Columns

Michael Howard is a Powellite, at least in one respect. Talking about immigration, Enoch Powell said that numbers were of the essence. Mr Howard would agree, although his numerical restrictions would be far less severe. The Tory leader is really more of a Blairite. ‘Every country must have firm control over immigration and Britain is no exception.’ That is from Labour’s 1997 manifesto; it summarises Mr Howard’s views. ‘We and only we decide border policy and ... immigration, asylum and visas ... [these policies will be] made in Britain, not in Brussels.’ That was Tony Blair in late 1993, and Michael Howard could not have put it better. His disagreements arise from the PM’s failure to turn deeds into words.

There is a contrast between John Monckton and almost everyone who has written about his murder. He was better prepared for his death than they were. He believed in divine grace and in eternal life. He was certain that the victories of evil are transient and that good will ultimately prevail; that death shall have no dominion. He knew that his Redeemer liveth. John Monckton had lived in charity. He died in hope and in faith. Those of us in the valley of the shadow of the death of faith have no such comfort. This is part of the reason for the intensity of the response to Mr Monckton’s death. To those who believe that life is not a dress rehearsal but the first and final performance, such a premature death is hideous.

A growing band of us do not believe the opinion polls. We cannot entirely explain our doubt. We argue backwards from our hunch — that the voters do not wish to give Tony Blair anything like the thumbs-up they gave him before — to an array of rationalisations about how, whatever today’s polls may suggest, tomorrow’s general election could go wrong for New Labour. The relationship between the present Prime Minister and the British people has broken down. Repair is about as likely as the unsouring of soured milk. Conversations overheard — on buses, in aeroplanes, pubs and on the street — imply an attitude of widespread derision. Ministers on Question Time or Any Questions?

‘Put your left foot here, into this stirrup’ — I glanced down at a decorated steel half-shoe hanging on a leather strap — ‘and grip this stubby thing with your left hand....’ — I looked up at a sort of leather knob about the size of an orange set into the prow of the saddle — ‘and now lift your weight on to your left foot in the stirrup, swinging your right leg over the back of the horse.’ A bit of an effort, this, but it was how I was taught to get on to a boy’s bicycle and I found I still could. ‘Put your right foot into the stirrup on the other side, and settle into the saddle.’ I write this from Colombia where I am travelling this month and about which I shall hope to write for the Times.

Unless I am much mistaken, obituarists and tribute-writers have this week been poring over the Fleet Street archives, beset by a difficulty as unexpected as it has been puzzling. We have been looking for brilliant, extended passages of the late Bernard Levin’s writing to offer modern readers a sample (and older readers a reminder) of the work of a man who we all agree was one of the 20th century’s greatest British columnists. We remember his greatness. We recall the thrill as Bernard laid into the idiots and idiocies of the age. How we wished we’d said that! How we wished we had his courage, his effrontery, his learning, his mental treasury of quotation, his gift of language.

I hastened last Friday to the Grays Inn studios of five news on Channel 5 to be interviewed for their 7 p.m. bulletin alongside Nick Watt of the Guardian, on the sensation of the hour. The sensation was the planned appointment of Mr Peter Mandelson as an EU commissioner in Brussels. On time, Mr Watt and I were in place on the sofa. Channel 5’s Charlie Stayt asked us about the appointment. Starting with me, he asked what I made of his Channel’s public opinion poll which had suggested that nine out of ten respondents objected to Mr Mandelson’s appointment. I replied that this said more about the British public — most of whom object to anybody whatsoever joining the Brussels gravy train — than it did about Mandelson.

Tom and I borrowed our friend’s Mini to drive to Canary Wharf. We had been lent it to collect for him a consignment of lighting fittings ordered from John Lewis, which he had no time to collect. This was kind of us. Motivated thus by charity we drove off towards the smart new shopping centre within the Docklands development on the Isle of Dogs in east London. We must have looked an odd pair. Tom, who (it is fair to say) does not over-dress, is twenty-something and resembles a younger Hugh Grant dragged through a hedge. My habit is to throw on whatever assortment of clothes lie on my bedroom floor. I had not shaved for a few days, and had mislaid my hair comb. Still, the security man let us past the barrier where they stop you and ask your business in Docklands.

It came upon me powerfully, momentarily and quite unexpectedly. Perhaps a couple of vodkas at a bar by the railway station in St Petersburg were to blame. But all at once I realised that if I were a 50-something Russian living in the former Soviet Union today, I would be a communist. It happened a few weeks ago. I was boarding the overnight train from the city formerly known as Leningrad, to Moscow. In a short, spine-tingling moment I understood something to which my mind had been closed all my adult political life: the thrill of the communist ideal. My train was due to leave at five minutes to midnight. Around this time there is a tight cluster of departures from St Petersburg to Moscow.