Monday
Look, this thing with the tree isn’t funny. It’s deadly serious. Jed has found out from the ad agency where they got the template and it’s not good news. Terrible showdown with little guy in red specs who looked just like Lord Saatchi’s mini-me. Personally I don’t see it makes much difference that our new logo is based on the first flag of Lebanon. Or that it’s a cedar, not an oak. We have cedars in Britain don’t we? But Jed is distraught and says that when Dave finds out ‘we’re all kofta’ — some form of cockney rhyming slang. Don’t care. Am off to Bournemouth with Jed for conference preps while everyone else going to horrid shad cab away-day in Leeds. Feel v smug.
Tuesday
Am in charge of rehearsals for four of the mini-debates! It’s a huge responsibility. Dave says he wants to ‘harness the energy and passion of members’, to really fire the public imagination and, obviously, the best way to achieve that is to make the debates much shorter. We want lots of controversial views, so we’re bringing in a strict monitoring system. For the first time in conference history those who want to speak from the floor are going to be able to let us know beforehand what they intend to say so we can make sure they get their point across. How democratic is that!
Off to rehearsals ….
Wot a nightmare. We’ve brought in a minibus full of members of the local party who thought they were here for bingo. To be brutally frank about it, it’s v difficult to practise ‘harnessing energy and passion’ on them. May have to ask them to jump up and down a bit.
Wednesday
More teething problems. Jed marching up and down stage wearing Madonna-style headset and screaming obscenities about the lime-green set. Says it looks like snot. The goody bags may have to be redone cos Dave getting cold feet about the complimentary pairs of pioneering biodegradable underwear, and our new slogan — ‘This is why we do politics!’ — doesn’t fit under the tree. Still, at least I’m not in Leeds. Poppy called to say entire shad cab, except DD, has been sent to take part in ‘real life’. Mr Willetts has gone to a school, which isn’t too bad, but poor Mr Grayling has spent two days at York railway station trying to fend off commuters asking him about train times.
DD has gone missing. Poppy says he’s rehearsing his speech in a secret location and it’s getting really good. Jed says it better not be. ‘This is not the time to make the first decent speech of his life.’
Thursday
Terrible dry-run debate on foreign affairs. The warm-up man told some super jokes about iPods but everyone kept shouting, ‘Where’s Jim Davidson?’ and stamping their feet. I don’t think this ‘I Want To Be A Millionaire’ style voting is going to work either. This afternoon we gave everyone their electronic keypads. It was a really simple motion: ‘We believe in improving our society’s general wellbeing’, but 99 per cent of them pushed ‘Don’t know’. Including a third option was obviously a mistake but it’s too late now. Jed says it’ll all come right in the editing suite. It’s amazing what they can do.
tamzin.lightwater@spectator.co.uk
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