"Fight for the soul of our country": Josh Barbarinde profiled in the New Statesman

During his successful campaign for the Liberal Democrat presidency, Josh Barbarinde's supporters emphasised his unparalleled ability to gain media coverage. They always sounded a little optimistic in a world where not even the party leader gets as much attention as he deserves, but Josh is indeed the subject of a substantial article by Rachel Cunliffe on the New Statesman website.

Much of the piece is about Josh personally, but then his compelling backstory is part of what attracts the media. And it does eventually get on to Lib Dem strategy:

As the Lib Dems gear up for 2026, this is how they are framing the conversation. Brexit is back on the agenda, with a renewed debate about the customs union as a way to spur economic growth and tackle the cost of living crisis. Electoral reform is high up on the list too, as the electorate fractures across too many parties for first-past-the-post to be able to cope with. Both are subjects on which the Lib Dems have campaigned vigorously, and even won parliamentary votes with the help of Labour rebels.

But if neither of those subjects can be relied upon to capture the public’s imagination, there is another option: presenting the party as the alternative to the narrative of division and nationalism seized upon by Reform. As flags pop up on roundabouts across the country like mushrooms sprouting over a lawn, the visible manifestation of a deeper decay, the Lib Dems, with their 72 MPs and message of “hopeful nostalgia”, want to be the antidote.

Asked what his personal role in this is, Josh replies:

"To gee-up our party to fight for the soul of our country."

The change isn't on the Lib Dem website yet, but the party constitution was amended at last autumn's conference to say that the president "shall be the voice of party members". This suggests that Josh, like every party president before him, will interpret the role in his own idiosyncratic way.

Perhaps the Lib Dem presidency is still a victim of its history. When it became clear the first leader of the Liberal Democrats would be a former Liberal (Alan Beith or Paddy Ashdown), the important-sounding but ill-defined role of president was created so it could be occupied by a leading former SDP member.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "He spelt his name with an omelette"

I don't know on what evidence Lord Bonkers bases his view of Tim Farron's ambitions for St Asquith's, but he's quite insistent on the subject. He once added that he had no wish to kiss the person next to him, "unless it's Alan Beith, of course".

Tuesday

Calling by my Home for WBOs earlier today, I heard Matron tell a boy that if he didn’t eat his cabbage he would “end up like Lembit Öpik”. I suspected it was rot, but just to be on the safe side I asked Cook to be sure to serve cabbage this evening. When I explained my reasons, she sniffed and said: “I never cared for that young man. It was something to do with the way he spelt his name with an omelette.”

Cook worked her usual magic, and dinner – cabbage and all – was delicious. Afterwards I watched a news report about a church being trundled several miles across a Swedish city on a sort of giant roller skate. It occurs to me that if Farron ever gets his way at St Asquith’s – he wants to rip out the pews and have us all sing “Shine, Jesus, Shine” – I can use a similar contraption to move the old place a safe distance from the Hall. I just hope the Revd Hughes remains Sound on such matters.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week

• Dallas and its notorious School Book Suppository

Ed Davey and Layla Moran: It's déjà vu all over again

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Calder's Sixth Law of Politics holds that all Lib Dem leadership elections are reruns of the Liberal Party leadership contest between David Steel and John Pardoe in 1976.

As I once blogged:

You could argue that the 1976 contest set a pattern for later Liberal and Liberal Democrat leadership elections.

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels.

Not all contests have obeyed my law as clearly, but this time it is spot on. It's clear that Ed Davey is the Steel and Layla Moran is the Pardoe.

For me, Ed is being a bit too much of a Steel for his own good, but I shall not be declaring my support for either candidate until I have seen more of the campaign. I have urged the same course of action on other Lib Dem members.

In case you are curious, you can find all seven of my Laws of Politics in a recent post on this blog.

Is Jo Swinson the Steel and Layla Moran the Pardoe?

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A few years ago I floated a theory about Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat leadership elections: the are all reruns of the 1976 contest between David Steel and John Pardoe:

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement. 

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels.

