Lord Bonkers' Diary: Matron told me at the party last night

The old brute doesn't seem very keen on party policy here. but I'm confident that he was fully signed up to our campaign to restore the Winter Fuel Allowance to all pensioners.

Tuesday

When the Liberal Democrat campaign against the ‘Family Farm Tax’ was launched, I was not greatly interested even when I discovered that we are also opposing inheritance taxes on great landed estates like my own. You see, long ago a leading tax accountant told me that the surest way of not copping for such levies is to avoid dying. 

Ever since, I have made the annual trip to Hebden Bridge to bathe in the Spring of Eternal Life that bursts from the ground beneath the former headquarters of the Association of Liberal Councillors and paid through the nose for a particular cordial sold by the Elves of Rockingham Forest. 

My ears pricked up, though, when I heard our MPs forecast dire consequences from the levying of VAT on school fees. I reasoned that if parents had already ruled out keeping their children at home, and were now feeling the pinch, then some might take advantage of the very reasonable terms offered by my own Home for Well-Behaved Orphans. 

Yet Matron told me at the party last night that we have not gained a single new inmate through this tax. I will confess to feeling Rather Let Down.

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

Earlier this week...

• From the pubs of Oswestry to the crumbling walls of Ludlow