Lunch with the future leader of the Labour party

On 2 September 1939, as Neville Chamberlain sat down after trying to explain away his latest bout of sucking up to Hitler and the deputy leader of the Labour party, Arthur Greenwood (standing in for his absent boss Clement Attlee), rose to reply, the infuriated Tory MP Leo Amery shouted: ‘Speak for England, Arthur!’ It’s telling that it took the threat of imminent fascism to make a member of Parliament a) speak plainly, and b) offer support to a member across the floor. To this day, such incidents are rare, to say the least. Instead, Parliament is plagued by a ceaseless cacophony of casual cat-calling, rising to a pitch of parasexual excitement when one side smells blood.

Public dislike of politicians has surely been reinforced by what we’ve seen since Parliament began to be televised. When Bagehot said, ‘We must not let daylight in upon the magic’ he was of course talking about monarchy, but allowing the public to peep into where the magic of democracy happens has been far more of a disaster for politicians than it has been for the Windsors, whose way with smoke and mirrors is so arcane that the public will let them get away with any old rubbish.