A world of her own

This book, written by someone whose husband was for three years prime minister of Britain, is impossible to review. Yes, it is dull, but it is so triumphantly, so ineffably, dull it enters a breezy little monochrome world of its own. There is no characterisation, for no value judgments are passed, except those on Mrs Brown’s husband, who is portrayed as such a force for good he is virtually an extra-terrestrial being intervening in the affairs of men. As for the rest they are ‘charming’ or ‘lovely’.

This is Mrs Brown showing HRH Prince Andrew, as she calls him, round Chequers:

Without thinking, I open the drawer that holds the wax death mask of Oliver Cromwell. There is a bit of a collective gasp, and I suddenly realise that this might not have been the most diplomatically sensitive gesture on my part: showing the face of the Great Protector and signer of King Charles’s death warrant to a member of the Royal Family. Stumbling apologies ensue on my part, although the Duke is, of course, very gracious about it.

She has Nelson Mandela to a buffet supper prepared by Gordon Ramsay. ‘I have to report that the dessert is — I kid you not — chocolate mud huts.’ She and her two small boys meet President Karzai of Afghanistan, the boys playing with some Lego cavemen fighting a T. rex. Just listen to what follows:

The President comments that Fraser’s small Lego men look like Afghan people, and asks Fraser what they are doing. Without a second’s pause Fraser bashes his two little people against each other and says, ‘Kill, kill, kill … dead.’

There is silence from me and Gordon as we take in the President’s reaction. Of course he knows that Fraser is talking about dinosaur world, but there is a lesson in there somewhere for us all.