Tamzin Lightwater

Monday What a way to start The Year For Change! Am quite overwhelmed by the response to my slogan. Dave’s Big Face may be the most successful political poster campaign of all time. And to think how it started. With me walking into Nigel’s office in tears, practically hysterical. Little did I know when I wailed ‘We can’t go on like this!’ while blowing my nose into my cardy sleeve that my words would be up in lights. Of course we left off the rest of the sentence.

Tamzin Lightwater’s New Year resolutions Seal the Deal Goodness knows why, but the polls are still suggesting that a few strange voters are not yet 101 per cent sure they want Dave for PM. This sounds wacky, but we have to take it seriously and do everything we can to address that last tiny bit of doubt. As such we will be monitoring Dave’s parting 24/7 to make sure it doesn’t creep up into a quiff. Be Less Posh I’ve just spent five hours going through shadow Cabinet biographies on Wiki erasing public school references. Painstaking work but the sort of dedication that is going to be needed if we are to gain the British people’s trust.

January 2009 It was a simpler, more innocent world in those days. An inquiry into Mrs Spelperson paying her nanny with Commons expenses was widely seen to be ‘shocking’. Oh dear me! People hardly knew what sleaze was. Ken Clarke returns to the shadow cabinet in a deal forged by Gids over meatloaf — in a briefing we prepared later! Obama is sworn in with the sort of razzmatazz we are hoping to create for Dave next year, on a larger scale, obviously. And I beat 0 per cent interest rates by closing my savings account and spending all my money on an Hermès handbag! February Dave invents Responsible Capitalism and we all vow to buy things only from shops with a Compassionate vision for society. This makes the bagel run v complicated.

Monday Been agonising over it all weekend but I just don’t think I like the sound of Tammy Waters. I know it’s my best chance to get a safe seat, but Daddy is furious. Says it makes me sound like a country and western singer. Dave is adamant and says it really suits me. Am starting to wonder if all this shortening of posh names has gone a bit too far. Just because a candidate is called Richard Grosvenor-House-Plunkett-Ernie-Wise-Earl-Grey-Count-Dracula, or whatever poor Mr Drax’s original name was before we mangled it, doesn’t mean he can’t get down with the kids on sink estates. Take IDS, or Iain Smith, as he will soon be known.

Monday Oh dear. Maybe Mr Maude was right. Maybe we are heading for... no, I won’t say it. I refuse to say the HP words. A few rogue polls, that’s all it is. Dave says this would never have happened if we had got his No Complacency message out properly. We are now under orders to brief that ‘we take nothing for granted’ to at least 50 journalists a day. If we do not fulfil our anti-complacency briefing quotas, we face having our pay docked. Still, there’s some good news. The first official portrait of Dave has been unveiled to universal acclaim, making worthwhile all those hours we put into brainstorming whether or not he should wear a tie (obviously not!). However, we are not complacent.

Monday I can’t quite believe what we had a strategy meeting about this morning. My hands are trembling as I type... What if climate change doesn’t exist? It’s too awful to contemplate. But we are being asked to consider: what if the earth is not getting warmer? What if the world is not sleepwalking to ecological disaster?! What if... OMG... what if Lord Lawson is right!?!?!! Gary said we need a fallback position, in case there’s more of this stuff about scientists telling porkies. But Jed said to question our faith in climate change now would be heresy. The lack of proof, he says, is the whole point. ‘If the big guy with the beard came down from the sky and introduced himself it wouldn’t be faith, would it?

Monday Exciting trip to Norfolk for the ‘de-selection’. After a gruelling train journey east, Poppy and I tucked into a delicious spread in a heavenly tea shop with the biggest scones ever. Everything was so cheap! We bought two of everything in all the shops, and got some great deals on Haggarts Tweed. We then had to meet Sir Jeremy Bagge, Turnip Taleban commander, who demanded to know why ‘Central Office’ — I think he means CCHQ — had sent a couple of giggly schoolgirls to sort out the biggest challenge to Dave’s authority. What a cheek! We informed him that this was not the biggest challenge to Dave’s authority. That was when Mr Grieve nearly took a principled stand on grammar schools, but thankfully didn’t.

