The jolly QM and the prize sourpuss

IT IS inevitable, as the Queen Mother's centenary approaches, that three-quarters of the Press will wish to reflect the feelings of three-quarters of the country: namely that she is a life-enhancer, who cheers us all up.

We'd far rather live in a world which had the Queen Mother in it than not.

It is equally inevitable that some more sophisticated types will wish to sound a sour note reminding us of the size of her overdraft, the number of servants she keeps, and so on.

First prize for "sour-pussery" has to be awarded to Anthony Holden, former royal sycophant turned embittered republican, for his piece in yesterday's Observer.

He attributes quite extraordinary powers to this sybaritic old lady.

He blames her, for instance, for forcing Diana Spencer to marry Prince Charles: "No wonder post-marital Diana could not bear to be in the same room as the woman who had locked her in that gilded cage and thrown away the key."

Holden also seems to suggest that this 100-year-old lady - for whom he admits the taxpayer has an "unfathomable" fondness - is a sort of political fixer and that once she is dead the monarchy will collapse.

Holden and his like are entitled to their point of view. Maybe the waves of oily adoration for the QM would be nauseating without the addition of a bit of vinegar.

Maybe, one day, the British will want to declare themselves a republic, though there's not much sign of it yet. Surely, though, this isn't the week to be having such a debate?

Whatever you think of the monarchy, or the performance of the Royal Family, the Queen Mother is a spirited and splendid figure on our national scene, and only very boring people would want to say otherwise on her hundredth birthday In due time, one hopes the Royal Family will appoint a serious biographer who will give a balanced portrait of her, warts and all. This would surely acknowledge that, much as we all love her, she has not been nearly so important a figure politically as her fanatical enemies, such as Mr Holden, would seem to imply?

Life would have gone on, with or without her. The point to celebrate this week, is that life has been, on the whole, made jollier by her.

She is an essentially comic figure. Hooray.

House calls for Boris the Buffoon

CONGRATULATIONS to Boris Johnson, editor of the Spectator (right), who has been chosen as the next Conservative candidate for the "safe" seat of Henley.

Except in very extraordinary elections, such as the last, almost all seats in the House of Commons are "safe" seats for one party or the other, making one realise that not that much has changed in our political system since 1832.

Some political writers are already predicting a meteoric rise for the comic-seeming Boris, he of the blond fringe, who speaks and writes (or so it would seem) entirely in a sort of melange of P G Wodehouse and the Beano. It is always fascinating in England to watch men and, in fewer cases, women, using buffoonery as a weapon of power. Everything Boris Johnson says and does suggests to the dispassionate observer - myself - that he is rather an ass.

Aaah, say his admirers, he wants to pretend that he is much stupider than he really is. But why would anyone wish to do that?

The House of Commons has always loved buffoons - witness its fondness for, in my lifetime, Sir Gerald Nabarro, with his ludicrous moustaches: Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover; John Prescott and Tony Benn. Boris would certainly seem to be in this tradition, the camp equivalent being the unsuccessful career-jokester Lord St John of Fawsley. Meanwhile, the dreary seizure of actual power is usually performed by the colourless Majors, Blairs and Hagues.

Let's hear it for the scruffs

POOR Mr Blunkett. Not only has he forgotten to declare a few hundred pounds of rent in his register of Parliamentary interests, but he has also been revealed as a bit of a slob.

His tenant, a teacher called Lee Jenkins, who pays the very moderate rent of 700 a month for living in the Education Secretary's house in Wimbledon, declares: "It was in a terrible state of repair when we moved in. There were damp patches, the windows leaky, and the radiators are still not working properly. It hadn't been dusted or vacuumed and there were rotting vegetables in one of the cupboards." Whinge, whinge.

Perhaps it has escaped Mr Jenkins's notice that his landlord is blind, and so might not object as much as some people do to a few cobwebs here and there. Perhaps Mr Blunkett employs negligent servants.

For my part, it makes me think of David Blunkett rather more sympathetically just as I found myself, for the first time, feeling fond of the Prime Minister when a friend told me - don't ask me what she was doing there - that she had been shown into Tony and Cherie's bedroom at Chequers by the PM himself and found it an "absolute pit" with socks, knickers, etc, strewn everywhere.

The world will divide between those who consider it damaging that Blunkett and Blair are both scruffs who do not bother with the dusting, and those who discover that it makes them seem more "human".

Fruits and Knutsford

WARWICKSHIRE has the lowest rate of "sex offenders" in the country. Where has the highest? Cheshire, apparently. When challenged, Cheshire court officials claimed that the figures were artificially high because of the large number of strangers "passing through the area, often to indulge in homosexual activity at well- known gay haunts such as Knutsford".

Many of us had only heard of Knutsford as the model of "Cranford" by Mrs Gaskell, a harmless tale of small-town life, which, to put it mildly, played down the gay angle.

We had heard of the reputation of San Francisco and Amsterdam as "gay haunts". Even Brighton could make its claims with those of Corfu. But, it would now appear, that they are dullsville compared with the pink capital of the North Western suburbs: Knutsford.

The New Labour Poet Laureate, who admits to a bisexual past, should write a poem on the subject.

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