Diary

It was when the kindly folk at the Theatre Royal Haymarket said ‘You’ll be in Paul Whitehouse’s dressing-room’ that it sunk in: the epic biting off of more than I could chew. But there was no going back. In a couple of hours, I would be on stage — and this time, I’d sing. Exploring Paul’s stuff didn’t do much to keep the stage fright at bay: comedy-friendly hats and break-a-leg cards were in massed array. Kindly messages from my friends featured the words ‘gosh’ and ‘brave’. A couple of months ago, the stunt had seemed a bright idea. I have a new book to push, Wordy, one of those literary tapas samplers which despite its miscellany (or possibly because of it) readers seem to enjoy.

Don’t you just love garden centres? You have to be mad to go on a sunny Sunday morning in the full bedding-out season but all human life is there, enjoying the full English breakfast or even kippers. They sell everything — sofas, lamps, barbecues, waterfalls, bread, toys, meat, mountaineering gear. Oh, and plants and Growmore and those little windmill things. I went to buy extra geraniums and lobelia because it is a truth universally acknowledged that whenever you buy far more than you can possibly need for your pots, those pots expand when you turn your back. It was a gladiatorial clash of trolleys, and I trampled on several old ladies in fighting for the last ivy-leafed Brilliant Scarlet. I got it of course. I am an old hand.

Recording the BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures has brought me to five cities and five styles of questioning. Cardiff had been pungent, positive and intelligent, with a cameo appearance from a belligerent Mark Reckless, who seemed to think that the judges were responsible for the legislative impasse over Brexit. In London, people came armed with prepared speeches about every subject under the sun, followed by the usual ‘Howzat?’. Birmingham was quieter, thoughtful and to the point. Edinburgh was about human rights: plenty of room for confrontation there, but courteous and well-reasoned points from a knowledgeable audience. In Washington the theme was what British politics could learn from the United States (not much in my view).

I owe my return to these pages to the pardon I have received from the President of the United States. When he called me, he referred to my ‘miraculously shrinking crime’ of 17 counts, to 13 (including racketeering), to four, to two; and to the quantum of my alleged transgressions from $400 million to $60 million, to $6 million, to $285,000 (which was approved by independent directors and published in the company’s filings). The President stressed that the White House counsel and his legal staff had analysed the legal material and concurred that I received ‘a bad rap (and) an unjust verdict’.

Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn. So it was for me a few weeks ago when, driving up the A1 on my way home to Lincolnshire, I saw some graffiti that made me think. The words sprayed on to a bridge support were as simple as they were powerful: ‘DON’T VOTE. ACT.’ It scared me that some people were so disillusioned they felt they had to take things into their own hands. But then again, if acting means standing for election, would it be such a bad thing? I tried it before, most recently as a Tory candidate in the general election of 2010. I can’t say I loved the experience.

The best moment of my Easter ended up being an impromptu debate with the delightful comedian Sarah Millican about the concept of ‘the ideal Easter egg’. If memory serves, Sarah may have preferred the large eggs with extra chocolates inside. I prefer the opposite — small, delicate ones with no extra treats. I hope my preference won’t be seen as another stereotypical middle-class protest against greed and excess… I was asked to be a judge of the Churchill Awards, which celebrate the societal contributions of the over 65s. At first I thought it must be a mistake. Don’t you have to be old to do that? Then I checked. I am old. At the winner’s lunch at Claridge’s, Miriam Margolyes’s first words to me were ‘I’m hungry’.

I travel back from London with the St Matthew Passion filling my head, after the moving performance from the Elysian Singers and Royal Orchestral Society under Sam Laughton at St James’s Piccadilly. Why does that last chord send shivers down the spine? The dark instrumentation, the sense that it is not an ending but a beginning, that this shadow-filled saraband will repeat itself for ever? Or is it just the story — surely one of the greatest narratives in all literature, in which nothing is redundant and yet everything is said? I arrive home with the chord still in my head, C minor with a B natural thrust like a sword into its heart. It foretells the week ahead. I devote the rest of the day to my report for the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.

Undisclosed location, Florida In January, when heavily armed FBI agents swarmed my south Florida home to arrest me for a series of process crimes, it changed my life far more than I ever imagined. The judge in my case has issued a gag order so I am not permitted to discuss the case, the prosecution, the court or the specific charges against me and will not do so here. As the judge said, the place for talking is in court — and that time will come. *** A vast American television audience was allowed to view the spectacle of my arrest, because CNN arrived 15 minutes before the FBI swat team. CNN denies it was tipped off, instead chalking its good fortune up to a ‘hunch’. President Trump asked in a tweet ‘Who alerted CNN?’ Who indeed?

I’m famed for my mustard cords. Back in 2013, the press mockingly dubbed my campaign trips around the country in a purple London taxi the ‘Mustard Trouser Express’. Photographers everywhere still cry, ‘Nigel, when do we go to the pub?’ They want that ‘pint shot’ of course, and they always know they are on to something when they get to see a little flash of yellow-clad corrugated calf. I’ve helped organise a March to Leave, which will arrive in Parliament Square this Friday, the day Britain was meant to leave the EU. The march — which travelled from Sunderland — has been the perfect opportunity to wear the trusty corduroys once again. Unfortunately, the snappers were in for a let-down when they arrived in the north-east.

It isn’t easy getting around the Gulf these days. The blockade on Qatar means no direct flights from most of its neighbours, so I spend hours of layover looking at the great mountain ranges of Muscat from the antiseptic tedium of my transfer terminal.     My main reason for coming to the region is to speak in Doha for the newly revived ‘Doha Debates’. After my speech, a more than usually aggressive interviewer demands to know why Britain and other European countries have not taken in more Syrian migrants. The Emir’s sister and others are in the audience and I cannot pass up the opportunity to poke my hosts in the eye. I ask how many Syrians have been made citizens by Qatar.

The best thing about the Evening Standard going to print at lunchtime is that we can be first to a story. The worst thing is that we can get that story wrong. On Monday, our splash headline about the Prime Minister and her Brexit deal was ‘Outnumbered. Outflanked. Out of time’. I thought we’d called it right. On Tuesday, I woke up to the headlines ‘May claims victory’ and wondered. Then Geoffrey Cox spoke and sank her premiership. Later that day he told the Commons it was highly unlikely David Cameron would ever have made him his attorney general. Geoffrey, you’re right. As this is The Spectator, we should talk up the benefits of Brexit. I’ve found one. I am back in touch with Mark Francois.