee-up our kid. (Is this right?) TUESDAY Putting finishing touches to our Climate Change Bill. I know we have to Be The Change, but if you ask me, this carbon trading has gone way too far. Dave is obsessed, and it’s not just the helicopter flights that have to be offset.
Every last whiff of CO2 has to be accounted for. (New motto on Tranquillity Room wall: ‘If you look after the grams, the tons will look after themselves’.) Result — Head Office is becoming more like my Auntie Aggie’s house every day. Except Auntie Aggie only makes you ask permission to run a bath, a relatively light-touch regulatory regime. Yesterday I put off going to the loo all day because I couldn’t be bothered to enter ten seconds of handdryer usage in the book.
Lot of behind the scenes prep for Queen’s Speech. Jed phoned Sam to ask whether we could brief her choice of outfit, but Sam told him to ‘get a grip, home boy, and go and work on Dave’s speech, like the rest of us’.
WEDNESDAY Am quite excited. Can’t wait to see Cherie and Pauline in their funny hats!
Dave nervous as hell. Keeps going on about how he’s only ever made two Commons speeches. Says PMQs doesn’t count ‘cos it’s just me and Tony having a laugh’. Mr Hague helped him rehearse but not sure this was wise: ‘That’s it, louder, now warble a bit and hum, mmmmmmmmm.’ We should have gone with our first idea of asking Lord Kinnock. He seemed keen enough.
THURSDAY Working up statement on Miners’ Strike: ‘We now recognise Arthur Scargill to be a courageous figure who fought to liberate ordinary people.... ’ etc.
Dave wants to get his accent worked on again, give it a shade of northern grit. At risk of sounding like broken record, he should see to his hair first. When is he going to have his rugged-man-crop moment? Jed was promising it weeks ago, it was in the Grid — ‘Leader emerges with new haircut to announce change of policy on Iraq’ — which is brilliant, because if we do go for the 2005 Hugh Grant look, who in the media is going to notice a U-turn on foreign policy? Dur! No one!
tamzin.lightwater@spectator.co.uk
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