Monday V difficult to know how to respond to this one. Sometimes, something is so sad that it is better to just let it go. We had a big brainstorming session on Sunday with policy people, image consultants, focus group teams. In the end, it was decided that Dave should go for it after all. So he went jogging bright and early along the river this morning in black shorts. The contrast with poor old Gordon huffing and puffing in his baggy white Aertex could not have been more stark. Can you believe it? He wore that outfit after the people in Number 10 took him in hand! Apparently until then, he had been wearing something even more horrible. Hard to imagine, I know.

Monday It wasn’t easy for Dave to come out and say it but he was really brave. Personally, I can’t see what all the fuss is about. We never said we were definitely going to have a referendum. Just that we definitely wanted to. There are a lot of things we definitely want to do. It doesn’t mean we are definitely going to do them. Take our lovely new health policy, for example. Yes, Dave is ‘guaranteeing’ up to £1.5 billion of savings by cutting bureaucracy in the NHS. And of course, in an ideal world that would mean we actually did it. But it is not an ideal world. So it doesn’t. And that, as they say, is grown-up politics.

Monday Some v awkward people are deliberately misunderstanding what Dave said about women- only shortlists. We feel we must remind these people that troublemaking is fundamentally unConservative and that any further attempts to disrupt Compassionate Cameronian principles of compliance with the party line and non-resistance to the stated policy of the leadership will be met with the strongest possible measures. Just to be clear: when Dave said, ‘I want women-only shortlists’, he did not mean that we are going to bring in women-only shortlists. Duh!! What he meant — and I can’t believe we are having to spell this out — is that we may or may not have all-women shortlists at some point in the future, quite possibly by accident. Or not.

Monday Bit of a problem with the TV election debates. We want one debate. Mr Clegg wants three. Gordon wants 56 — two a day for four weeks of the campaign involving all our front-bench spokesmen. And he says he wants a special extended three-hour debate between Gids and Mr Darling with a ‘maths bee’, where they are made to do sums before a live studio audience. He sent Dave a note saying: ‘No calculators, just pencils without rubbers on the end.’ How silly. Dave did not reply of course. He does not do threatening ultimatums — it’s beneath him. We let Mr Boles deal with it. He sent a text to Gordon saying: ‘You’ve got to ask yourself, do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?’ Brilliant.

Monday Oh dear. What a sad day. Desperate calls from upset MPs to the Expenses Helpline. Many of them elderly and beside themselves with worry about how they are going to make the repayments. Some are even having to contemplate horrendous sacrifices such as selling paintings that have been in their family for centuries! Of course, we are giving them all the support we can, but Dave is adamant: pay up or stand down. (He’s so sexy when he does ultimatums!) And as Jed movingly pointed out at morning strategy meeting, every cloud has a silver lining.

SUNDAY What a triumph! Sam launches conference with an Erdem Moralioglu jacket which is far more Modern and Compassionate than Sarah Brown’s Moralioglu dress. At just £500 off the peg, this truly is affordable fashion for the Age of Austerity and an example to all Britons of how to look good on a budget. Dave had a teensy problem with Europe on Marr but once the press realise Sam’s wearing shoes from Zara no one’s going to think that’s important. Lord A’s people have rung all the candidates and read them The Three Commandments: Thou shalt not speak to Lobbyists; Thou shalt not commune with Hacks in Bars; Thou shalt not appear Triumphalist nor quaff of the grape that is known as the Champagne grape.

