Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 1 January 1970

Tuesday
Hateful, horrid Tessa Jowell. Things have gone mad at Tory headquarters since the stupid row over her silly husband. Everyone sweating over share certificates. I’ve been put on to a new unit monitoring ‘outside interests’. Poppy wrote ‘Jose Mourinho’ on her form and had to start again. Childish, really.

We have to ask our MPs whether they ‘or their spousal partner of choice’ have an ‘offshore’. They’re all being jolly rude about it. I don’t think any MP, no matter how closely related to Winston Churchill, should be able to tell a press officer to forcibly insert their official brief …Well, anyway.

Wednesday am
More misery. We have to find out who has put money into ‘hedge funds’. No one seems to be asking the obvious question: Why would anyone put money into hedges? Aren’t they a bit vulnerable to the weather? Or are hedges eco-friendly? Memo to self: must consult collected works of Z. Goldsmith.

pm
Am mortified. Apparently a hedge fund is something to do with …well, it’s not something to do with topiary. How will I ever recover from this?

Some distraction as nice Mr Willetts pops in to the office for a chat. He talked about something called ‘Laffer curves’ and smiled a lot. When he turned round, somebody had stuck a Post-it to his jacket that said: ‘i backed davis!’ He thought we were laughing at a joke he made about Davos.

Thursday
Salvation! After hedge fund crisis, have been chosen to accompany Dave and Lord Hezza to Liverpool! In sole charge of diary. We will be establishing Dave as the positive, optimistic voice of urban Britain, which apparently not everyone in the inner cities is convinced of yet.

Sunday
So excited. Don’t think I’ll sleep tonight. Mummy insisting I pack my cocktail dress just in case there’s a formal.