The case for the defence

A few years back, Harper’s & Queen magazine asked me to write an article in a series entitled ‘Something I have never done before’. (No, it was not: Write a short book review.) The piece that appeared in the month before mine was Norman Lamont on falconry — a hard pterodact to follow. I decided I would stand on a soapbox at Speakers’ Corner in London (well, actually it was a plastic milk-crate pinched from my milkman) and hold forth.

I thought religion and royalty were two subjects that would get the crowd going, and launched into religion first. People began to cluster round me. I had not been speaking for more than two minutes when a little man shouted out, ‘Do you believe in the Ten Commandments?’ I answered carefully, ‘I think they are quite a good prescription for how to live your life.’ Now the man shouted, ‘Do you believe “Thou shalt not steal?” ’ I felt on safe ground here.