The Namier de nos jours

Last night, The Spectator hosted its first book launch at our new home in Old Queen Street. And how apt that it should be in honour of The Triumph of The Political Class (Simon and Schuster, £18.99), by our very own Contributing Editor, Peter Oborne. You can read some of the arguments advanced in this splendid book in this week’s Spectator – a cover piece which has already ruffled many a ministerial feather. Peter is emerging as the Namier de nos jours: a meticulous and fearless analyst of the social and political structures of our time, as well as a fearless truth-teller. He often teases me about being (supposedly) too close to the “Political Class”: certainly it is hard to imagine a journalist less beholden to that group than Peter, and that is what makes him so remarkable and so special. As I said in my toast to him  last night, it cannot be long before he writes a volume entitled They’re all Lying Bastards, You Know: and, I for one, would queue up to buy it.