Looking forward, as one always must, I wonder if the law will eventually be changed to allow one to marry one's dog. Until now, this would have been … - Charles Moore

It is possible, though hard, to forge a United Kingdom made up of many ethnicities. Leaders like Mr Cameron are right to try to insist on common standards and better rules, rather than to despair. But whatever it is, and however well it turns out, it cannot be England. Perhaps when I am very old, my grandchildren will ask me what England was. It will be a hard question to answer, but I think I shall tell them that it seemed like a good idea while it lasted, and that it lasted for about 1,000 years.

There should also be a presumption that the authorities should stop taking more power over people and should start handing power back. Why should trial by jury be curtailed, or the assets of people suspected of profiting from crime be seized, or the Customs and Excise have the power to enter your house? Why should the police be able to subject drivers to random breath tests, or to spy on the public through CCTV, or the Government keep information on you that it shares across departments, or tell you whom to employ, or intercept your electronic communications?

People are often silly in their attacks on these things. Elites are inevitable and have some good qualities. Any old society will and should have an establishment. Yet a mark of greatness in politics is a capacity to transcend these elites – witness Churchill, who was born into one, and Thatcher, who was not. Jenkins did not do this. Unlike his wife, says Campbell, he was "handicapped by the wish to please'". He most wished to please the grandees who fitted his rather definition of the word "civilised".