So exciting! Where better for The Party of The North to hold its last conference before taking power than Manchester? This is a vibrant city with many shops, restaurants and nightclubs. The cultural scene is diverse, the tap water is drinkable, and local people are friendly and welcoming. That said, please dress casually (no club or old school ties) and observe local customs wherever possible, especially when outside the secure zone. In terms of theme — think great, sweeping ideas! Wonky Tom is moaning that all our super new policy proposals won’t stand up to scrutiny. He just doesn’t get it. They sound absolutely lovely and as for detail, well, that’s what civil servants are for and we’ll have loads of those in few months’ time!!

Monday OMG! It’s all systems go on our Balls Containment Strategy. Thank goodness we had it ready and didn’t listen to those people, not naming any names (Lord M) who assured us Mr B would never stick his big square head above the parapet. He’s clearly in a different league to the Milibanana who never gave us any trouble. This is serious. Big Ed has not only entered the spending cuts race — but has had a blow-dry at Daniel Galvin. Dave v angry. Wants to know how many school staff we are going to cut and why we didn’t think of sacking teachers. Also, do we think Dave should grow his hair a bit? Change his parting again? This latter point is going to have to go to a full committee.

MONDAY Double code red alert: Dave’s going too grey! Huge postmortem into why we let a sprinkling of hairs which put him in touch with older voters escalate into whole patches of grey which led to an interviewer at the weekend uttering the T word*. Obviously there are things we can do to minimise impact — Sam’s been to Boots — but there’s a feeling this would not have happened if we had had our eye on the ball and not been so wrapped up in the debate about spending cuts. Anyway, we must put this oversight behind us because a v exciting thing is happening this week: the long awaited launch of Merlin 2, our new computer system!!

Monday List of conference ‘Banned Persons’ growing by the minute. DD, Bercow and Duncan obviously. (DD a total liability, in complete Guns & Ammo overdrive and would probably descend on Manchester in full combat gear with a branch on his head if we let him.) Mr Redwood has agreed to an amnesty if we let him do one fringe event, not v mysteriously titled ‘50 spending cuts for a brighter Britain!’ Mr Vaizey has signed a licence permitting him to attend if he refrains from uttering the words ‘BBC’ and ‘privatise’. Now we just need to get Mr Letwin and Mr Willetts to sign the restraining order forbidding them from going within 80 yards of each other.

Monday Wish we could decide whether the recession is over or not. Or at least decide what shape it is. Mr Letwin and Mr Willetts spend hours in the Tranquillity Room arguing about whether it’s a V, W or an L. My own theory, which I put forward at morning strategy meeting today, is that we are in a B-shaped recession. I don’t think everyone understood. Tom said ‘don’t be ridiculous. Who ever heard of a recession shaped like a B?’ He’s always undermining me, probably because I rejected his advances. Told him he can pour scorn on my macroeconomic predictions all he likes. But we have to plan how many more bad news stories we need to get us through the recession.

Monday Mr Grayling is running the show this week. Am exhausted already. Had been hoping to kick back and do a bit of riding. Fat chance with Robocop in charge. He’s moved on from talking about Jeremy Kyle to The Wire and is obsessed with the idea that Britain is in the grip of urban warfare, that the collapse of civilised life as we know it is upon us, and that we’re all about to die in a savage, drug-fuelled gun-and-knife-crime epidemic. All of which seems to leave him incredibly excitable. ‘Do you think I’ll get on the Ten O’Clock? Do you think I’ll get in front of Libya? Libya’s weeks old now, isn’t it?

Monday Mrs Hannan on the phone again, wanting to know when she can have her husband back. Told her to hold the line while I asked Nigel who stopped Twittering just long enough to shake his head in a v grim way and make a sign with his finger across his throat. Not sure what this means but I’m guessing it doesn’t mean Mr H is going home any time soon. Reassured her we would have him back when he’s finished his ‘advanced media training’ with Gary. But from the noises I hear coming from Training Room A I wouldn’t hold my breath. If you ask me, he got off lightly. I think it’s terrible of our people to complain about the NHS. I’ve had nothing but good experiences, like the time I had my tonsils out.