I even tried to apply this rule to Liberal history, with Asquith being the Steel and Lloyd George the Pardoe.

Andrew Hickey, in a tweet today, kindly suggested this distinction was a more enlightening way of analysing Lib Dem internal debates than the concepts of left and right.

He also said he wouldn't compare anyone to Steel at the moment, for obvious reasons, but I am not so discerning.

So what of the forthcoming Lib Dem leadership contest?

My feeling, looking at the expected front runners  is that Jo Swinson is the Steel and Layla Moran the Pardoe.

For what it is worth, I always vote for the Pardoe and the Steel usually wins.

Those new Liberal Democrat peers in full

According to Guido Fawkes:

• Sir Alan Beith – former MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed and former Chair of the Justice Select Committee

• Sharon Bowles – former MEP for South East England

• Sir Malcolm Bruce – former MP for Gordon, and former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats

• Lorley Burt – former MP for Solihull and former Chair of the Liberal Democrats 

• Rt Hon Sir Menzies ‘Ming’ Campbell CH, CBE, QC – former MP for North East Fife and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats 

• Lynne Featherstone – former MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and held several ministerial positions 

• Don Foster – former MP for Bath and former Liberal Democrat Chief Whip 

• Jonny Oates – former Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government 

• Shas Sheehan – former Councillor for Kew and involved in several community groups 

• Sir Andrew Stunell – former MP for Hazel Grove and former Department for Communities and Local Government Minister 

• Dorothy Thornhill MBE – Mayor of Watford; former Councillor and Assistant Headteacher

The Sun names some of the 11 new Liberal Democrat peers

An 'exclusive' from SunNation this evening:

The Sun can reveal they will include at least two ex-MPs thrown out by voters at the general election three months ago, Lorely Burt and Lynn Featherstone. 

Three long-serving Lib Dem grandees who stood down as MPs in May – Sir Alan Beith, Sir Menzies Campbell, and Sir Malcolm Bruce – are also being enobled, alongside defeated ex-MEP Sharon Bowles and Mr Clegg’s former chief of staff Jonny Oates.

The report also says that Danny Alexander and Vince Cable will be knighted.

Later. The full list of Lib Dem peers is here.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The current Lady Bonkers

"The current Lady Bonkers"? The sly old dog: I had no idea!

Monday

The telephone is brought to me and on the other end of the line is someone telling me what a fine fellow Norman Lamb is and what a poor specimen Farron is. Lamb, it transpires, is in favour of people being allowed to end their own lives and of equal marriage. Farron, by contrast – or so I am informed – is Fundamentally Unsound.

I draw a long breath: “I have no doubt that what you say is true Grant, or whatever your name is, but I would question what is has to do with the leadership of the Liberal Party. Are we really intending to fight the next election under the slogan 'Vote for us and then top yourself'? I know the results in May were dreadful, but surely they were not that bad?

"As to equal marriage, the current Lady Bonkers and I are very happy. The only chap I would want to marry is Alan Beith and he is spoken for by a charming woman who was an MP in Dorset for a number of years. I bid you good day."

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Armed to the teeth with duck-handled umbrellas

Arise Sir Vince and Sir Danny?

Newspaper speculation about forthcoming honours lists is often wide of the mark, but here is the Mirror website this evening:

Ousted Lib Dems Vince Cable and Danny Alexander are due to get knighthoods in a move that will spark a fresh honours row. 

The two former Coalition Cabinet ministers are believed to have rejected offers of ­peerages from ex-Deputy PM Nick Clegg in the ­dissolution honours list. ... 

Two more of Mr Clegg's allies, former MP Annette Brooke and film producer Pippa Harris – a friend since his university days – will be given damehoods. 

Mr Clegg also nominated Lib Dem donor Anthony Ullmann for a knighthood, sources claim. 

Veteran politicians Sir Menzies Campbell and Sir Alan Beith are also tipped to be among up to 10 Lib Dems in line for peerages.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Unless it’s Alan Beith, of course

Another visit to Bonkers Hall draws to a close. How will the old monster get on with the locum vicar at St Asquith's? Time will tell.

