Thursday October 17, 1985

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

No staff. Just Ally and me.

James Callaghan.

Old James Callaghan is to retire as an MP at the next general election. He will be 85. I do hope that he will be recommended for an earldom and that HM (the Queen)  will confer the Garter upon him. Earl Callaghan of Cardiff, KG. What an old buffer he is. He isn't a patch on the current PM and his voice carries as much clobber as a three week old lettuce, but all the same he is a former 1st Lord of the Treasury and deserves something better than a life peerage. Looking back to those days of his premiership 1976-79 one remembers little. Indeed, many of the people today under the age of 30 will have difficulty remembering the man at all. Those earnest Labour grandees of the 60s tend to merge into one blob - the Roy Jenkins-John Stonehouse-George Brown clones. Poor E.R.G. Heath (who?) is now the only former PM not to have been bestowed with a title. Will he be Earl of Bexley one day? Oh, shut up you old fool.

Note: Callaghan ended his days as Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG. A life peer.

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