Diary

Monday I’m so enjoying The New Politics! The whole atmosphere of Newness everywhere and the feeling of everything and everyone being just so New is amazing. I can’t think why we didn’t do this before. I mean, it’s the obvious answer to all Britain’s problems isn’t it? And it was so easy — Dave just said it’s all New, and it was New!! I thought it was important to celebrate by spending the weekend shopping for New outfits to express my own individual sense of Newness. And I’ve had a New hairdo, as you can see! I took a picture of Chloe Smith to the hairdresser and I think you’ll agree the result is spooky. Although I must say, it’s taking a bit of getting used to.

Monday Clearly we can’t have people saying it’s one rule for bed-blockers and another for Notting Hillers. We can’t be accused of penalising backbenchers we don’t like while turning a blind eye to expense abuses by Dave’s inner circle. We need one deeply principled rule for everybody. So, after much reflection, we’ve decided to let everybody off! Hurrah!! Obviously we can’t give anyone their seat back, and for those poor old dears who have already had to stand down there is, unfortunately, little we can do now, no matter how much we would like to.

As Johannesburg slid deeper into recession, I put in a bid for a rundown property in the suburb of Emmarentia. The ad said, ‘Bargain of the year! Two houses for the price of one!’ My offer was accepted and here I am, new owner of a rambling commune with seven toilets, six tenants and five dogs between us. All my neighbours are Muslim, exquisitely discreet and rarely seen. They glide down Muirfield Road in large silent cars. Automated gates slide open as they near and close behind them. Dead silence descends. What are they doing in there, behind those perpetually closed curtains? The women don’t even come out on Fridays, when the mosque around the corner sends out a discreet SMS, calling the faithful to prayer.

The shadow chancellor George Osborne has been lunching privately with the textiles magnate Richard Caring, the Labour-supporting businessman who got caught up in the cash for peerages investigation. It is less than a year since Osborne demonstrated a catastrophic failure of judgment by being lured onto a yacht owned by the disreputable Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. After the Deripaska episode Osborne promised to have nothing more to do with political funding. Yet here he is consorting with another party donor. What on earth does the shadow chancellor think he is doing? To Northamptonshire for cricket against my friend William Sitwell. I ask his mother for a guided tour of the house.

Some friends home-school their three children and hats off to them. I was the sort of cruel, wicked mother who required hers to be out of the house for three full terms a year and could never have taught them round the kitchen table. They do it because their children are bright and have inquiring minds and were held back by the misplaced egalitarianism, poor intellectual diet and political diktats of their state schools. They are not socially isolated, as they enjoy a merry-go-round of sports and arts clubs and classes, but they are streets ahead in their learning and not subjected to a strident PC agenda that also regards the acquisition of pure knowledge as elitist, to be replaced by that of assorted ‘skills’.

Monday I don’t get it. One minute Labour MPs are trying to get Little Johnnie Bercow elected and then all today’s papers say what a scandal it is that they are trying to fix it for Margaret Beckett. But why would Brown want Old Ma Beckett? He hates her. It doesn’t make any sense. Jed says it is because Labour are ‘clever bastards’ and have ‘got us stitched up like kippers’. Poppy says it is ‘high politics’ in that imperious tone she always takes with me whenever I don’t completely understand something. All I’m asking for is an explanation of why Labour would pretend to ... oh, hang on, I think I get it. They’re pretending to want Beckett to ruin her chances.

Monday Amazing scenes in Iran. An inspiration to us all at this difficult time for the political process that democracy is worth fighting for, and a reminder to all authoritarian regimes of what can happen if you suppress the will of the people. I could watch the footage all day. But unfortunately I have to get on with the arduous task of containing Little Johnnie Bercow’s bid for Speaker. We’ve tried everything, we just don’t seem to be able to keep him down. (Well, further down, anyway!) We’ve told everyone about his former funny right-wing views and his current funny left-wing views. But they don’t seem to mind. Labour MPs think he’s one of them and our lot think it will be good to have a Labour Speaker when Dave is PM.

Monday What a triumph! Not that we’re complacent. While this is undeniably a resounding victory which paves the way to our impending general election landslide, we are not taking anything for granted. In fact we are mindful that we may still lose. Except that we so obviously won’t! Hooray!! Now, I must get my head around this ring-round of Euro people. We’re in ‘final negotiations’ — complete and utter panic stations — and Jed’s put a big target grid up on the whiteboard. We’ve got 50 MEPs from three countries but the rules say we need seven. So we’re trying Latvia, Denmark, Belgium, Lithuania and Estonia. For each MEP we bring in we get an extra frappuccino machine token.

