Great to be back from hols to find the green shoots of Compassionate Conservatism sprouting again, thanks to Mr Redwood’s brilliant report. Well, we always said tax cuts were super-popular and deserved to be top of the agenda — and it turns out we were right! Monday Great to be back from hols to find
It was the call that never came. For three hours last week, I sat with my hand hovering over the phone. I had been told that Bill Kenwright would be getting in touch between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Yes, the Bill Kenwright, theatreland big shot and chairman of Everton FC. This was exciting. Was
What is up with the once superb Blue Guide that it fails to so much as mention beautiful Qinghai province, up in China’s northwest? Xining, Qinghai province, China What is up with the once superb Blue Guide that it fails to so much as mention beautiful Qinghai province, up in China’s northwest? Here a lively
Monday I can’t take much more of this. Even Daddy says I need a holiday and our family motto is ‘Don’t Make a Fuss’ (it sounds better in Latin). It’s just unbearable, non-stop horridness. Every time we think we’ve got on top of it another Dipwig (Deeply Irrelevant Person With Grudge) comes crawling out of
I’m in Canada, three hours north of Toronto, up in the great wilderness. I’m in Canada, three hours north of Toronto, up in the great wilderness. Well, wilderness with lattes if I’m being totally honest. I’m on Lake Joe, one of the three Muskoka lakes that are a little bit to Toronto as are the
Good news at last. Dezzy and Paddy (sorry, Mr Swayne and Mr McLoughlin) have successfully identified the traitors who are calling for a vote of no confidence in Dave.When you look down the list it’s clear that we are dealing with some extremely vulnerable people. MondayGood news at last. Dezzy and Paddy (sorry, Mr Swayne
I am registered as a voter in Ealing-Southall and have a problem. Though a member of the party, I could not vote Conservative. The candidate put up by ‘David Cameron’s Conservatives’ had been a Conservative for a matter of hours and been parachuted in over any number of dedicated, and equally ethnic, party workers. I
I miss Issie. I am waiting outside in the Orangerie in the Parc de St-Cloud, in Paris, where the Chanel show is about to begin. The incessant driving rain, the clouds, thick, and black with purpose, as another deluge begins. The huge white bright spotlights shining undiminished give a silvery magnificence to the scene. The
Monday What a day! Just back from Service of Thanksgiving in the All-Faiths-And-None Prayer Room. Jed read an excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural speech about having nothing to fear but fear itself (I thought J.F.K. said that but never mind). It was v moving. Just like the American people in 1933 the citizens of
Hong Kong It is very good to be back. So good that I can ignore the horror of the summer weather. The humidity suffocates and is only relieved by sudden and violent downpours. But these are minor irritations in a city that is back to its best. The economy booms and the shops and restaurants
Monday Have drawn up shortlist of potential husbands. It is my Number One Priority to end my single status asap now that Being Married is official Conservative policy — not to mention a jolly good way of making a bit of extra cash from the super tax breaks! (£3,000 a year would cover my congestion
Washington High tea with George Bush in the Oval Office. Polite but tough questioning on my book. He tells me how much he’s enjoyed reading it. Next stop, the wonderfully counter-counter-cultural bowling alley with Dick Cheney, flanked by Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History. They tell me how much they’ve enjoyed my book.
Could do without the sort of nonsense I had to deal with this evening. Phone rang in middle of the big announcement and the operator said: ‘Call from Newcastle. Will you accept the charges?’ Monday Could do without the sort of nonsense I had to deal with this evening. Phone rang in middle of the
Monday Horrid, horrid. It’s all election war footing and aggression and shouting round here. Jed has decided we are ‘too nice’. Says he is going to toughen us up and turn us into ‘attack dogs’. (Am prepared to do almost anything for Dave. But the concept of turning me and the girls into dogs, ‘attack’
Hong Kong They have moved the Star Ferry. How could they move the Star Ferry? The view of the harbour from my room at the Ritz-Carlton should be one of the great sights of Asia. But it is a building site of land being messily reclaimed and another corner of the ‘perfumed’ harbour getting paved
Monday A day of high drama. Heart-stopping parliamentary meeting at which Dave put the party on stand-by for an election in October… THIS October! Ordered everyone to start digging for dirt on Gordon. This would mean certain political death for those supplying the dirt when the Great Clunking Fist found out. Nevertheless it was our
I have long thought there is no analogy quite so perfect for the process of writing a book as childbirth. There is the initial stage when it’s little more than a fond idea, until you sell it to the publisher. The months of research as the deadline marches inexorably nearer, the periodic panic during that
Monday Disaster. Dave’s big policy announcement on illegal logging totally ruined by rogue spelling error and I’m to blame. Can’t believe I could be so stupid as to add a letter ‘b’ by mistake. Nigel says I must have done it on purpose. Jed says my ‘Inner Moderniser’ did it subliminally. Either way we now
Global publishing is a confusing business. Because my book on Princess Diana is being published simultaneously in America, England and Germany (the French, in their languid way, are doing it in September, après la rentrée), the challenge to the author is to be Zelig. One nice surprise is that the Germans are mad for Diana
MONDAY I wish everyone would just calm down. It’s like the inside of Mr Willetts’s smaller brain (the one he used for grammar schools) around here. Don’t see why everyone is hysterical just because we are getting a new Director of Comms. So Gary’s from Essex and used to be a tabloid newspaper editor. It