Diary – 24 January 2019

Will I be allowed to take my dog to Europe after 29 March? A trivial question, you might think, in these feverish times, but one that might be an indicator of what the EU thinks of us and how/if they’re going to make us pay for leaving. I took Boss, my Battersea rescue, across France this Christmas and it couldn’t have been easier. The dog was barely noticed on the way out and given a fast, friendly check on the way back. Why should anything change? A pet on the road doesn’t get extra germs just because of the colour of its passport and yet nobody has any idea what’s going to happen. Are UK pet owners about to be punished for no good reason? And if so, what punishments might be extended to the rest of us pour encourager les autres…?

Driving across the European motorways, I was listening to Zero Zero Zero, a brilliant examination of the cocaine trade by Roberto Saviano (I’m addicted to Audible, the company that recorded it). The first chapter asks who uses the drug and suggests that the answer is pretty much everyone. Apparently, 11 per cent of all banknotes test positive for cocaine and the industry is now worth a staggering $110 billion. I write books for young people so I cannot publicly call for the legislation of drugs but it’s obvious to me that we have to change, radically, our thinking on this issue. Now and then it comes up on the BBC’s Question Time. Everyone has a say and then it’s forgotten. $110 billion! And all of it in the hands of criminals.

I loved Fiona Bruce’s debut on Question Time, by the way. She struck me as warm, witty, in control and somehow able to deflate the sheer nastiness that had characterised the programme for so long.