Having been at Cambridge with the then-delightful Diane Abbott about 40 years ago, I know how hard it is for charming, intelligent black people with middle-class aspirations to make it in the Labour party without great sacrifice. They have to pull grumpy faces, pretend to be angry and claim membership — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — of what Frantz Fanon called ‘the wretched of the earth’.
So one must sympathise with David Lammy — choral scholar of The King’s School, Peterborough, graduate of SOAS and Harvard Law School, member of Lincoln’s Inn, former government minister — as he feels the need to wave his arms about on television and denounce Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg at the top of his voice.
When I recently appeared on BBC Question Time with David he was, off air, merry and friendly — as, in my small experience, he always is.
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