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Diary of a Notting Hill nobody

Tamzin Lightwater

Tuesday, 18th March 2008

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Monday

Everyone on a major poll high! Ginseng tea and bran muffins all round this morning and not much work done. In the end Jed had to call in Mr Maude to calm us all down. FM said 16 points ahead was ‘nothing to get excited about’ and showed us all sorts of graphs that proved how badly we were doing. He said the reaction to Mr Hammond’s remarks about tax cuts not being possible was also bad — and we should be ashamed of ourselves for celebrating. It was nice to have him back.

Then we had a big strategy meeting to iron out the Tax Problem. It’s all sorted: the new formula is simple — massive cuts in services first, tax breaks much later. That ought to keep everyone happy. Mr Letwin wasn’t satisfied of course. He kept disrupting the meeting by shouting, ‘So I was right about the £20 billion!’ and had to be locked in the Tranquillity Room (again!). I took him a big pile of Labour spending forecasts from the Budget appendix he likes, and he seemed a bit calmer.

Tuesday

Another exhaustive think-in to decide what’s wrong with our Dave the Family Man coverage. Sherwood, our lifestyle guru, said the mixed reviews were clearly down to bad cereal selection. He thinks, and I’m inclined to agree, that Cheerios were a mistake. Too middle-class. Should have gone for Coco Pops.

Now we need to compensate with a bit more Chav Value: Dave and Sam going to Asda on the bus and struggling home with ten bags of shopping; Sam shopping in TK Maxx for cut-price designer gear; Nancy wearing an Aston Villa shirt. That sort of thing. Problem is Dave is so furious, he’s refusing to do ‘any more stupid TV which makes me look like a plonker’.

He stormed off before the slide presentation on how our new family policy is Not Back To Basics, or Caving In To The Religious Right. When Jed asked if we had any questions I told him about the man I was sitting next to in Gateshead during Dave’s speech who kept shouting: ‘Amen! Praise Jesus!’ But Jed said not to worry about it. He was probably just someone who got in by mistake, or an excitable Tory blogger. What a relief.

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