Monday
Mr Clarke on the phone again, v crabby. He says it’s taking a lot of hours out of his day having to answer questions about the economy and can’t we stop people calling him so he can get on with counting sparrows. ‘At this rate the only way I’ll get my RSPB garden-watch sheet filled in is by taking that blasted job Dave’s banging on about. At least then I won’t be allowed to say anything.’ Told Jed and he said this meant the strategy was working. Am under strict orders to tell everyone who rings for Gids that they’re to phone Mr Clarke. ‘We’ll smoke him back into the shadow cabinet if it kills us. He’s going to be begging to be let in soon.’ Genius! Next time he rings am going to add to the pressure by asking him about my own financial plans. Have decided to beat 0 per cent interest rates by closing savings account and spending all my money. Clever, huh!
Tuesday
Bit of a reshuffle panic. If the inquiry lets us down as badly as we think it is going to we may not be able to sack Mrs Spelperson. In which case we could have a riot on our hands. Also, what to do about Mr Pickles and Mr Hunt, who were so excited about being made party chairman? The way they’ve pitched for the job has been a model of competitive tendering. Mr Hunt really pushed the boat out by getting inclusively engaged to a Chinese lady. Not sure Mr P can compete with that, although his attempts to make himself a bigger beast do seem to have gathered pace over the Xmas holiday, by the look of him. Now we will have to find something else for them. At least we don’t have to worry about reshuffling the entire shadow cabinet due to resignations now that Dave is not sticking to his hugely principled insistence that everyone give up their outside earnings. That is a blessed relief.
Wednesday
Terrible shock this morning. We were having a really dynamic ideas shower in The Cauldron when all of a sudden someone mentioned defence spending and then it hit us. It was weird. As if the same thought occurred to everyone at once. It was Tom who said it out loud, sending a shiver down all our spines with the words: ‘Where is Liam Fox?’ You could have cut the air with a knife. It was like that feeling you get when you’ve been away from home for two weeks and you suddenly realise you have left the iron on. When we started to talk it over it turned out that all of us had been assuming the same thing, i.e. that someone else had been monitoring him. Whereas it turns out none of us have been — for months now. After some frenzied Googling we worked out that the last time he was seen in public was at a Westminster Hall debate on ‘the South West Regional Spatial Strategy’. Jed has put out a code red. He may be about to re-enter the political atmosphere with a colossal bang.
Thursday
Finally got the all-clear from Mr Clarke for my personal finance initiative. He said my idea sounded ‘as sensible as anything else you lot have come up with recently’. Praise indeed! By the time I paid off a few credit cards and bought the Hermès handbag of my dreams there wasn’t much change out of £20,000. Must say, it’s a huge load off my mind, not having to worry about the cost of saving. Here’s to having no money!
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