Diary – 22 April 2005

No job quite prepares you for life as a parliamentary candidate. But I suspect that a period as a monk would equip you pretty well. We are not actually obliged to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience but observance of the last two is certainly advisable. And life on the hustings does require a certain asceticism. Of all the little pleasures which I miss, now that the election campaign is in earnest, the greatest deprivation is being parted from my new mistress. She’s a delightful little thing, and I’d long yearned to get my hands on her, but my clumsy fumblings had ended in repeated failure, until last November. Which was when I finally passed my driving test, at the seventh attempt. And since then I and my Skoda Fabia have been inseparable companions. But now the election has been called we’ve been parted. The constituency agent in Surrey Heath has decreed that for the duration of this campaign the candidate must be driven from appointment to appointment.