I have no idea

What Ann Widdecombe meant when she said Howard had something of the night about him. Unless she meant he was chivalrous, and had something of the Knight about him.

He's always struck me as an odd fit for the Conservative party, one of those people you think should be on the other side, not because of his beliefs, but because of his style and appearance. He looks Old Labour to me, in the way that Jack Cunningham always seems like a Conservative.

So. What do we know? As with football, the pundits are always wrong. For example, last night, without any evidence, they were initially convinced that David Davies was going to announce his candidacy. Meanwhile, I was sitting there vegged out in front of the TV thinking to myself, but what if he's going to say that he's not a candidate?

All the pundits are convinced that Howard's job will be to ensure that the Tories aren't beaten too badly at the next election, I suppose in the same way that Kinnock took the Labour party to the edge of respectability before they kicked him out in favour of the Weasel Family.

But if, as Ha Ha Mr Wilson pointed out, a week is a long time in politics, then a couple of years is even longer. If the Weasels hang on till 2005, that's plenty of time for them to fuck up, and plenty of time for the economy to collapse, and plenty of time for a few more unpopular wars, and a couple of scandals. Do the pundits seriously think that a few cynical appeals to greed and hatred won't see the Conservatives back in power in a couple of years?

I mean, aren't there a lot of people, like me, who won't vote for our local MPs again, because they voted in favour of the war in Iraq? I'd say there's nothing you can be sure of right now except that you can't be sure. As Bob Dylan/Sam Shepard said, the only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn't Henry Porter.

But they like to act all sure of themselves, don't they? It's what they are paid for. And then they can use words like "astonishing" when they are wrong.