Diary of a Notting Hill nobody
Diary of a Notting Hill nobody
Tamzin's look-back at a tipsy-turvy year for Project Cameron
Dave in trouble for visiting Rwanda while Britain flooded. Backbenchers in mutiny, letters being written demanding vote of no confidence. Will anything ever go right again? (Little did we know, everything was about to go Right!)
AUGUST
Plague and pestilence. All leave cancelled because of foot and mouth. Gordon hailed as genius. Dave is useless — it’s official. Everyone gives up and starts to plan life outside politics. I ring the gallery and ask for my old job back.
Then, the weirdest thing happens. Mr Redwood proposes a swingeing package of tax cuts and everyone says we are brilliant. It is almost as if a supernatural power is at work. Nanu Nanu!
SEPTEMBER
We lurch from left to right and back faster than Ellen MacArthur in a catamaran. One minute it’s crime and tax, the next minute global poverty. Somehow, we unveil plans to charge shoppers to park at supermarkets. I book a history of art refresher course and Poppy starts night classes in edible jewellery design.
OCTOBER
Salvation! Dave makes the most right-wing conference speech ever and rescues the party! Tax cuts, an end to immigration, harsh penalties for working mums who refuse to find a husband, a place at Eton for all children who can afford it....
And all while cleverly maintaining our modernising credentials by saying the words ‘pissed’ and ‘Facebook’. We are going to win the next election! Oh, and Gordon is useless — it’s official!
NOVEMBER
Dave can do no wrong and even gets away with a joke about one-legged Lithuanians. Jonathan Aitken is appointed to our penal reform policy commission. Proof that prison works!
Right-wingery through the roof. We are clamping down on everyone from the workshy to hoodies. Upsetting at first. But gradually I’m coming to understand that Dave has to say these things to get elected. Once we get in, he can lurch to the left and do all the stuff we really want to do. I can’t wait!
DECEMBER
Personally, if I were Mrs Gibbons I would rather sit in a Sudanese prison for another week than have to listen to Sayeeda bang on about how brilliant she is. First-class cabin or not. Reminds me — must work out the carbon offset. Or do we bother with that now we’re all Thatcherite free marketeers? Hard to believe we were ever being pulled through the snow by huskies, isn’t it?!
Merry Christmas everyone! And a very Hard Right New Year, too!
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Randall Wade
December 13th, 2007 7:48pmA-ha. Hahaha. Hahahaha...uhhh, what was that punch line agin?
Dietrich Wilhem Behncke
December 15th, 2007 2:48amI so luv Tamsins style and 'class'(whatever that is)! As an old foxhunter in good old NSW, where it's still legal I regale my hunting friends constantly with choice excerpts. Keep it up Speccie!
chris holmes
December 16th, 2007 6:22pmI second that emotion: Tamzin ('zee' not 'ess') is one of the first I turn to when the Spectator hits Corfiot shores. Certainly, she's a guaranteed witty read and I learn new jargon by the week. Loipon! This online Coffee House is a godsend: no Speccie this/last week so unwired ancients are reeling with cold turkey while smug types like me are quoting tantalising bits from the link. I never know if it helps to drop leaden hints to the Powers That Be that certain star writers are keepers. I assume they bawl down the intercome, "you got some ex bloke in greece you've bribed to rave about you? sayyy obvious, m'dear. true in this case. i must have soula run up a t-shirt in time for summer, like "Tamzin is a Keeper", and see how many ^5s I get as i mooch down Agios Gordis beach.