Unless it's Alan Beith, of course

It is Farron. I find him in St Asquith’s taking down the signed photograph of Leicestershire’s 1975 County Championship winning team from behind the altar.

"Let me make a few things clear from the start," I tell him. "We are not going to sing 'Shine, Jesus, Shine,' you are not removing the pews from the church and I am not going to kiss the person next to me – unless it’s Alan Beith, of course."

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

He had to Put a Bit on Top

Why the Liberal Democrats did so badly

Coffee with Freddie

Grant dines with Cleese, Cleese with Grant

"They'll eat you for breakfast"

The Battle for Berwick

Photo of Berwick-upon-Tweed © Richard West

The Journal has an amusing piece on the campaign in the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency, where Sir Alan Beith is standing down after more than 41 years as an MP:

When it was announced in December that the A1 in Northumberland was to be upgraded, Prime Minister David Cameron made a rare trip to Northumberland to personally take a stroll by the side of the road. With him in the picture was Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a long-time campaigner for dualling of the A1 who just happens to be the Conservatives’ candidate for Berwick in the election. 

With him too was Sir Alan Beith, MP for Berwick for more than four decades and another long-term campaigner for A1 improvements. And with Sir Alan was Julie Porksen, the daughter of a Northumberland farmer who just happens to be the Lib Dems’ candidate for Berwick in the election.

And they were not the only politicians to visit Berwick that week.

"Beith be not proud though some have called thee mighty"

One of the most attractive things about Paddy Ashdown is that - in Denis Healey's famous formulation - he has a hinterland. That is, a whole range of interests beyond politics.

Today I came across an old Independent article in which he wrote of love for the poetry of John Donne:

Since the age of 16, I have had a copy of the complete poems of John Donne somewhere close at hand. For me, that was a watershed year. I had not been a good student – at best strugglingly average, to the despair of my father. In truth the classroom interested me far less at this age than the rugby pitch, the athletics field and the girls at the local Bedford high school. 

One evening a friend I admired but thought quite weird persuaded me, against my strong inclination, to go with him to the school poetry society run by one of the masters, whom I regarded as equally weird, John Eyre. The evening changed my life – quite literally. For that night I walked through a door opened by Donne into a world of poetry and literature I had never even known existed and have spent a lifetime joyously exploring ever since. The moment may have been life changing for me. ... 

After school, as a young Royal Marines officer involved in the war in Borneo, I took a leather-bound copy of Donne's poems which my wife had given me everywhere I went, until the ravages of jungle damp and termites dismantled it into a collection of mouldy pages. It has been replaced many times since.

Lord Bonkers writes exclusively for Liberal England:

I recall that Paddy Ashplant put his love for Donne to good use during the contest to elect the first leader of whatever name our party had in those days.

Many though Alan Beith was the frontrunner, but Ashplant began his speech to the first hustings by looking his opponent in the eye and declaiming:

Beith be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so.

This was widely counted as something of a zinger, and poor Beith's campaign never recovered from the blow.

Are all Liberal leadership contests Steel vs Pardoe?

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I was not a member of the Liberal Party in 1976 because there was no branch in Market Harborough to recruit me.

But I knew I was a Liberal and that my favourite MPs were David Penhaligon and John Pardoe. So when Pardoe stood against David Steel for the leadership of the party I knew whose side I was on.

And you could argue that the 1976 contest set a pattern for later Liberal and Liberal Democrat leadership elections.

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels. In all these cases I voted for the Pardoe.

It doesn't always work: in 1999 there were five candidates. I suppose you could make a case for Charles Kennedy being a sort of Social Democrat Steel, but a clear Pardoe failed to emerge.

Can we project this pattern back into past? I don't know, but it tempting to see Asquith as a Steel and Lloyd George as a Pardoe.

And was Jo Grimond a Steel or a Pardoe? He seems to have combined the better qualities of both.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Liberal Detective Agency

Thursday

Little Steel, by contrast, has a lot of explaining to do, as he was informed long ago that Smith was far from being the clean potato. “We were a political party not a detective agency,” he has taken to whining about those years before we merged with the SDP Party. I am afraid conscience bids me explain why this is nonsense.

