Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 3 February 2007

SUNDAY

Hideous day of torment fielding non-stop calls from rude reporters asking, ‘What’s Dave got against Catholics?’ and ‘Does he support gay rights, or what?’ (We should go ahead with Gids’s plan to put the press through to a call centre in Delhi at weekends.) Was only just coping when Nigel rang to ask how the holding line on gay adoption was holding up. I said the holding line wouldn’t hold much longer and he said, ‘Well, then, you’re going to have to tell them what Dave really feels about it.’ Protested that I hadn’t the faintest idea what Dave feels. Jed hasn’t decided yet. Long pause, then he said, ‘You’ll just have to make something up, have a guess….’ What was I supposed to do? Every phone was ringing. Someone had to make a decision. So I tossed a coin.

MONDAY

Am genius. Dave does prefer gay couples to Catholic bishops! What’s more, at precisely the time I was briefing support for our friends in the Same Sex Prospective Adopters Community, DD was coming out for those of a Roman persuasion! So we’ve managed to please everybody! Jed is thrilled and specifically asked Nigel ‘what smart**** was on Sunday duty?’ I may be in line for promotion….

Oh dear. Jed was in fact calling me a ‘smart****’ in the pre-Dave ‘insult’ sense of the word. He didn’t want it to come out that Dave was going to vote gay until next week when he gets the results of the focus groups back. He’s convened three dial technology thingies at £15,000 apiece to try and put a figure on how many votes might be in it either way. Plus, he’s complaining that now it’s a ‘tale of two Daves’ which is not the narrative we were aiming for.