Still in the dark

From the timing of Michael Crick’s book on the Leader of the Opposition we can surmise that the author, like most of the rest of us, has made his mind up already about the result of the imminent election. There will be nothing significant to add after 5 May. The Tory party will not win the coming contest, and Michael Howard will not be prime minister. So best to get this unauthorised biography out on the shelves now, when at least its subject is doing something interesting. Even though the Tories seem placed to do better than in the last two debacles, there is unlikely to be such consistent publicity for this work in a month’s time.

Mr Crick is usually a careful journalist — there is one exception to that, and an important one, to which I shall come later — and this book is a work of careful journalism.