In the mid 1970s, when we were at something of a low ebb, I went to Steel and said: “As the politics is not going so well these days, we need a second string to our bow. What about all this crime you read about in the newspapers? We Liberals are intelligent fellows and should be able to help bring the bad hats to book.”

And so the Liberal Detective Agency was born. With Alan Beith’s sleuthing, Clement Freud’s pioneering work in psychological profiling and Nancy Seear’s willingness to play bad cop to David Alton’s good cop, we enjoyed no little success. The money the agency made was ploughed back into the party’s campaigning, with the result that we survived the 1979 general election in better shape than any commentator had dared predict.

I fear for Steel’s reputation when this comes out, and come out it will, as I am in advanced negotiations with an independent moving television production company about bringing the tale to the screen. I only hope he finds his missing locus before it is broadcast.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

The elves in my covert

An inflatable Julian Huppert

Spotting a wrong 'un

Alastair Cook and Nick Clegg

There are three types of captain: those with tactical nous, those with great man-management skills, & those who lead from the front.
— Samuel Honywill (@SDHoneymonster) June 23, 2014

This tweet was discussed on the Geek & Wilde podcast on the evening of the fourth day of the Headingley test. They argue that the great captains have all three qualities and that quite good ones can survive on only one. Coming to the conclusion that Alastair Cook at present offers none of these three qualities, they call on him to resign.

I have been interested in the parallels between cricket captaincy and political leadership ever since I reviewed Mike Brearley's The Art of Cricket Captaincy at the time of the election for the election of the first Liberal Democrat leader in 1988.

Drawing parallels between politicians and cricket captains in that review - David Steel was Colin Cowdrey, Paddy Ashdown was Brian Close and I forget who Alan Beith was - helped me develop the idea of Lord Bonkers a couple of years later.

But what I am worrying about this evening are the parallels between Nick Clegg and Alastair Cook.

Book review: Liberal Democrats do God

As well as Lord Bonkers' fireside chat, the new Liberator contains my review of this book from the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum. Somehow I suspect it will annoy infidels like me as much as believers.

Orange Skies

Liberal Democrats Do God
Edited by Jo Latham and Claire Mathys
Liberal Democrat Christian Forum, 2013, £6.99 (available from the LDCF website)

This book gained some notoriety on its publication when the press alleged that Steve Webb’s introduction claimed that God was a Liberal Democrat. My first reaction to this was to be impressed that He had managed to find a coherent philosophy behind the party’s changing policy positions, but I suppose that is omnipotence for you. It soon turned out that Steve had merely claimed that god was a liberal – I am not sure if that makes any more sense, but it was deemed less controversial.

But churches and political parties do have much in common. They offer company to the odd and the awkward, and give you the chance to belong to an institution that existed before you were born and will endure long after your death. Viewed in this light, the Second Coming of Christ has much in common with the Liberal revival or the realignment of the left. So, having belonged to a political party for 35 years, I cannot find it in me to make fun of others’ religious beliefs. This is despite the fact that I long ago worked out that I was a High Church atheist – I love church music and buildings, but that does not mean any of the beliefs they are connected with are true.

Tim Farron would not agree with me. In pages he sets out to prove the existence of God – a task that would have made even St Thomas Aquinas hesitate. What Tim comes up with is the chumminess with slight sinister undertones that you hear in charismatic young preachers who tour university Christian Union groups at the start of term: “Christianity is therefore intellectually plausible and, given that the consequences of Christianity being true are pretty massive, you owe it yourself to check it out for yourself.”

This emphasises that the God these Liberal Democrats are doing is very much the Christian God. Other faiths do not get a look in, which is a little strange in modern Britain – there are plenty of new temples in Leicester, for instance, but few of them are Christian. For the most part, the book is a ragbag of good causes and it is not clear how much God has to do with any of them. Alan Beith writes in favour of restorative justice, and his support for it may well flow from his personal faith, but there are plenty of atheists who support it too and plenty of Christians who are in favour of retribution.

