Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

12 June 2010

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Monday

Gids in a stinky mood. He’s still traumatised after having to travel economy class to Korea. Rang from the airport to say, ‘I don’t turn right on planes.’ But Poppy said you could tell from his voice that he knew the game was up. We all turn right on planes now. It’s a bit depressing, to be honest. Only a month since we got in and everyone’s exhausted. Also realised today, it’s four years since I started work at Compassionate Conservative Headquarters. Can you believe it? Could never have predicted it would turn out like this. I mean, it’s v nice being In Power. But after all the years we battled Mr Redwood and his crazy talk about cuts it is weird that it’s come down to precisely that in the end. When I think of the glory days — the Tie Guidelines, the smoothies, the secret sessions with union bosses, the summer photos of Dave in Vilebrequins, the hoodies, the love-bombing, the green taxes — mind you, we might still get them, if Mr Huhne has anything to do with the Budget.

Tuesday

Mr Cable on the phone threatening to resign again. Honestly, it’s just getting boring. I told him if he wants to make himself a CGT martyr he’s v welcome. But could he please just get on with it and stop bothering me because I’m busy sorting out our public consultation on spending cuts — It’s Your Recession You Decide! (Ugh, just had to drink a cup of Nescafe. When we moved into No. 10, they didn’t bring the cappuccino machine.) Went for a cheer-up lunch with Poppy. Lovely time reminiscing about the Great Pasta Shortage of April 2008 when Dave nearly had to cancel a lasagne supper, and the time I tried to get married for tax policy purposes and the dating agency fixed me up with Ed Miliband. Great days. I’m pretty sure I’ve been central to The Project, like when they put me in charge of Webcameron vids and I got a builder to put a partition wall up to make the kitchen look smaller. A triumph of mine, Jed said.

1 | 2 Next page