Tamzin Lightwater

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

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

Monday I wonder if Gary has Gwyneth Paltrow’s number? No reason he would have, obviously, but just on the off chance he did, it would be great to ring and ask her if she would consider doing a little fundraiser for us. Nothing over the top, just something tasteful with Chris Martin, saying how happy

Monday How dare Gordon and Sarah hold lasagne suppers! It is absolutely outrageous. It just shows the breathtaking arrogance of this Prime Minister that he thinks he can steal a groundbreaking idea like that and get away with it. Of course we are seeking legal advice. Dave definitely holds the patent, morally speaking, it’s just

Monday Terrible panic about second jobs. A lot of our people just cannot get their heads around how they will survive on an MP’s salary once our new rules banning outside earnings kick in. We’ve had to assemble an information pack to help them with the transition. It’s called ‘How to survive on £64,766 a

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday Bath plugs 25; scatter cushions 173; patio heaters 15; gazebos 3 (v bad). I’ve made an official complaint to Nigel. They’re going to have to get me some help. I cannot man the Expenses Hotline on my own any longer and neither should I be expected to. It’s worse since they started sending in

Monday Our new Expenses Helpline is completely jammed. We’re not even scratching the surface of the demand. Had an MP on this morning hysterical about his Sky subscription. Something about ‘buxom babes’ and ‘essential research into Broken Britain’. Another backbencher demanding to know what to do about his hunting fees — ‘Are they saying I

Monday It’s all v odd. As far as I can tell, until this week we didn’t have any tax cuts at all and people were jolly cross about it. Now we seem to have dozens of tax cuts which we are going to have to drop and people are even crosser. What I want to

Monday V exciting! Our new Apology and Regret Strategy is such a success we are going to expand it. Jed says we’ve really set the agenda with some groundbreaking grovelling which has made Gordon look like a horrid grump who can’t own up when he’s as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile

Monday Dave’s horrible clothes are a triumph! Of course everyone is claiming it was their idea, but the fact is no one remembered he’d got those smelly old trainers made out of recycled tyre rubber and wine bottle corks until I pointed it out. Sam was a bit trickier. Once Tom and I got over