Diary – 2 July 2015

‘Hello. I’m lesbian threesome,’ the young lady tells Taki. ‘And I’m Mongolian rampage,’ says the young man beside her. We’re at Jeremy Clarke’s book launch in the Spectator’s back garden, to which he invited a dozen Low Life readers chosen for submitting the best stories of drunken debauchery. Some were summarised in Jeremy’s column last week, which made for a marvellous party. Throughout the evening, guests tried to match the face to the story. Which reader was kneecapped by a pimp in Amsterdam? Who was the academic who got into a drunken fight with a janitor over the affections of the chemistry teacher? My favourite exchange of the night: ‘Do you think that’s the chap who was whipped naked with riding crops?’ ‘No, that’s Charles Moore.’

To the island of Gotland for Sweden’s annual political festival — elegantly flat-packed into a few days, rather than the weeks of party conferences to which Brits are subjected. Each party has a dedicated day but everyone mixes. I spot the leader of the Christian Democrats; she’s 28 years old. (‘It’s the new 45!’ explains one of her staffers). Party leaders mix with dog-walkers in the park and anyone can turn up to speeches. Quite a contrast to Britain, where party conferences are sealed off from the public by a ring of steel. Things could go wrong — a recent Nordic noir novel imagines Sweden’s entire political class held hostage in Almedalen, the festival site. But the worst that has actually happened was a feminist shaking her naked breasts at the Prime Minister. It’s a risk that the Swedes are prepared to run.

The Woodstock mood of this conference has been rather dampened of late by the presence of the Sweden Democrats, a populist anti-immigration party who now have enough seats to qualify for their own day in Almedalen.