Equally, I turned first to Duncan Hames’ chapter on environmentalism, because I feel something like the Christian concept of stewardship is badly needed in modern Britian. But the chapter is short and, when you think about it, every acre that was despoiled in the Industrial Revolution or afterwards was owned or sold by an aristocrat who insisted his children and servants when to church every Sunday.

There are some notable omissions. There is nothing on the Establishment of the Church of England (which I favour on the grounds that it keeps the church quiet) or on faith schools. It is easy to despise the latter when they demand more and more outward signs of religious observance from parents, but their critics should sometimes stop to ask themselves why they are often so much more popular than schools run by the local authority.

The chapter that got most media attention (once Steve Webb’s attempt to sign up God had foundered) was the one by Greg Mulholland, in which he suggests that the party is in danger of driving out religious believers because of its ‘moral conformity’. He does put his finger on the tendency of political groupings to turn on people who hold views that differ from those of its most members, but I am not convinced religious believers are any more its victims than anyone else. Take the way Greg introduces his concerns, describing an incident from the last general election:

When I was knocking at one house I had called at a few minutes before, and started chanting at me. A rhyme about being a Catholic and about where I could shove my rosary beads. I have never been on the receiving end of discriminatory hate before and it is, even for a thick-skinned politician, a really unpleasant experience.

Surely bigotry is most often encountered in clashes between different religious groups? Again, it seems unfair to pin it on atheists.

What is at the heart of Greg’s chapter is the demand that political beliefs that are derived from religious convictions must somehow be above criticism. I do not think this is a legitimate move in debate, if only because it ties in with the sort of arguments that begin “As a….” These try to imply that you cannot criticise someone’s opinions without insulting his or her gender, ethnicity of sexual orientation and turn politics into a form of Top Trumps. More than that, if people hold just the views on social questions that you would expect them to hold in view of their backgrounds, then the suspicion is that, far from being deeply held, these views have been acquired in childhood and never properly examined. Which is why, to return to the parallel between churches and political parties, it is hard to take the likes of Will Straw and Euan Blair entirely seriously.

Let’s end on my favourite chapter. Andrew Stunell, in a pleasingly eccentric contribution, praises our secular society and celebrates the work of the Holy Spirit through history. So maybe I should thank God I’m an atheist?

Jonathan Calder

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The spirit of Liberalism

Sir Alan Beith arrives with an old lamp. “It was this quest of yours,” he explains. “I wasn’t sure where to go, so I ended up in an antique shop in Alnwick. I found this. It’s rather battered and the wick needs trimming, but for some reason the flame never goes out.”

“Good heavens man! You’ve found the spirit of Liberalism. I shall have it cleaned and polished at once.”

“I expect you will give it to Clegg when you have done that.”

I consider Beith for a moment and then reply: “No, old fellow. I think you had better look after it.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Earlier this week

• Telling The Truth
• Nick Clegg in the boathouse
• The students are revolting
• A particularly civil civil libertarian
• "I cannot tell a lie"
• Assuming the worst

Lord Bonkers' Diary: On the knight bus

Wednesday

The morning finds me in a clearing in Rockingham Forest. I am surrounded by Liberal Democrat knights and their horses. Here is Sir Bob Russell, though if I am honest I think his brother Earl should have received a knighthood for his services to jazz. Here is Sir Robert Smith, about whom little is known, except that he is a knight. Here are Sir Alan Beith, Sir Malcolm Bruce and Sir Menzies Campbell – Sound men all. And here are Sir Nicholas Harvey and Sir Andrew Stunnell, who are among our newer knights. Indeed, they are so new that I have to ask to see their credentials.

“Gentlemen,” I begin, “it is many years since I last saw the Spirit of Liberalism. I believe I last caught site of it in Ashplant’s day, though I have to admit his elderflower champagne was pretty powerful stuff. Who knows where it has got to today? That is why I am sending you on this quest.”