Monday So exciting! Lots of lovely poor people on our new A-list!! We were a bit worried at first about making the only requirement that applicants should have, at the time of writing and to the best of their knowledge, no association whether in person or through close relatives to moats, tennis courts, swimming pools, duck ponds or servants’ quarters. (Crucially, nothing about stable blocks so yours truly is still in with a chance!) But we’ve been deluged. We’ve got a couple of people who claim to live in terraced housing in the north of England and a woman in a genuine inner-city tower block!

Monday Dave wants an estimate. Says he wants us to ‘bottom line it’ for him. This is tricky. We’ve been ringing round constituencies all weekend and seats are coming up all over the place. Jed says we may have to bring in another A list. We’re going to need Cleanskins. More young women and people in their twenties with limited experience of all walks of life. More young women... more young women... Should I stand?!?! Where should I stand?!?! I would need a Surrey seat. But that doesn’t look so impossible any longer. Mr Gove seems to be hanging in. But what about Mr Grayling? Can’t believe I’m thinking like this, but Epsom would be jolly handy. No, I mustn’t do this. But still. No, I must focus on the job in hand.

Monday I couldn’t say this out loud in the office, but our people certainly do a better class of expenses fiddle. There was something awfully depressing about all those Labour claims for dry rot, porn, bath plugs, nappies and Kit-Kats from the vending machine at B&Q. Fancy selling your soul for that?! The fact that Conservatives claim for swimming pools, tennis courts, chandeliers and moats is still terrible, don’t get me wrong. But it is at least a bit more ambitious, a good deal more cheerful, and possibly gives the taxpayer better value for money in terms of what they are investing in. But I know I’m not allowed to think like this. We’re having a Two Minute Shame session this afternoon and I don’t want to be in the wrong mood.

Monday Good job we don’t do negative campaigning any more. If we did we’d have to start a unit called Blears Smears! As it is, in this post-McBride era, we are simply setting up Operation Ginger Whinger. Much more professional. We need to combat any potential threat from the tiny, squeaky woman even if it does seem unlikely that she could lead a government. It is curious, isn’t it? A once mighty party coming up with a man who waves a banana and a miniature person on a motorbike as candidates for the leadership. There’s something suspicious about how rubbish it is. Nigel says he’s sure they’ve got someone sensible up their sleeve, like nice Mr Purnell, and that Hazel is just a red herring. Oh I just got that!

Monday Farewell then GWB. Whoever thought that was a good idea? Nobody here, I can assure you. Measuring output in terms of General Wellbeing is just plain silly when the really important stuff is all to do with hard figures. As such, we will be using a brand new measure of the nation’s progress from now on. It’s called GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, I believe. Much more sensible. Speaking of which, thank goodness for Mr Redwood and his super list of cuts we can make to public spending. Nanu nanu! We always said the instinctive small state ideas of traditional rightwingers would sweep this party to power and so it has proved to be! (Spending cuts ideas on a postcard please. Literally everything considered. Mark for the attn of ‘Project Slash and Burn’.

Monday What a great call for Dave to get ‘bloody angry’! It’s passionate, sexy and modern, not to mention emotionally intelligent, yet also authoritarian and traditional, and a tiny bit kinky at the same time. All the girls agree that it really suits him and should be used more often. Apparently Jed got it from Google in California where the execs often become ‘bloody angry’ in a dynamic way, usually in special areas filled with ergonomic stress scrunchers and organic beanbags. We are now thinking of coming up with just such a space at CCHQ, to compliment the Austerity Room.

Monday This is just silly. Why won’t anyone tell me what Dave didn’t have? I only asked if it wasn’t a verruca but Poppy got v cross and said: ‘Dave does not not have a verruca!’ in a really aggressive way. ‘Well, what wasn’t it then?’ I asked. ‘He didn’t not have athlete’s foot did he?’ Thought this was reasonable question but was locked in Austerity Room for three hours before Jed ordered my release. By then they’d had all the exciting briefings, including the one about boot polish I was so looking forward to. Why do they always keep this sort of stuff from me? I can cope with the rough end of politics, warts and all. Everyone still v upset.