DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY
MONDAY I wish people would stop sending in complaints about the cost of hotels in Birmingham. I am not the English Tourist Board! But as we’re on the subject, let’s be clear — the point of having conference there is not to save money, or have fun. It’s so we can get out to parts of Britain we would not normally see. And could I just say to Mr Hargreaves from Chipping Norton: I’m not convinced by your claims that in Blackpool you could get a B&B, slap-up meal, bumper pack of rock and still have change from a £20 note. Nor do I believe that we are going to lose all the atmosphere of conference without bracing sea air and ‘the traditional conference fun’ of karaoke and cross-dressing strip shows. For one thing, Mr H, Birmingham has very good strip clubs of its own. For another, I happen to know that you sent in a complaint last year about Blackpool! I have the letter right here. We file everything in our Member Monitoring Database. You now have two black stars next to your name so if I were you I would keep a low profile, or you might find yourself on one of Mr Mitchell’s trips to Rwanda. Find yourself a cheap hotel out of the selection on his list! Right, enough said.
TUESDAY Memo from Jed, fresh in from California, entitled: Encouraging Debate: ‘I don’t want to hear a peep out of *&^%$$£ Cornerstone at conference! Dave wants to stage four days of Open Debate which will expose Labour for the control freaks they are. That means no interference from crazed right-wing taxcutters. Three or four dissenters at the back of the hall, and a few carefully planted fringe nutters objecting to green taxes will be ample (see my list of approved “Rent-a-rebels”, in the pdf file marked R).’ This is what is so impressive about Jed, he thinks of everything even when he’s 3,000 miles away. If only he could work out a way to stop Mr Bercow talking about sex education, everything would be hunky-dory. Honestly, it put me right off my loganberry and papaya power smoothie. WEDNESDAY Am on major conference planning high! Nigel has put me on top level committee helping Tom draw up motions to get a heated debate going. So far we have: ‘Conference believes that sharing the proceeds of growth is an excellent strategy until the time comes for a new one next year’; ‘Conference believes that the NHS is a great British institution which we should be proud of inventing (if we had)’; and ‘Conference believes that Dave should be left to get on with doing whatever he sees fit, because he is always right in the end’. May put in something for the glossies, along the lines of ‘Conference believes that Boden is the first stop for Compassionate Conservative casuals’. Will see how much room there is on the programme once we’ve chopped Boris out.
THURSDAY Another memo from Silicon Valley: ‘Where are we on Boris containment? Has he signed the gagging clause? What’s happening with merchandising? We cannot have the usual unregulated mish-mash of Union Jack underpants and cuddly toys with I Love The Pound on them. We need to showcase the best of Compassionate Chic. Did we get Villebrequin on board? What’s happened about that special commemorative pair of flat-fronteds featuring the tree logo I asked Tamara to sort out?’ Oh dear, I have a horrible feeling he means me.
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