Monday Major recession panic. Clearly we are being out-apocalypsed by Labour. Dave furious and wants to know why we’re still only predicting the worst downturn in 80 years while Ed Balls is calling it the Most Terrifying Depression in the History of Mankind. Obviously, we need to do the doom vision thing better, or we
Monday Am bit confused about Responsible Capitalism. While wanting to Be The Change as always, the new RC guidelines are making the bagel run v complicated. Not sure the little place on the corner fully demonstrates a ‘sense of responsibility and a moral framework’. On the other hand, the only real alternative is the big-chain
Monday Tricky times. I’ve got two statements to work on and they’re virtually interchangeable. Am worried Dave will end up urging the FSA to investigate the despicable conduct of Labour peers while calling for City fat cats to be suspended from the House of Lords. Possibly there is some overlap so it wouldn’t be the
Sunday Strange call from Gary. Wanted to know if I knew anything about meatloaf. I said no, not my taste in music but that wasn’t what he was after. Said he’d rung every single girl in the press office and no one knew how to cook it, or what was in it, apart from meat.
Sunday Totally shattered. Up at dawn doing Dave’s bookshelves for Marr with Wonky Tom. He brought a heap of boring stuff and wouldn’t let me put Katie Price’s Perfect Ponies out. Insisted on some weird sci-fi books that only he would read. After bit of negotiation I managed to get Black Beauty on the bottom
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
Tamzin Lightwater’s New Year’s Resolutions Here they are, my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009: 1. Keep job. Make self indispensable to Dave, thus ensuring that should the axe fall again on the Tory nerve centre as Britain plunges ever deeper into recession, Yours Truly will be last person Jed thinks of when he’s trying to
January 2008 Jacqui Smith nips out for a kebab in a bid to look Modern, but stupidly reveals that she’s scared of being stabbed. This gives us an idea and we begin arranging similar outings for Dave on the mean streets of North Kensington where he is snapped in a variety of Ordinary places including
Monday Mr Maude ecstatic about the polls. Says it’s the most significant narrowing he has seen in all his years of being miserable about the possibility of the Tories ever winning again. ‘Only four points ahead! We’re doomed! DOOMED I tell you!’ All the way to the Panic Room he was shouting: ‘Consigned to the
Monday A few loose ends I’m still trying to get to the bottom of: 1) If Damian was running the mole — and there’s no evidence to suggest he was but let’s just say he might have been — then who was running Damian? Wonky Tom says it’s Mrs Damian, the nice lawyer lady. Possible
Monday Tremendous excitement after the PBR. Dave called us into The Cauldron, our inner sanctum, for a top-secret briefing. Felt v privileged to be there, just me and 150 other core members of CCHQ. Dave was wonderful. He completely cleared up any nagging doubts we might have had as to why we are not opposing
Monday Hooray! We are the party of spending cuts and proud of it — at last! It really was a stroke of genius by Dave to put Mr Letwin in charge of drawing them up because Mr Letwin is just about the cleverest economic brain we have, aside from Mr Redwood of course! He certainly
Monday I can’t believe people are saying that tax cutting is Gordon’s idea! This is an unbelievable cheek!! Dave has been banging on about cutting taxes for three years now. Every time he makes a speech it’s tax cuts this, tax cuts that. Tax, tax, tax — it’s all we ever talk about. You know
Sunday Just had an absolute nightmare setting up one of those conference calls. Jed thought it would be nice if Dave rang Mrs Palin to wish her luck. Simple enough you might think. Oh no. First of all he had to explain who he was. Literally. As in ‘Hello this is David Cameron.’ ‘Who, honey?’
Monday Yikes! Memo from Jed in California marked ‘Urgent and F***ing Desperate’. It’s v. bad news. It seems the brand is recontaminated. Lord A’s latest focus group asked people to name the first four words that came into their heads when shown a picture of Dave and Gids: yachts; hookers; Coke; and moussaka were the
Monday I knew it! It’s always something to do with the Bullingdon. A note arrived this morning from Mr Rothschild, marked Attention Gideon: ‘That’ll teach you for rolling me down a hill in a Portaloo.’ Not sure I should give it to him, he’s already in a foul mood. There’s been a terrible to-do between
Monday Everyone in a panic about our Greek taverna line. Am starting to wish I never mentioned it. DD keeps ringing up to tell Gids about big game hunting. ‘I know, I know,’ I told him. ‘You’d better be sure you kill with the first shot, etc.’ Sometimes the old ones are the best. Sometimes,
Tamzin Lightwater’s unique take on the week Sunday Am exhausted already. It’s this earpiece. Every time I get settled into watching a debate or fringe event I hear Gary’s voice shouting orders and I’m running off to some other place where an alleged BCR (Breach of Complacency Rules) is taking place. This morning I ran
Sunday What more compassionate way to open than by allowing Mrs Spelperson to lead us in prayer at an inclusive service for all faiths and none at Birmingham’s historic yet modern town hall? (Some of us need to pray harder than others of course, especially those who might have broken parliamentary expenses rules, but we’ll
Monday This is ridiculous. I can’t be expected to understand the Labour leadership rules and off-balance-sheet arrangements. I’ve told Nigel it’s composite motions or derivatives, not both. My head won’t stand it. For the life of me I can’t see how something worth £738 billion can also be worth £36.8 billion. Wonky Tom says it’s