Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

2 May 2009

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Monday

Farewell then GWB. Whoever thought that was a good idea? Nobody here, I can assure you. Measuring output in terms of General Wellbeing is just plain silly when the really important stuff is all to do with hard figures. As such, we will be using a brand new measure of the nation’s progress from now on. It’s called GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, I believe. Much more sensible. Speaking of which, thank goodness for Mr Redwood and his super list of cuts we can make to public spending. Nanu nanu! We always said the instinctive small state ideas of traditional rightwingers would sweep this party to power and so it has proved to be! (Spending cuts ideas on a postcard please. Literally everything considered. Mark for the attn of ‘Project Slash and Burn’.)

Tuesday

Mr Flight on the phone again asking whether we’ve forgiven him now. I can sort of see his point but on the other hand he did cause an awful kerfuffle at the time. Told him that unfortunately there are no points in politics for getting something right four years too early. ‘But I only said what you’re all saying now!’ Had to hand the phone to Jed who explained the obvious to him: ‘We didn’t believe it then, mate. Yes, I know it’s unfair, but life’s unfair. Life is miserable and horrible and depressing and unfair. You think I’m happy? I haven’t had a power smoothie since Thursday. I had to stay in a Holiday Inn Express in Cheltenham. Austerity Britain, mate. Get with the programme.’

Wednesday

Poor Little Al Duncan came into the office and got a terrible ribbing. People hiding under their desks, girls screaming and running away from him waving their arms over their heads. It was v funny and the first time we’ve had a good laugh in ages. Of course we all know Little Al wouldn’t really murder Miss California because of her views on gay marriage. After all, he would have to do it from a stepladder, which wouldn’t be v practical and would give her ample opportunity to escape. Long strategy meeting about tax. No progress at all on the question of when Gids should tell people we can’t reverse the 50p tax rate in a first term, and probably not in a second. When Mr Clarke objected, Dave got really cross. He said he was damned if he was doing his first tax cut for ‘rich’ people, making quote-mark signs with his fingers round the word rich. Gids said: ‘But they’re not really rich, are they?’ Dave said: ‘I didn’t say they were rich! I said “rich”!!’ making the quote sign again. ‘We can’t be seen to be helping “rich” people, any more than we can be seen to be helping rich people. It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ It didn’t seem very obvious to me but I thought it best not to say so.

Thursday

Mr Willetts distraught about the ditching of his Happiness Agenda. He says that with a little fine-tuning we could still use bits of it. For example, we could add an UN- to the start of it. He says that being UNhappy is the new Big Question of our times. And only the Conservatives can answer it properly. Only we understand the true nature of UNhappiness. ‘Look at me, I’m desperately unhappy!’ he said, with a huge grin on his face. Not very convincing. Perhaps we could put Mr Flight in charge.

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