HAD lunch this afternoon with a friend who also happens to be a journalist on a national newspaper (you see the important distinction?) and he was recounting his experiences reporting from Conservative annual conferences.

One year, when the Tories had their jamboree at Blackpool (this was during the unhappy reign of IDS as leader), after many hours in the conference hotel bar getting terminally blootered researching for future stories and developing his network of contacts, he poured himself into a taxi and returned to Mrs Pettifor’s Luxury Towerview B&B, or wherever it was he was staying.

The next morning he awoke and found the receipt given him by his taxi driver the night before. It had been completed in immaculate, careful handwriting: departure address, location address, the time the journey took place and, of course, the cost. My friend was so impressed by the workmanship practised by the taxi driver that he turned the card over to see if there were any more examples of this calligraphy.

And indeed there was: “You’re going to lose the next election, Tory Boy!”