Diary

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?

MONDAY The scariest thing was waiting for us in the meeting room this morning. It was a huge projected figure on the wall with the head of Shilpa Shetty and the body of Jade Goody. Jed marched in, stood in front of it and said, ‘Ideas?’ Everyone mute. Except Wonky Tom who can’t bear silences and stammered, ‘Is this about broadcasting regulations?’ But our beloved Director of Strategy said it was not — or words to that effect which I can’t use here. ‘This, my fellow change-makers, is today’s Conservative party. Beautiful head — shame about the fat, horrible, reactionary bit underneath it.’ Why didn’t he just ask us to come up with new ways of marketing the shadow Cabinet?

Monday Don’t ask me why, but suddenly the buzzword is ‘Thatcher’. Memo marked ‘Urgent’ says the T-word count for an average speech is now ten times minimum ‘until further notice’. Jed rushed into the office this morning all breathless and sweaty, and announced extra greenie points (frappuccino machine tokens, carbon offset holiday credits, soft loo-roll allowance!) for anyone who thinks up new and inventive ways of relating Dave’s policies to ‘the Leaderene’. All ideas must be fully reversible in case we want to ditch her later. Am going to give it a whirl.

Monday Who would have thought thrift could be so much fun! Am having a ball teaching working people to be careful with their money as part of our ‘Live Life For Less’ campaign. Obviously we can’t actually cut the cost of living or mess about with interest rates and inflation (we’re not going there again!) so the next best thing is to teach people to be a bit more responsible with the cash they have. Buy slightly smaller plasma TVs, one 4x4 per family, that sort of thing. Nigel suggested it would be more hard-hitting if we called it ‘Poor people — know your limits’, but Jed doesn’t want to upset our new working-class supporters by being too confrontational.

Monday Happy New Year and May The Force Be With You in 2007! I think it’s fair to say that Dave’s brilliant message sent shivers down all our spines, mine included, even though I was in the office last week when Jed was writing it. V powerful stuff. If any of us were in any doubt of the seriousness of the battle ahead of us as Darth Vader prepares to take control of the Empire with his formidable band of Imperial Stormtroopers, then our leader’s words must surely galvanise us into a state of readiness. It can be no coincidence that Sky was showing the entire Star Wars saga from start to finish today. Got up at six to watch it from end to end.

New York The highlight of my year was undoubtedly interviewing George Clooney. I don’t mean to be star-struck, but in the presence of the square-jawed one my professional façade went Awol. The United Nations is usually a bit short on glamour, but on the day George came to talk about Darfur, a little bit of Hollywood rubbed off on my world. He swept in with an entourage of 50, including the compulsory bossy PR, who kept trying to interrupt and spoil my brief few minutes with George. He was, I can report, devastatingly well briefed on the Darfur peace agreement. ‘What was he like?’ asked Husband, casually, via email. I crossed my fingers, looked heavenward for guidance, and tapped back with great difficulty — ‘that look is so 2006’.

Last week, after years of the best possible intentions, I finally managed to make my virgin visit down under to sunny Sydney. With Elton fully ensconced in a fortnight of antipodean touring and work to be done promoting our new teen comedy It’s a Boy Girl Thing, I was able to justify the trip while hoping to overcome the abject terror of having to spend nearly 24 hours trapped on a plane. So many of my globetrotting mates have been slobbering on for ages about the genius of Singapore Airlines. Justifiably so, as I find myself awash with joy at being cocooned within the hedonistic splendour of their first-class cabin. My most challenging decision is between Dom Pérignon and Krug. Hordes of Asian beauties fluff your pillows, and they even swab out the loos after every use.

I despair. All this nonsense in the papers about Sam’s £300,000 bonus totally misses the point of everything we’ve been trying to explain for the past year. MONDAY I despair. All this nonsense in the papers about Sam’s £300,000 bonus totally misses the point of everything we’ve been trying to explain for the past year. For the last time, all you Thatcherites at the back, wealth is not about money. Wealth is not City bonuses or share windfalls. Wealth is the smile on the face of a child who gets to see Daddy before bedtime. Wealth is the smell of organic chicken slow-roasting in the oven of an environmentally sound yet affordable starter home.

Monday Trust Labour to go and apologise for the slave trade. The cheek of it! We played just as big a part, if not bigger, in the atrocities of Roots. It’s just as much ours to say sorry for, and Dave would have done it so much better. With real tears. Well, see if we care! Our man’s in Iraq sporting a flak jacket with panache and not looking like a constipated jellybaby — like certain people with clunking fists and the handwriting of a psychopath we could mention. It’s just so petty. No sooner do we announce that Churchill is ‘wholly inadequate’ (hello? statement of the obvious!) than Blair comes out with a measly historic U-turn of his own. Talk about desperate. He’ll be apologising for Iraq next. (We’re planning to do that next week!

MONDAY Life is just one long crisis. Big row over what to take to Sudan in Lord A’s jet. I just thought that a few Harrods hampers thrown in with the medical supplies might cheer people up a bit, although possibly I shouldn’t have forked out for them myself on my account card. (Have given up on ever paying it off now, no matter what Gideon says.) Then had to sort out hacks who were bored and demanding more ‘access’ before trip had even started. Told them, you’re on the jet, only ten rows down from Dave, and we’ve put you in the next best hotel to ours. What more do these people want? Jed says they won’t be happy until they’ve seen Dave break down in Di-style tears of empathy with the displaced multitudes.

MONDAY Fab write-ups of our top secret meeting with unions. (Another great U-turn!) Of course, what we couldn’t reveal is how embarrassing it was when they told Dave how fantastic he is. It was bordering on creepy. The guy from the Long List of Letters which have something to do with manual labour asked him to autograph his son’s hooded sweatshirt. ‘He’ll laugh his head off when he sees this.’ Honestly, how gauche! Couldn’t he have waited till the end and asked us to send him one like everyone else? Was a bit odd having all those lefties round. Lot of faffing trying to work out what to give them to drink. Poppy got into a right state trying to buy something called ‘real ale’.