Sir Alan Beith, who is sitting the wrong way round on his horse and polishing his glasses on its tail, speaks up.

“A quest is a wonderful idea, but some of us aren’t very used to horseback.”

“I have thought of that,” I assure him, “and have laid on mechanised transport for those who prefer it. Think of it as a knight bus.”

Before they set off, however, I lead them to the village green at a smart trot. The judges of the Rutland Best Kept Village competition are due any day and those lances look just the job for picking up litter.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• Too many knights
• Escape from Liberal Youth

Sir Alan Beith interviewed by the Northumberland Gazette

Sir Alan Beith has been north Northumberland’s MP for nearly 40 years, but the last two have seen him involved in the hustle and bustle of the Coalition Government

the Northumberland Gazette points out, before interviewing him about the current political situation:

“I never had any illusions that there wouldn’t be a negative effect at least for the first couple of years, because the people who vote for us, if they didn’t vote for us, would vote for Labour, as they have a deep distrust of the Tories,” said Sir Alan. 

“Our job is to make sure the Government is a coalition and therefore that their fears don’t happen. 

“The other factor we have to contend with in the elections is that any Government in the situation that the country’s now in would be making very unpopular decisions. 

“If Labour had won a majority they would either be doing things similarly to what this Government is doing or the country would be heading for disaster, and I think it would be the first one.”

Sir Alan was also keen to talk about the dualling of the A1 - an issue which appears to be the Northumbrian equivalent of the Cornish pasty.

Emlyn Hooson 1925-2012

Lord Hooson, who died yesterday, was leader of the Welsh Liberal Party from its inception in 1966 until 1979, and MP for Montgomery from 1962 to 1979.

He won the seat at a by-election following the death of the former Liberal leader Clement Davies and retained it through five general elections. The Shropshire Star has a photograph of him being carried through the streets of Welshpool after the constituency's result was declared in October 1974 election.

As his Daily Telegraph obituary makes clear, he was not afraid of controversy:

After Liberal losses in the 1970 election, Hooson told the Liberal Assembly that the public wanted a middle-of-the-road party, blaming Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe for trying to take it Leftward. When the Liberals merged with the SDP in 1988, he backed Alan Beith for the leadership against the less cautious Paddy Ashdown. 

Hooson attracted abuse from party activists, particularly the Young Liberals who at one conference waved sticks of rhubarb at him when he opposed sanctions on South Africa. Yet they were allies in opposing the Vietnam War, and the Young Liberals’ leader, Peter Hain, relied on Hooson’s advice when forced to apologise to Edward Short, Leader of the Commons, for suggesting he was implicated in the Poulson affair. 

Hooson opposed both Grimond’s readiness to keep the 1964 Labour government in power, and the Lib-Lab Pact concluded with James Callaghan by Steel. But the leader he trusted least was Jeremy Thorpe. When Grimond retired in 1967, Hooson stood against Thorpe partly on policy grounds but also because of a deep and, as events would prove, shrewd distrust of Thorpe’s character.

He also enjoyed a distinguished legal career. The Telegraph says:

Hooson also enjoyed a distinguished legal career At the Bar, Hooson earned a reputation as a cool, clear thinker and lucid advocate. In 1960, at 35, he became the youngest Silk for many years.

Hooson defended Ian Brady in the Moors Murder trial and, so Disgruntled Radical always tells me, prosecuted Alan Turing when he was tried for 'indecency'.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Rutland International Arts Festival

Lord Bonkers' latest Diary was written on the final day of the Rutland International Arts Festival. At his suggestion, I am reproducing the whole Diary as single blog post now that the new edition of Liberator is with subscribers.

I sit on the terrace at Bonkers Hall, enjoying a hard-earned macaroon and cup of Darjeeling as I survey the crowds in their Sunday best and the trim marquees erected by the Queen’s Own Rutland Highlanders under the supervision of Regimental Sergeant Major Carmichael. Yes, you join me on final day of the Rutland International Arts Festival.

