Monday
Mr Maude ecstatic about the polls. Says it’s the most significant narrowing he has seen in all his years of being miserable about the possibility of the Tories ever winning again. ‘Only four points ahead! We’re doomed! DOOMED I tell you!’ All the way to the Panic Room he was shouting: ‘Consigned to the scrap heap! Banished to the electoral wilderness! We’ve brought this on ourselves with all the evil talk of spending cuts!’ Of course this is complete nonsense. We only talked about spending cuts for ten minutes two weeks ago. It was barely briefed before we took it straight back, rubbished it and claimed we had never said it. Which of course we hadn’t.
Tuesday
Super speech by Dave this morning about spending cuts. Really nailed it. While it is not the case that we ever asked Mr Letwin to go through Whitehall budgets to root out wasteful spending, Dave has asked every shadow minister to go through their budgets line by line to root out wasteful spending. Thought everyone would be pleased afterwards but no such luck. Dave v cross about Labour’s attempt to restrict sales of lads mags. Says it was his idea first and another example of how this government will steal every little tiny idea we have, no matter how small or insignificant. Jed demanding to know why we didn’t come up with the proposal to restrict ciggie sales too. This is tricky. No one could say the real reason — the smoke that sometimes curls under the door before PMQs.
Wednesday
Don’t think much of the Xmas reading list. I keep trying to tell Dave I could do a better job than Keith Simpson but he insists on letting him do it.
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