Diary

December elections are a bad idea. Never mind politicians talking rot — the ludicrous promises, the ludicrous numbers — it’s the lack of light and the foul weather that is making this one so bleak. People should be out of their houses, having lively conversations in the daylight, queuing for public meetings, hammering placards on to fences or alongside fields. But my impression is that most of us are staying at home, curtains drawn, harvesting insights from bloggers and news bulletins. The country feels crotchety and antisocial. I’m interested in the parallels with the December 1923 election. Back then, a Conservative prime minister, lacking his own mandate, risked going to the country.

Going to Pizza Express is a very usual thing for me to do, unlike Prince Andrew. I grew up in the branch on Notting Hill Gate. Family lunches, children’s birthdays, first dates and political summits all took place around its tables. In 2005 David Cameron and I went there for dinner to take stock of his campaign for the Tory leadership. My phone went off. It was the chancellor, Gordon Brown. He wanted to know whether I, as his shadow, would skip a key vote as he couldn’t make it. I politely said we should let the whips arrange the pairing. I held the phone to David’s ear as Gordon shouted that he’d ‘never been treated with such disrespect’ in all his 22 years in parliament. Then he hung up on me.

Thud. It’s my advance copy of Dorothy Byrne’s new book, Trust Me, I’m Not a Politician, landing on the doormat. I’ve known Dorothy, Channel 4’s head of news and current affairs, since we were in the newsroom together at Granada Television in Manchester almost 40 years ago. Then as now, she took no prisoners. I remember her curtailing her research conversation with a regional politician with the words: ‘No, I’m afraid I’m not inviting you to appear on tonight’s Granada Reports, councillor. You’re simply not coherent.’ Dorothy’s book reflects on the startling fact that more Britons believe in aliens than trust politicians, and asks what’s gone so badly wrong.

As my train hurtles northward, my phone starts to buzz. Jeremy Corbyn has agreed to hold a December election. So: a Tory prime minister, miles ahead in the polls, fighting an election pledging to get Brexit done — and facing a useless opposition. It all feels very familiar. And yet comparisons with 2017 are not so simple. Last time round, Labour successfully faced both ways on Brexit. Now their indecision means they are being squeezed between pro-Leave Tories and pro-Remain Liberals. Last time, Corbyn won the consolidated anti-Tory vote, but today it is fragmenting. And the differences continue. Boris Johnson is a born campaigner, whereas Theresa May wilted under pressure. Boris has ended austerity, while Theresa refused to change fiscal policy.

On a book tour to promote Outgrowing God, travelling from London’s Festival Hall to Birmingham and then Manchester, I have plenty of time to listen to audio books, my new enthusiasm. This week it’s Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds. The title is a well-chosen echo from Charles Mackay’s 1852 classic. Well chosen because our present epidemic of bullying ‘wokeness’ is disturbingly reminiscent of the witch-hunts of past centuries. I’ve had mixed feelings about Murray since he traduced me as a cowardly Islamophile (I’m accustomed to the opposite, equally unjust accusation). But his latest book is beyond brilliant and should be read, must be read, by everyone.

David Cameron’s revelation that he sought ‘a raising of the eyebrow’ from the Queen during the 2014 Scottish referendum campaign has caused conniptions at the Palace. But it has also eclipsed the royal record of the prime minister who did more to reform the monarchy than any of the Queen’s 14 (and counting) British PMs during this reign — Churchill included. It was Mr Cameron and his chancellor who tore up the 250-year-old Civil List, the moth-eaten system for funding the monarchy, and devised an annual grant pegged to Crown Estate revenues. It was also Mr Cameron who rewrote the laws of succession. Since 1979, there had been 13 failed parliamentary attempts to change a system which enshrined male primogeniture and a ban on marrying Catholics.

I could be that rare thing: a former chancellor who is still a member of the Conservative party. Philip Hammond has lost the whip and will be expelled if he stands for election again. Ditto Ken Clarke. How times change. I remember a time when we were desperate to get Ken into the tent, not kick him out. Back in 2008, we wanted him to join our shadow cabinet. Tory wars had consigned us to opposition and we needed to end them. The negotiations were conducted in secret in case he said ‘no’, so we agreed to meet at my house rather than Westminster. It was all very cloak and dagger, or supposed to be. But then Ken didn’t show up. After a while, I went out on the street to look for him.

I AM up on the far north-west coast of Scotland, where the weather is changing every five minutes under vast skies and huge seascapes. Go to the beach and look left, and it’s a sparkling Mediterranean scene, bright white sand and opalescent turquoise water, what you might call Rossini weather. Swivel your gaze right, and vast dark clouds tower up, obliterating mountain ranges — Bruckner weather. Me? Like Isabel Hardman, of this parish, I just walk straight into the sea and swim. The choppy water is certainly cold but the whole experience is elating, and good for clearing the head. *** WHICH is, of course, what we need this summer. August politics is changing faster than the August skies, and this autumn looks set to be the most politically dramatic in my lifetime.