Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

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  Tamzin Lightwater

  Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

TUESDAY
Anonymous hate mail postmarked Bromley piling up in office, all about what to do about the by-election. It took four of us to open and file it all in the special cupboard marked DSD or ‘Don’t Show Dave’ (the same one where we put all the Chocolate Oranges people send us. We’re not meant to keep them — but let’s face it, they’re yummy!). The letters are shocking: ‘We don’t want their kind here’; ‘Send them back to W10!’; ‘No A-listers in our back yard!’ Nigel thinks it could get ugly. People may have to start fleeing persecution.

WEDNESDAY
We’re told to come up with ways to further the Happiness agenda. This strikes me as a good moment to tackle Nigel about my pay rise. He laughs a lot then says ‘no’. I ask if I can scale down my hours instead, for my GWB. He looks blank, then says, ‘What, the trade union?’ I can’t believe I’m having to explain policy to him. ‘General Wellbeing? Hello! It was in Dave’s speech.’ He offers to scale down my hours to zero. He’s just stressed because his howies catalogue hasn’t arrived.

THURSDAY
Big rows in Mr Maude’s office again. This time he’s arguing with Dave who for some reason is now furious about the A-list. Poppy says he is having a ‘Lou and Andy’ moment. (I know this means Little England). Can’t do the full routine, but suffice to say Dave is in the wheelchair and Mr Maude is pushing him about saying: ‘Are you sure you want lots of gay people with a background in light entertainment?’ Apparently, Dave said ‘yes’, right until the moment the A-list leaked out and the press started making fun of it, when suddenly he went berserk, said he didn’t like it, and demanded more right-wing Eurosceptics.

FRIDAY
Oh dear. Our great plan to offer up Howard Flight in Bromley is not working. The association is claiming he has a glassy look in his eyes and has been ‘got to by the mincing metrosexuals’. Apparently a Mercedes dealer from Chislehurst asked, ‘How do we know it’s really Howard?’ Now I can’t stop thinking about that film The Body Snatchers. I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.
tamzin.lightwater@spectator.co.uk