Luncheon with Sir David Attenborough. He tells me that he wants to see the population of Britain cut by half. “If we do not take charge of our population size,” he says over the fish course, “then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most.” A challenging view, but shouldn’t one practise what one preaches? Why, to begin near home, do we need two Attenboroughs? Couldn’t Sir David, as well as embarrassing gibbons by filming them doing things any thinking primate would rather were not seen by the masses, also appear with John Mills in films about the Second World War, thus saving an entire Attenborough? Come to think, do we really need two Dimblebys to make a lash up of election-night programmes? Wouldn’t one suffice? I am reminded of the years when there were two Conservative MPs called “McNair-Wilson”. This seemed terribly greedy in an era when many working-class children were obliged to go to school with no surname at all.
I settle myself in the library, but the morning’s post makes sombre reading. First I hear grim tidings from an old friend in Freetown – how those poor librarians are suffering! Then I learn from a mutual acquaintance that an eminent German sociology professor I have long known is no more. It appears that he went for a walk in the Black Forest and fell down an abandoned Gemeinschaft. I am cheered by my reading of the newspapers, however, and in particular by learning of the demise of Idi Amin. I haven’t laughed so much since King Leopold of the Belgians died. True to form, Dr David Owen, whom my younger readers will remember, goes on to the electric television at lunchtime to tell us all that he considered having Amin assassinated at the height of the Ugandan dictator’s reign of terror: “I actually at one stage did raise the issue of assassination and it was not just frowned on but looked on as an outrageous suggestion.” Funnily enough, at the height of the “Alliance” I considered asking Amin to assassinate Owen. I wouldn’t say it was looked upon as an outrageous suggestion, but nothing came of the idea.
Have you been watching the Restoration series on BBC2? Let me take this opportunity to thank all those who telephoned Alexandra Palace to vote for the restoration of the West Wing here at the Hall. Already many of the trees have been felled and the stream had been diverted, and I am hopeful that the frescos – The Circumcision of the National Liberals, Jeremy Thorpe Resisting the Advances of Edward Heath, The Lamentations of Robert Maclennan – will be touched up before too long. If there are any funds left over I shall suggest they are devoted to the restoration of the career of Mr Griff Rhys Jones. If we, his viewers, can pay for a decent haircut and some coaching to stop him pulling faces to show that he is being serious, there is no reason why it should not regain its former glory.
A day’s shooting on the old Estate. It’s a wonderful bird, the Rutland partridge: when fired upon it takes cover and shoots back. Now that’s what I call good sport! Talking of country sports, I see that Mrs Bollard’s stewardship of the RSPCA is going far from smoothly; so much so that the nation’s animals are threatening to down tools as a result. I am reminded of the Great Spring Flower Dispute of 1925, when the tulips went on strike and the daffodils came out in sympathy. In an attempt to cheer Mrs B., and perhaps offer my good offices as a peacemaker with our four-legged friends, I travelled to Horsham the other day. I found the charity’s headquarters surrounded by picket lines and was denounced as a “blackleg” by a rather chippy stoat when I attempted to cross them. Defeated, I retired to a telephone box and attempted to ring Mrs B. instead, only to find myself put through to a call centre in India. Helpful as the tiger was, I can see what the animals are complaining about.
Rather against my better judgment, I arrive at10 Downing Street to attend an evening reception. I take one look at the assembled company – Melvyn Bragg, Ben Elton, Jamie Oliver, Lisa Stansfield, Melvyn Bragg, Mick Hucknall, Gareth Gates, Dame Judi Dench, Melvyn Bragg, Max Boyce, Lisa Stansfield, Emma Thompson, Lisa Stansfield, Sir Alex Ferguson, Mike Harding and Melvyn Bragg – and secrete myself in the garden. Eventually I am rounded up to watch the main entertainment of the evening. One of the drawing rooms has been cleared of all furniture and then filled to chest height with used notes, and on top of the heap are none other than the Blairs; she is dressed in her judges robes, he in a ridiculous plum-coloured suit. When I ask what is going on, I am told that the Blairs are sniffing their money and assured that watching them is the hot ticket in town. I make my excuses and leave for St Pancras.
One of the heartening developments of recent years has been our advance in local government, and it has been particularly gratifying to see Labour bastions like Islington, Durham and Chesterfield fall to us. In Bristol, where we run things with what one may loosely call the help of the Conservatives, the council’s leader has ordered staff not to call people “love” or “dear”. You can see at once why the proud Bristolians threw out those dour, killjoy Socialists and elected us instead, can’t you? Yet one wonders how we get on across the Severn in the Forest of Dean where they go in for greetings like “Where’st thou going, old butty?”
The leaves are turning and there is a tang of autumn in the air; it is time to turn our thoughts to the political season that lies ahead. No doubt it will be dominated by the outcome of Len Hutton’s inquiry, but we must also redouble our efforts in those seats that we aim to win from the Conservatives next time. If we do so, I believe that we shall succeed in driving Michael Howard from Folkestone and Hythe and David Davies from Haltemprice and, indeed, Howden. I believe just as firmly that we shall defeat Oliver Letwin in West Dorset and Tim Collins in Westmorland and Lonsdale. Above all, I have absolutely no doubt that we shall take Theresa May’s Maidenhead.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10