Tamzin Lightwater

Have put my name down for a Team Cameron bicycle! If I don't get one am going to see if I can get a slogan painted on the side of my Smart car. “I ♥ Dave”, “Proud to be Dave's Babe”, “Grammar Schools are So Yesterday”. That sort of thing. Do feel bit sorry for Mr Maude though, especially with the new lycra requirement. Also I hope they are getting the bikes from somewhere reliable. Jed's bike is always getting something called "puncture problems" - holes in the tyres, I think - so he has to get taxis all the time which makes him very miserable.

MONDAY Am in severe shock. Just put the phone down from the Labour press office. Someone called ‘Bev’ rang to say she had found 15 inaccuracies in stories we briefed to the papers this weekend, including five major ‘porkers’ about Gordon’s economic record. She was v loud and bossy and went on and on about how gloves had come off and they weren’t going to take this &@*£ from us lying down any more. She asked me what I intended to do about it and when I said nothing she demanded I fetch my ‘supervisor’. I said I didn’t have a supervisor. She said ‘what a f@****@ shower’ and told me to ‘brace myself’ for a call from someone called Roger.

Everyone trying their best to look ‘socio-centric’ (Mr Letwin’s orders), but we are all secretly dreading this week. MONDAY Everyone trying their best to look ‘socio-centric’ (Mr Letwin’s orders), but we are all secretly dreading this week. Most of us have never known any other Leader. I will be glad when it’s over. Feels a bit like the time we all went down to Westminster Bridge to watch the great lost whale being towed down the Thames. We laughed and pointed, but inside you felt it was desperately sad and unfair. These reshuffle stories not helpful either. It is simply not true that Dave is going to demote Hague and Foxy.

Monday Jed in terrible mood. He’s been like it since last Wednesday when his bicycle broke down on the way to Stamford Bridge. I must say, I can’t quite work out how a bicycle can break down. I mean, what happens exactly? He had to keep texting the people waiting for him in the corporate billionaires’ box to ask what the score was as he dragged his bike along the street. He never did get there. Bit like a nightmare. Nigel says that sort of thing could turn a less message-focused man against bicycles for life. Scary! Wonky Tom reckons Jed turned up in a taxi this morning, but nobody saw it, and we can’t be sure. It is crucial that we clarify this.

MONDAY Phew! We’re back to just the one good-looking, charismatic David. All I can say is thank goodness for that! My mental health will be all the better for it and no doubt poor Mr Miliband’s will be, too. What a kerfuffle! He can bang on about his ‘I can’ philosophy all he likes, but when it comes right down to it he just so obviously jolly well can’t. Still, at least the soon-to-be-disbanded ‘Kill Mil’ unit has been useful. Am off there now to change into my Kate Moss for Topshop off-the-(left)-shoulder cocktail dress, ready for swanky Policy Exchange five-year anniversary celebration tonight at the Four Seasons. Everyone who is anyone in the world of compassionate centre-right realignment will be there.

MONDAY V annoyed. Am I the only one around here who hasn’t been offered a job at Google? Not a single phone call from a headhunter in the whole time I’ve been working my little Dolce & Gabbana boots off for the good of Modern Conservatism. The whole of CCHQ is downing tools and scuttling off to make megabucks in the private sector. Nigel says it’s the Brain Drain he’s been warning about since Jed issued a memo telling everyone that working on Project Dave was reward enough in itself and ‘let’s hear no more off-message nonsense about pay and conditions. We’ve all had to make sacrifices. And don’t forget: seasonally adjusted General Well-Being is up 5 per cent, year-on-year!

Monday Am going to get to the bottom of this Miliband unit if it’s the last thing I do. There’s something shifty about it, mark my words, although initial investigations are inconclusive. Kept eye on Poppy and James, and when they disappeared off to one of their ‘Special Meetings’ I followed them, crouching behind recycling bins — which, thankfully, are now located throughout the office at a distance of every four paces for the convenience of all staff and in the interests of future generations. They went into a room marked ‘Clearance Level Black Special’ (DD really takes this room-labelling business seriously). Stood outside for ages and couldn’t hear a thing. No talking. No papers rustling.

MONDAYFeel dreadful. Had horrendous nightmare last night. Was sleeping fitfully when a ghostly form appeared above my bed. He was tieless, wearing a white, open-necked shirt (possibly Paul Smith), the sleeves billowing as he held out his arms in a Messiah-like way. He had dark hair, pale, gleaming skin and deep, piercing eyes. At first I thought it was just Dave again. Then I realised — it was The Other Dave. He was calling out: ‘Come to me! I can! You can!’ Woke up in a sweat and couldn’t get back to sleep. Went out to give Sesame some hay at 3 a.m. She looked at me knowingly. Horses can tell when you are emotionally disturbed. Fell asleep in stable, woke late and had to call in sick.

