To The Hague for the trial of Paddy Ashplant. I was doubtful when I heard that Slobodan Milosevic was to be called as a witness for the prosecution, but he handled their exchanges well. "Come, come, Mr Ashcan," "Do you seriously expect the Court to believe that, Mr Ashtray?", "Yes or no, Mr Asphalt?" You know the sort of thing. Not being one to bear a grudge I have dinner with Ashplant, and it proves an enjoyable event. I am moved to expound upon the strength of Rutland's claim to a number of parishes which are at present in Lincolnshire and draw a map on his menu to explain our position. My memory of the evening is not entirely clear, but I fear I may have got a little carried away and sketched in the Yorkshire coast as well.
I learn from the Manchester Guardian that the Scots wish to reclaim Berwick upon Tweed, making it a part of "Caledonia, stern and wild" once again. My old friend P. G. Wodehouse famously remarked that it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine, but it seems they have a point. The town was taken by the English in lieu of a ransom in 1174, but when the Scots coughed up in 1189 we trousered the money and failed to hand it back. Not quite cricket, what? If the town is to return to Scottish hands, we shall have to decide what to do with its MP; he is, of course, our own Alan Beith. My preference is for a solution whereby the Scots buy Beith but allow us to lease him back for a number of years. When the time comes to hand him over we could have a ceremony with Northumbrian pipers, marching bands, a display from the Miss Peggy Inverarity School of Scottish Country Dancing and so forth. Why, I could say a few well chosen words myself!}
For the past few weeks I have had an engaging fellow called Powell staying at the Hall. He tells me that he is on his way to the Holy Land, but shows few signs of continuing his journey. One day he asks Cook for a packed lunch as he plans a bicycling trip to the Stilton mines near Launde: the next he asks me if I would mind awfully taking him to see the Wise Woman of Wing again. (Well, she really is Terribly Wise.) He is an engaging fellow, and particularly Sound on the deficiencies of President Kenny W. Bunkport Jnr; indeed, if one sets aside Powell's inability to pronounce a perfectly sensible Christian name, I have not a word to say against him. My only worry is that the fellows in the Middle East will be wondering where he has got to. Perhaps I should send the Wise Woman in his stead?
Have you been following the latest scandal closely? If you have not, let me briefly explain. An Indian fellow called Lakshmi Mittal has been in the habit of slipping the odd fiver to the New Party. He recently took it into his head to buy up the Romanian steel industry, and Blair put a word in the right ears on his behalf. At the same time, this Mittal bird has been lobbying President Bunkport to ban steel imports to America. (Are you still with me? I think there was something to do with a smallpox vaccination involved too, but we shall skate over that for now.) The result is that British mills are now faced with the prospect of the importation of a flood of cheap Romanian steel. I write with some feeling, for in the 1980s we had to suffer the import of numerous cheap Romanian orphans, which made things very different for those of us engaged in the orphan trade over here. (Note to Calder: Slip something about "charity" in hereabouts, there's a good chap.) Free Trade is a fine and noble thing, as Bright and Cobden were wont to point out, but one can take it too far.
Poor, poor Lady Ludford! It seems that she will no longer be allowed to sit in the European Parliament because she is a member of the House of Lords. I now feel terribly guilty. I was not one of those who besieged her Islington home night after night until she weakened and agreed to stand as an MEP, but I did bring them soup and sandwiches on more than one occasion. And what of poor Emma Nicholson? When she joined the Liberal Democrats in 1995, and accepted a life peerage in 1997, she can never have dreamed that one day she would find herself a member of the European Parliament. These European fellows are over fond of regulation - think of the problems their Underwear Directive is causing \emdash and I wonder if it would not be better to respect the robust good sense of the voters. If the electors of, say, Rutland wish to see someone who is already a peer hold several elected positions (be they at Oakham, Westminster or Brussels) and draw the appropriate salaries, why should he not be free to accept them?
What has been going on in Harrow? No fewer than 60 of our candidates have had their nomination papers ruled invalid. I am told that it was something to do with the candidates' party descriptions and the logo. It is sad that after a century or more of compulsory secondary education the voters need pictures to help them tell the parties apart, but there you have it. It just shows how badly we need that extra penny on income tax to pay for more spending in our schools. In my day, of course, there were no party labels allowed on the ballot paper. In '06 my agent and canvassers went around saying "Remember, he's Bonkers" to our voters, and it seemed to work tolerably well. Mind you, if I had been allowed extra wording on the paper, something along the lines of "The Liberal Party Candidate - Remember your rents fall due on Lady Day" would have been decidedly useful.
Did you see what Blair had to say in the House the other day? "The trouble with the Liberal Democrats is that they are very good at making spending commitments but less good at controlling numbers. For example, they have recently asked for more money for personal care, teachers, doctors, nurses, police, dental services and more hospital beds. They asked for the abolition of prescription dental and sight charges, the scrapping of all tuition fees and the reintroduction of all student grants. They also asked that benefits be given to all students during the summer holidays and for an increase in housing benefit; the payment of no-fault compensation, compensation for Gulf war veterans, greater spending on debt aid relief, and the giving of greater subsidies to small and medium-sized farmers." People can be so unfair.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10