High drama in the other House: the Government wins by a single vote. Our own Menzies Campbell and that frightfully brainy Cook fellow who ought to be Labour's leader put up simply sterling performances. It is all the more impressive when one recalls that they were originally given a mere ten minutes to read the entire report and that junior Tory back-benchers were paid to burst potato crisp packets just behind them and pelt them with orange peel while they did so. Despicable as the behaviour of the Conservatives has been, I feel that the person who emerges from the affair with the least credit is Lord Justice Scott himself. If only he had learnt to write with conciseness, the government would never have survived his inquiry. But then I suppose that being a judge is like being a schoolmaster: no one is allowed to tell you when you are going on too long.
Home from the hurly-burly of Westminster, I pass a restful day at the Hall. The afternoon is fresh and clear, and I take tea in the gazebo for this first time this year. The more attentive of my readers will have noted that I drink a good deal of tea. As a youth I was very fond of Earl Grey, but Lady Grey was always most understanding.
Further repercussions from Monday night. It appears that the government carried the day only because one Conservative member made an impassioned speech against them and then meekly voted with the rest of his colleagues. A few telephone calls, and I learn that it is the same fellow who writes books about spies and puts the name of "Nigel West" on the cover. Now, there is nothing wrong in using a nom de plume: it is, I believe, common knowledge that Alan Beith has written a series of cowboy stories under the name of "Tombstone Jake" , and no one thinks any the less of him for that. But what is one to make of a fellow who freely chooses to call himself "Nigel"? It is not as if books by people called "Nigel" have a happy pedigree. I was something of a pioneer of motoring, and still enter the Rutland Grand Prix every year, but I have to confess that I was unable to get past page three of Nigel Mansell's autobiography: It's Not Fair! Everyone's Got a Bigger Car Than Me and I'm Only Getting £3m a Race.
For each of us there comes a time when one hears a piece of popular music, finds oneself out of sympathy with it, and knows that one is no longer young. For me it was the day I first heard the work of Eric Coates. Nevertheless, it behoves us all to keep in touch with the aspirations of the younger voter, and it is for this reason that I accept an invitation to attend this evening's Brit Awards rather than passing it on to The Member of Parliament formerly Known As Matthew Taylor, as some suggested. All goes well until, just as I am demonstrating the Charleston, I caught sight of Blair. (You know the fellow - a couple of years ago he was banging on about crime and how no Englishman dared walk his estate after dinner, with the result that the Conservatives passed the Criminal Justice Act. I, for one, have not forgiven him.) It transpires that Blair is there to give a speech. I do not stay to here it, but I gather from a brave "rap musician" who did that it went as follows: "Hi kids! You know, when I was your age I was young, I was crazy, I played rock and roll. Yeah, I had a great time! But David Blunkett is going to make damned sure that you're all too busy with your extra homework to do the same."
I have always been numbered among the admirers of Michael Atherton: any man who can bat for three weeks to ensure that his side draws a game clearly has cricket in his very soul. Nevertheless, watching the World Cup in the servants hall - Cook has at last found a use for the wok I bought her last Christmas - one begins to question his captaincy. In particular, is it not unpardonable slackness to allow the entire XI to take the field in pyjamas? Then there is the question of this winter's fixtures. Why did we agree to play the United Arab Emirates? Surely it would have been more sensible to have taken them on one by one? This is not a mistake my old friend D. H. Lawrence of Arabia (Gloucestershire and England) would have made.
The day dawns grey and cheerless on the Suffolk coast as flocks of hamwees fly in from the sea, but it is not the local birdlife upon which I have come to spy; rather, I peer out from my hide in the bushes at a collection of low huts surrounded by a cruel barbed-wire fence. One by one, half-familiar figures emerge. Isn't that Liddle? Could that, over there, be Marquand? Is he Dickie, or is it just a trick of the light? A low and dismal chant goes up - "Old Labour bad, New Labour good; Old Labour bad, New Labour good" - and guards walk around the inmates, striking them with mobile telephones and exhorting them to shout louder. As I steal away, I come across the a sign bearing the inscription: "New Labour Re-education Camp" , and am left to reflect that sometimes people receive precisely what they deserve.
To Westmorland with Mr Peter Thurnham. "All my life," he tells me, "I have dreamed of being the Member for this beautiful constituency. I... er, a friend of mine is MP for a marginal seat in Lancashire and wonders what the Lib Dems would offer him to come over." So far I have come up with two dozen '94 T-shirts, dinner for two with Nigel Jones and a fortnight's canvassing holiday in Southend. These "private talks" can be tricky, but I flatter myself that I have a talent for them. I suggest that my readers keep a close eye on the news, for I confidently expect exciting developments within the week.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10