MONDAY What on earth is going on? Ever since Budget day there’s been a really strange atmosphere around here. Can’t put my finger on what’s wrong except to say — I know this is going to sound hysterical — I think there’s some sort of situation developing between Dave and Gids. It could be nothing but it’s been haunting me ever since Dave got to his feet to fight Gordon armed only with a file full of dodgy jokes about Stalin (mostly Nigel’s, v poor). Given the circumstances, he did really, really well. I mean — 2p cut/10p band?! It’s all Dutch to normal people. But couldn’t Gids have passed him a little note or something? Apparently Osbers had it all worked out in seconds.

Monday Forty-one per cent! Would be nice to celebrate, but of course we know this is out of the question. Mr Maude is in bad enough mood already, since his attempt at optimism went so badly wrong at Spring Conference. He’d been practising sounding ‘noncommittally cheerful’ all week with our Wellbeing Guru, Sherwood. Before he went on they were backstage together blowing out their cheeks and shaking their limbs loose, the Frankster repeating, ‘I really believe we can win!’ and doing his special tantric smiling exercises. But when it came to the optimistic bit of his speech he just froze, and couldn’t get the words out. Ended up looking as if had been cryogenically frozen. Sherwood was weeping even more openly than usual.

MONDAY I don’t know why everyone is getting so worked up about our lovely green taxes. If  they read the small print, they would see that what Gids takes away with one hand, he is quite literally going to give us back with the other. Every penny that he takes taxing your holiday flights (if you will insist on taking more than one!) will be paid back through our Non-Judgmental Family Tax Relief. Nobody will lose out. The Modern Families Tax Allowance will encompass anyone who can make a reasonable claim to be a ‘committed unit’. To give you an idea of how inclusive this will be ... let’s just say I’m satisfied that Sesame and I will be allowed to register. All I have to do is declare my intention to put her in foal. So, in short, a fuss about nothing.

MONDAY Off to New York with Dave and DD next week! Am working flat out on preps. First priority: which hotel? It’s the Four Seasons versus Soho House. While East 57th Street says ‘statesmen-in-waiting’, the Meatpacking District says ‘modern, vibrant and cool’. This is what Jed calls a Fork in the Road. Meetings set up with Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, Tina Brown and Robert De Niro (subject to confirmation). No word yet from Hillary. Surely she will agree to a top-secret informal breakfast summit? Have just heard Poppy is coming too. Am  trying not to see this as undermining me but rather that we will be glamorous power pals, a bit like Sex and the City only with brains.

MONDAY I know I should be excited about the move to Millbank — historic landslide here we come! — but I’d just got my desk next to Jed’s office. It’s taken months of ‘edging’ at rate of one centimetre a day. Now I’ll have to start all over again. It’s sad to be leaving our traditional home above Starbucks. So much history, so many memories: the time I left a top-secret policy document on the counter, the hours spent queuing for caramel lattes. It’s the end of an era.... Dave and DD back from the East End looking v triumphant after their immigration crackdown. DD proclaimed: ‘The boy done well, he’s definitely getting the hang of it.

Monday OK, OK, I was wrong. (It does happen you know.) I may have been a teensy bit oversensitive about the whole ‘marriage’ thing. But I am now prepared to admit that it does seem that it may, after all, be the answer to everything. I cannot argue with statistics showing that hardly anybody on these south London housing estates is married. And everyone is getting shot. Contrast that with the situation in, let’s say, Witney, where 95 per cent of people are married. And gun crime is nonexistent. Also, as Jed explained to us at Strategy Hub, there are no end of political problems you can apply the marriage formula thingy to and with the added benefit that banging on and on about it buys off a huge chunk of the grassroots! How clever is that?

Monday Am fed up. It simply cannot be the case that everyone smoked cannabis at school. They’re clearly all just saying it to suck up to Dave. Head office unbearable. I’ve had it up to here with Moroccan black, red seal and ‘Maui wowie’. Well, I’m not going to lie. I have never smoked marijuana. There — I’ve said it! The taboo has been shattered. Found out this afternoon I don’t have clearance for Operation Mary Jane meetings but Poppy and Wonky Tom do. Stopped Jed outside Tranquillity Room and asked him straight out: ‘Is it because I’ve not smoked cannabis?’ Jed said: ‘No way, man, you’re cool with us, daddy-o. It’s just there aren’t enough chairs.’ Harrumph.

Monday What a morning! Was having coffee with Jed’s new PA, Janice. Lovely lady. V spiritual — although some might say a bit severe-looking with the shaved head. Anyway, as Nigel says, she’s ‘taken a shine to me’. She tells me things that are troubling her and today she told me something’s going on which she doesn’t think is ethical. It seems Dave has been getting coaching from ‘a senior Labour figure’. She made me swear a dozen different oaths — including one on Sesame’s forthcoming dressage trials — before she told me who it was. Suffice to say that when she told me the name I swallowed a piece of mini muffin down into my windpipe. It was dreadful. The whole of Starbucks was in panic.

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.