Diary

20 September 2008

John Kampfner on authoritarian capitalism and David Tennant

As for the state of the Labour party, I offer one anecdote. At a recent party, a Cabinet minister still loyal to Gordon Brown (yes, there are still a few) took me to task, very gently, on one of my Daily Telegraph columns. I had suggested that Labour could go the way of the Progressive Conservatives of Canada in the early 1980s. They had gone, in one election, from ruling the country to holding only two seats. I had, the minister suggested, been a little harsh. ‘I’m confident we’ll get at least 100.’

For all the long-distance travel, the destination that most excites me at the moment is Stratford-on-Avon. I managed to secure two tickets for Hamlet, for myself and my 11-year-old daughter. David Tennant has taken pride of place on posters in her bedroom displacing, to my chagrin, Chelsea’s Frank Lampard. When I phoned a bed and breakfast landlady near the theatre she told me not only was her place full, but could she persuade me to reconsider my decision to come? Could I not stay in London and sell her the tickets? More than my life was worth, I told her.