As ever, the Festival is taking place in the Hall and its grounds, as well as at numerous locations across the village and beyond. The performance of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, for instance, took place in the Bonkers’ Arms and, though the double booking with the darts match was inadvertent, I am told that, if anything, it added to the drama.

If I may offer an unbiased opinion as Chairman of the Organising Committee, Patron and occasional performer, our annual cultural festival is widely recognised by the world’s leading arts administrators as being a unique event. There is Edinburgh, they often say, and then there is Rutland. In short, it is the eel’s eyebrows.

I could not be present at the Marat/Sade myself as I was at the Home for Well-Behaved Orphans to cheer on their now traditional play. Good as it was, I must have a word with Matron in the morning as there was an awful lot of noise from under the stage towards the end of the performance and the little mites did not reappear to take their bow after it was over.

I have also had the rare pleasure of going to the pictures in my own cricket pavilion. The film I saw was Mulholland Drive, which has certainly made me see the more affluent suburbs of Leeds in a different light (high tea with the Wainwrights was never like that), even if the reels were obviously exhibited in the wrong order. Such are the riches of the week that I could equally well have seen Annette Brooke’s Lord of the Flies or The Outlaw Ian Swales at the same venue.

Elsewhere there has been a traditional huppert show on the village green for the children and, of course, there has been a rich diet of theatrical performances on offer in the Village Hall. Unfortunately, the responsibilities of office mean that the parliamentary party has been unable to put on its usual performance of Shakespeare – for many years, people would come for miles to admire Cyril Smith’s Bottom – but there has still been much to enjoy. Tomorrow I shall be taking in a production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Anyone Can Birtwistle, which I imagine offers a guide to those ambitious to gain Labour seats in the North, and a musical by one Willy Russell entitled: John, Paul, George, Ringo... & Lorely Burt.

This year I have taken the precaution of staging all the musical events on an island in the middle of Rutland Water. It is not that I object to Susan J. Kramer and the Dakotas playing their “rock and roll” for the young people: the problem is the jazz. Meadowcroft, naturally, was all for there being a large jazz component in this year’s festival, and when I ventured to demur he started leaving copies of the Horticulturalist’s Journal about the place with various job advertisements ringed in red crayon. I took his point, which is why I shall be staying well clear of the shores of the Water this evening. For Meadowcroft will be playing in a concert with the former members of Earl Russell’s Big Band. (You may recall that I offered them sanctuary here on the Bonkers Hall Estate after their leader died. Charitable as we Bonkers have always been, I still think his brother Bob could have Done More.)

Elsewhere on this final evening of the Festival, you can hear the Elves of Rockingham Forest and their “plangent melodies and Aeolian cadences (no money returned)”, while I shall be at the performance of Beith in Venice (Benjamin Britten’s controversial last opera) that is being staged in my own Ballroom.

Some will then take their refreshment in the Bonkers’ Arms – rest assured: extra casks of Smithson & Greaves’s Northern Bitter have been laid in – or at the hog roast on the village green. Miss Fearn will be on hand to offer her assorted fancies, while Mrs Patel from the shop will no doubt be offering her delicious Norman Lamb rogan josh.

The most discerning lovers of the arts will have bought tickets for the Festival dinner, at which I happen to be the guest of honour. Talking of the celebrated Aldeburgh composer, I have a feeling that during the meal I may be prevailed upon to retell my celebrated anecdote about the chamber concert that we put on in my boathouse many years ago. There was a high tide on Rutland Water that night and strong winds; the result was that the waves burst into the boathouse, sweeping away performers and audience alike. I had the foresight to snatch up a double bass as it floated past and paddled myself to safety (accompanied by Benjamin Britten on the piano).

If that were not treat enough, the evening and the Festival will close with the traditional firework display. I like to keep the most spectacular effects under my hat – not literally, you understand – but I fully expect to see such pictures as the Bird of Liberty and a likeness of Nancy Seear painted in the midnight skies. On evenings like this, there is nowhere else one would wish to be but Rutland.

Lord Bonkers, who was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10, opened his diary to Jonathan Calder.