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. (Needless to say, I am the free-spirited Carrie Bradshaw, and she is the prim one obsessed with finding a husband.)
TUESDAY
New office is chaos. My packing box hasn’t arrived and Nigel says if it doesn’t turn up by end of week I’m to list its contents for insurance claim purposes. This is no good. You can’t replace Pony Club desk tidies! In all the upheaval I said the wrong thing to a reporter when he asked who was getting our married couple’s tax allowance and I said — inclusively — ‘Everyone!’ It seems I missed an email from Jed telling us that just because the party chairman says something doesn’t make it so, and could we desist from simply repeating what ‘any old shadow Cabinet member’ says without checking with him. ‘Such lazy and dangerous practices must end. Need I remind you that until further notice the Tory party is the absentee father of British politics? Commitment-phobic. See me if you need this further explained.’
WEDNESDAY
Am shattered. DD rang three times last night about NY, including at 3 a.m.
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