DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY
MONDAY V annoyed. Am I the only one around here who hasn’t been offered a job at Google? Not a single phone call from a headhunter in the whole time I’ve been working my little Dolce & Gabbana boots off for the good of Modern Conservatism.
The whole of CCHQ is downing tools and scuttling off to make megabucks in the private sector. Nigel says it’s the Brain Drain he’s been warning about since Jed issued a memo telling everyone that working on Project Dave was reward enough in itself and ‘let’s hear no more off-message nonsense about pay and conditions. We’ve all had to make sacrifices. And don’t forget: seasonally adjusted General Well-Being is up 5 per cent, year-on-year!’ I thought this was odd, because I heard there were four people including Jed who are earning a million between them. But Nigel said that was a sacrifice from Jed’s point of view.
Mood not lightened by Foxy’s ‘say sorry or else’ performance versus Desperate Dessy. Poppy says DD is champing at bit. If it had been him, Dessy would be toast by now. ‘Just shows you can’t send a boy to do a man’s job’ etc etc. (It’s an affliction, really.) TUESDAY Oh dear. Now DD is attacking Dave, calling him a Southern Softie. It’s v odd because everyone thought DD was happy — but in fact he’s not happy at all! He got very cross when Mr Letwin left a spare Deepak Chopra book on his desk. Apparently the Home Affairs portfolio is going to be carved up and DD’s fretting that it won’t be big enough for him. ‘If you’re trying to tame a big beast, you better make sure you feed him plenty of meat, and I’m talking raw, red chunks, not tuna carpaccio . .. ’ etc etc .
Long and short of it is, DD has demanded the defence brief! So there’s going to have to be a reshuffle before the staff in his office jump off the Commons roof in desperation, just like in Life on Mars (they have actually written to Dave to notify him of their intention). Foxy will get the chop, but I guess that’s showbiz.
WEDNESDAY Major panic. Another party of ‘VIPs’ came to look round the new office. We didn’t have enough warning to put Operation Changing Rooms into action so it was v messy.
I was in charge of hiding all the wastepaper bins in filing cabinets and tipping heaps of blank paper into the recycling bins which are empty because we shred everything. Unfortunately some bigwig from the City started cooing over the reclaimed teak cabinets! Despite a heroic attempt by self to distract him by pointing out the ornamental guar gum trees, he opened up a cupboard and out fell three wastepaper bins full of plastic crisp bags, Chocolate Orange wrappers and water bottles.
Have decided to walk around with a copy of the jobs section under my arm to ward off hostile forces until it all blows over.
THURSDAY Jed is imposing new recycling quotas. Irrespective of what we are shredding, we must place at least five kilos of used paper in the green bins daily! Failure to do so will result in an immediate ‘Interactive Disciplinary Meeting’. Am sanguine, as have discovered a seemingly limitless supply of used paper. Let’s just say I know where they dump the membership renewal forms that get sent back to us. They’ll solve global warming before I get through that lot!
tamzin.lightwater@spectator.co.uk
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