Monday 29th September

Mrs Bracknell in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ by Oscar Wilde wrote that to lose one parent was unfortunate, but to lose two was careless, when presented with the fact that one of the male characters had been an orphan.  And so to you Mr. Cameron we might paraphrase that famous statement with M.P.s, for in less than a month he has indeed lost two M.P.s to UKIP.  In a rare moment of political drama on Saturday afternoon, on the very eve of the Tory Conference another Tory has defected.  Nigel Farage should have been a ringleader in a circus, or a Master of Ceremonies in an Edwardian Music Hall.  He absolutely stunned the gathering media scrum by unveiling, like a rabbit out of a hat Mr. Reckless the M.P. for Rochester in Kent.  He has an almost 10,000 majority which will undoubtedly be hard for UKIP to overturn, but maybe not impossible.

The Tories are spitting feathers, because co-incidentally a junior minister has had to resign because of a sexting scandal.  An idiot you may say, but time was when Cabinet Ministers took days to resign even when caught in flagrante or even in a Chelsea shirt.   Sending sexy texts seems innocuous enough to my mind, but there you go, it is now almost tantamount to rape.  Anyway a great start to the Tory Conference where the careless Mr. Cameron will try to appear Presidential and above the fray.  Actually an enormous number of Tory M.P.s are standing down at the next election, even William Hague who until a couple of months ago was Foreign Secretary.  Maybe they are scared of losing their seats to UKIP?  Maybe they are just tired of having to lie every day before breakfast, before lunch and after dinner.  Mr. Cameron may be furious but it brought a smile to my face.