Monday
V difficult to know how to respond to this one. Sometimes, something is so sad that it is better to just let it go. We had a big brainstorming session on Sunday with policy people, image consultants, focus group teams. In the end, it was decided that Dave should go for it after all. So he went jogging bright and early along the river this morning in black shorts. The contrast with poor old Gordon huffing and puffing in his baggy white Aertex could not have been more stark. Can you believe it? He wore that outfit after the people in Number 10 took him in hand! Apparently until then, he had been wearing something even more horrible. Hard to imagine, I know. Thankfully Dave gets the best possible styling advice from our branding guru Annamarie, who was spot on with her choice of ‘Time Out’ t-shirt and lightly applied pink blush tones over a healthy-looking olive base. And people complain that she’s on six figures.
Tuesday
Must confess to being bit confused about IDS’s new policy on benefits. The last time I checked we were paying women to stay at home and be mums. Now it seems we are paying people to go out to work. Rang Captain Smithy to ask him to explain but he got all irritable and shouty: ‘Why are you going on about women? This is a policy on employment. How many women do you know who work for God’s sake?’
I said quite a few. ‘Oh yes, who?’ he shouted. ‘Er, well, there’s me, and Mrs May…’ He screamed: ‘Now you’re being facetious! This is precisely why the weaker sex should not be allowed near the front line. Damned dangerous business, having women in the regiment. They put men off, you know.’ In the end, I had to offer to fire myself on the spot, which seemed to calm him down a bit.
Which is more than can be said for Mr Maude, who came into the office this afternoon wearing a sandwich board emblazoned with ‘39%!!!’ and shouting about the end of the majority being nigh.
Wednesday
Mr Grayling and DD are having a terrific spat, going head to head on this spying database. It’s like an episode of Trisha as they think up more and more extreme things to say to beat each other to the top of the story. Silly really. I don’t know why they are getting so upset. Gary already logs every website we visit in a big black file on his desk. He knows how many hours Mr Grayling spends on Facebook (not enough — the required minimum is three hours a day, plus three more on Twitter) and how long DD spends browsing Russian M38s on gunsnammo.com. I hardly bother logging on to Horse and Hound in my lunch hour to look at dream ponies any more. It’s not worth the hassle.
Thursday
Jed is still studying the write-ups of Dave’s jogging and has called everyone in for another session. It seems there is some uncertainty over the tone in which journalists are describing Dave’s knees. There is a suggestion doing the rounds internally that maybe he should not be showing them. A working paper being circulated in advance of today’s strategy meeting says: ‘Can we make the transition to jogging pants at this late stage?’ Personally, I think this would be a mistake. And I intend to say so, in the strongest possible terms.
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