Life’s too short to be nice to lefties

Now I know why so many people hate me. It came to me in a flash during dinner with a group of bright, articulate, well-balanced sixth-formers from Roedean girls’ school. I was banging on in my rabid right-wing way about the importance of free markets and the shortcomings of feminism and suchlike when I happened accidentally to vouchsafe that the proudest achievement of my life had been teaching my children to read. And it was as if, all of a sudden, I’d waved a magic wand and sprinkled myself in fairy dust. The mood softened. You could almost see the thought bubbles above the girls’ heads, saying: ‘Aaah!’ and ‘Gosh maybe he isn’t, like, so totally evil after all.’

‘Blimey!’ I thought to myself. ‘That’s where I’ve been going wrong!’ And a plan began to form in my head. My wife has long been telling me that I need to find ways of stopping people thinking I’m such a grade-one Berkshire Hunt, and my Roedean experience confirmed it.