Lord Bonkers' Diary: He doesn’t ask them lots of damn-fool questions

This is more on message from the old boy, and I think he's safe from Freddie and Fiona - they would never read Liberator, where his diaries first appear.

You, however, look just the sort. It's the Liberal Democrats' combination of the New Statesman and Private Eye, and you can download the latest issue - that's no. 423 - free of charge.

Saturday

Looking at the list of Liberal Democrats who have received the coupon from Freddie and Fiona, I find myself enormously encouraged. There’s a woman who has rowed the Atlantic, which will come in useful if we need to make a quick getaway from Westminster, and a veterinary surgeon. 

I won’t hear a word against Drs Winstanley, Tonge and Brand, but I have always rather envied my setters when I take them to our local vet. He doesn’t ask them lots of damn-fool questions or tell them they're drinking too much. If this fellow gets in, I shall see if he will take me on to his books. 

And don’t tell F&F, but I may visit Sutton Coldfield to cheer on John Sweeney, not least because he now wears what appears to be Tony Greaves’s old bobble hat. Perhaps it’s passed from Liberal to Liberal like a family heirloom and was originally owned by Lord Morley?

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

Earlier this week...

• I imagine he found Africa pleasantly civilised after that
• The Convent of Our Lady of the Ballot Boxes
• "The sort of places our schoolfriends’ parents live"
• Two of my sturdiest gamekeepers on the Thames-Clyde Express
• Stabbing an iguana with a toasting fork