Lord Bonkers' Diary: An amusing limerick told to me by Herbert Gladstone

Textual critics - perhaps those from the Department of Long Books at the University of Rutland at Belvoir - who pore over these diaries will discover that this entry is headed 'Friday' in the current issue of Liberator, but Thursday here.

My thinking was that having two consecutive entries headed 'Thursday' would emphasise that time had passed between them, but the production staff at Liberator HQ found it too confusing. And who is to say they were wrong?

Besides, there is a deeper mystery here. The issue of Liberator containing this diary arrived on my doormat less than a week after I sent the copy off, yet in the course of it a whole week elapses.

This does lend support to theory that Lord Bonkers is a Time Lord and suggests this and the subsequent entries in this week's diary are dispatches from the future.

Thursday

Back to the Hall at last after my tour – this electioneering business is hard work and this time is proving deeply confusing.

First I went to Buckingham – a place that always reminds me of an amusing limerick told to me by Herbert Gladstone – and found Stephen Dorrell knocking on doors. He was for many years Conservative MP for Loughborough and our paths crossed from time to time, so naturally I engaged in some good-natured chivvying about the shortcomings of the Tory view of the world. Blow me down if he didn’t turn out to be the Liberal Democrat candidate!

Then I visited Finchley and ran into Luciana Berger. I demanded to know why she wasn’t In Liverpool and added some salty comments on the leadership of the Labour Party… It all proved rather embarrassing. I shall draw a veil over my encounter with Sam Gyimah in Kensington.

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

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The Well-Behaved Orphans have been carefully measured
• Buckled inside the large wicker hamper
• From Whissendine to Essendine
• He had fashioned a rope from the bedclothes