Over in the UK the Tory leadership election is in full swing with the momentum clearly behind the 38-year old David Cameron following a successful speech at the Conservative conference. Now he’s coming under pressure for his refusal to ‘disclose’ (by the way, I hate the way that legalspeak has come to pollute everyday language, but I digress) whether he has ever taken illegal drugs. He’s coming up with the usual non-denial denial. That’s a pity. If he did ‘experiment’, he should just say so. It would help bury this ridiculous issue once and all.

Personally, I always rather admired the spirit of the former French prime minister, Raymond Barre, a rather stolid, competent, conservative fellow, who (in the course of the Clinton inhalation wars) said that he had never tried pot, but ‘confessed’ to smoking opium during his youth in, if I remember correctly, colonial Madagascar.