Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 1 December 2007

Monday

Am worried and confused. Just back from Forward Planning Meeting and whole of Grid for next three months is choc-a-bloc with extremely scary stuff. Clampdowns on everything from malingering benefit claimants to selfish single mums. New catchphrases include: ‘Prison Works’, ‘On Your Bike!’ and ‘Women! Know your working limits!’ Nothing about the environment. Not a mention of my idea for an ethical Xmas gifts campaign based around Dave visiting Malawi to present a desperate family with a goat on behalf of each modernising participant. Only thing that was even remotely compassionate was clampdown on multi-faith nativity plays. And that was only a bit nice because we are going to ‘bring back Jesus in a manger’. I can just about work out why we need to ‘show a bit of ankle’ to rightwingers by promising tax cuts. But do we really need to hint at withdrawing from the EU, slashing public expenditure and bringing back capital punishment? Talk about sledgehammer to crack a nutcase.