Finding the sweetest way to be insulting to someone is one of the few consolations left to us

Why all this mollycoddling of swivel-eyed loons? I take the point that Mr Cameron can’t be seen to endorse such a view of those who toil in sleepy villages and hamlets to keep the country sleepily Conservative, and might prefer his senior colleagues to speak more respectfully of them, at least in the hearing of the wazzcock rubbernecks of the press. Discretion, lads. But I don’t doubt that in the carpeted hush of home, enjoying conversation with his Eton chums – Eton is not, by the by, a term of disparagement in this column, though we were not fortunate enough to go there ourselves – he will from time to time invoke the swivel-eyed loony wing of the party he must sometimes wonder why he bothers to attempt to lead. That swivel-eyed will be among the least offensive descriptions to be banded about over brandy – particularly when discussion turns riotously to the Social Democrats – I also have not the slightest doubt.