Jonathan Dimbleby’s notebook: In defence of Chris Patten

I usually spend most of the week at home in South Devon in front of my computer. But for the past five days I have been on the rampage. Or to be precise, I’ve been in London. It is an easy journey by train when the track at Dawlish doesn’t fall into the sea. Some of my fellow travellers wonder why High Speed 2 warrants £50 billion when the whole of the West Country can be cut off so easily. They are unimpressed by the line that this investment won’t stop Network Rail giving Devonians and the newly free Cornish the best rail service in the world. But then they weren’t born yesterday.

I was at the Chelsea Flower Show, where I can report that Middle England is alive and well and living in dreams. There was a smattering of Ascot hats and one or two straw boaters but for the most part the Show was thronged by the human race taking the day off. The show gardens are stunning even when they aren’t to your taste. But to find them, you have to struggle through a maze of trade stands offering a fantasy future for green fingers with deep pockets. You could go home with a quintet of six-foot-high bronze frogs, a children’s playground, a tree house, and a mock-Caribbean beach hut with all the mod cons, none of which you really want. But that’s not the point. The Chelsea Flower Show is like watching Nigella and then sitting down to baked beans on toast; a glimpse of paradise before you return to the unmown lawn and the Japanese knotweed.