I could never be comfortable on the left — there’s just too much hate there

‘Samantha is actually very unconventional,’ said David Cameron, a few months ago. ‘She went to day school.’

I first saw that the other day, quoted in an article by the Independent’s Johann Hari. I love it. I can’t think why I hadn’t come across it before. It’s not quite up there with Jacob Rees-Mogg at his best (‘I do wish you wouldn’t keep going on about my nanny. If I had a valet you’d think it was perfectly normal’), or Guy Ritchie’s voice, or the way Prince Harry’s girlfriend dresses, but still, it’s a corker of the genre. I go weak for this sort of thing. People pretending they’re not posh is almost as funny as people pretending they are.

The thing is, though, when I say ‘funny’ I mean ‘funny’. I don’t mean ‘unbearably offensive and a reason to beat them to death with a shovel’. And I suspect this means that I could never, whatever I thought politically, be comfortable on the left. Hate just isn’t a part of my politics. Disdain, contempt, dislike, sure, I can manage them. But hate, no. I don’t really see the point.

On the left, you have to hate a lot. A few months ago, I interviewed Dan Hannan, the blogging MEP. This was shortly after he’d described the NHS as ‘a 50-year mistake’ and, in return, been described as ‘a boggle-eyed, slap-headed, unpleasant, revolting, heartless, shit-brained, attention-grabbing, foetid excuse for a prick’ by the Guardian’s Charlie Brooker. ‘It’s what the left does,’ said Hannan, who is slap-headed, certainly, but seemed none of the rest. ‘They don’t think, “he’s wrong”. They think, “he’s plainly a wanker”.’