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Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

Tamzin Lightwater

Wednesday, 10th September 2008

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Monday

Look! There is no question of us doing a U-turn on our pledge to match Labour’s spending plans. You can’t do a U-turn if you were never going to go a particular way in the first place. Or if you went for a long drive that brought you exactly back to where you started, you wouldn’t say you’d done a U-turn. You’d say you’d done a circle. Or a curve. Oh dear. Let’s put it this way: we always planned to stop promising to match Labour’s spending plans by the end of this year. So in fact we are on target for fulfilling one of our key pledge reversals! Or let me put it another way... No, it’s no good. And I’m going to get tested on this later when we have our daily ‘Ditching Our Pledges for the Economic Year 2010’ progress update. I’m toast.

Tuesday

Huge headache from all the champers at Dylan and Dave’s book launch in swanky Park Lane hotel last night. It was a super do but a bit tiring trying to keep up with so many glamorous celebrities demanding tax cuts because they are down to their last ten million! Ended up sitting at the back selling books near Gids who was — controversially — wearing a tie and furiously scribbling numbers on the back of an envelope.

Last thing I needed today was Mr Redwood: ‘Morning Tamzin! I thought you might enjoy a copy of my excellent report to reread at your leisure, or now if you’d prefer, while I stand here. Also you will find on my blog all sorts of interesting ideas for how to stimulate growth and get Britain moving again!’ Is it just me or does he sound like he’s selling laxatives? In any case, he left copies of his report everywhere, with the relevant pages on spending cuts turned down, including in the loo. (Actually, it’s a bit softer than the recycled stuff Dave insists on us using.) Then Gids came in for a meeting and had to crawl on his hands and knees behind desks to avoid him. He was crouched behind an aspidistra for 20 minutes at one point, peering through the leaves. It was like a scene from Rambo. Or one of DD’s bonding sessions.

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A child of our time

From the economic and psychological bedlam of the global downturn has emerged a particularly dangerous false dichotomy: namely, that there is somehow a choice for ministers over the next few years between economic reconstruction and the repair of Britain’s broken society, and that the government (whether Labour or Conservative) must prioritise the former at the expense of the latter.

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Charles Moore

‘A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter drop” of money.’ So said Ben Bernanke, now the chairman of the Fed, in a speech about how to ward off the ‘extremely small’ chance of deflation, which he delivered in 2002.