Unless you are Pat Stack.

1. Pat Stack

2. Ernest Mandel

3. Tony Clift

4. Ted Grant

5. Gerry Healey

6. Dave Nellist

7. Peter Taffe

8. Derek Hatton

9. Alan Thornet

10. Leon Trotsky

I’m entirely with Mr McEnroe on this. Passionless people who go though life without getting upset seem more than a little odd - whether in sport, work or anything else worth caring about.

So when I read that our Prime Minister gets angry, refuses to suffer fools, yells at people, throws things and gets grumpy I am reassured that there is, in fact, a human being in Number 10 after all. Besides, this isn’t just doing the washing up we are on about here, it’s running the country: matters of world importance: financial crises, schools and hospitals, war and peace, serious stuff - things that you want the Prime Minister to get steamed up about.

The ‘revelations’ in Observer Journalist Andrew Rawnsley’s book, The End of the Party will be believable to anyone who has ever had a serious conversation with the Prime Minister and just as much so of some of the people around him.

Now all sorts of media types have gone into hypocrisy overdrive on what is and what isn’t acceptable at work. Television has glorified the ‘tough uncompromising boss’ for as long as I can remember in fiction and increasingly in ‘reality’. Whether it’s Alan Sugar, Gordon Ramsey, Dragon’s Den - we don’t seem to be able to get enough of the bosses bawling out their underlings and being generally unpleasant to staff for our entertainment. These people are leaders to be looked up to. Uncompromising characters who get results.

It’s a cliché, of course, but there is at least an acceptance in the private sector that sometimes it is necessary to leave staff in no doubt where they stand and to tell them what their job is and when they are getting it wrong.

But move to the public sector and it is a different game entirely. Managers are expected to be tolerant to the last, to watch employees who take liberties with taxpayers’ money and who fail to do their jobs and carry on as if it doesn’t matter. Managers appointed to turn around services that are failing, which often requires pruning the roses somewhat, have their positions undermined and the key card that is played is that of ‘workplace bullying’. I’ve seen it happen in both the Councils on which I served where senior management have folded in the face of accusations that would be considered pathetic in most private businesses. Nothing changes and the public loses every time.

Call me unreasonable, but sometimes eggs have to be broken to make an omelette. That’s not to advocate management by fear but workplaces are not democracies and neither should they be. Some people need to toughen up a bit. I never cease to be amazed that people might think when they take a job in a place like 10 Downing Street that it is going to be just like any other workplace.

Sometimes life at work is tough. Since the appropriately named head of a workplace bullying charity has found herself being publicly disembowelled in the broadcast media she may be reflecting on the irony of having put herself in a situation for which she was manifestly ill equipped.

It was nonetheless unwise for the Prime Minister’s ‘people’ flatly to deny Mr Rawnsley’s allegations. This was just asking for trouble. Whether these things affect how people vote who can tell, but I thought we are electing someone to run the country, not to run the Tufty Club.

The premise: Wife Swap meets Newsnight. The participants: 4 MPs, specifically and alphabetically: Nadine “living in fear of a suicide” Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire, 2005), Tim ‘30 miles away’ Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham, 1997); Austin ‘nee Haddock’ Mitchell (Labour, Great Grimsby since a 1977 by-election). and Mark ‘did he REALLY do THAT’ Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester, 1997). The task: stay in a Tower Block on a council estate with multiple social depravations, survive on benefits, live with methadone addiction, fast breeder nuclear families and socially trapped decent folk.

Each in their way has proved a fish out of water. The smarter ones, Oaten and Loughton, had the sense to ‘fess up’ to being just that. Each in his own way has attempted to empathise with people on the estate on which they were billeted, Oaten in Dagenham, the patch of the darling of the post-Blair leftists, Jon Cruddas, and some gang infested hell hole in Birmingham Ladywood, manor of formerly Labour, Clare ‘I won’t resign just yet’ Short.

Oaten listens, moralises, patronises, sympathises and is genuinely scared s***less but still gets involved in some good old fashioned community politics. He meets BNP voters, Labour voters and non voters and doesn’t particularly play party politics even if he is a bit too judgemental of one of his host’s £42 a week nicotine habit. Loughton too pitched in. He had the good sense to try to learn a bit about the area. Shoreham has its pockets of depravation, but full-on postcode gang warfare is not high on its list of concerns. Laughton observed and asked the right questions, even if his attempts at ‘ge’in down wiv da kidz’ were of jaw-dropping cringe worthyness, at least he wasn’t afraid to make himself look ridiculous.

Dorries, a late replacement for Iain Duncan-Smith, who had promised much in an utterly useless but great telly kind of way, made the mistake of playing Lady Bountiful with a couple of embittered and singularly scary single parents then blundered in with the size tens to a community relations issue of the kind rare in the ghettos of Mid Bedfordshire. She looked clueless and crass. Claiming that life is “much better now than when she grew up on a council estate” she showed how much she had forgotten. Materially she may have a point - personal computers, video games and cable TV weren’t part of my childhood either. But the council estates of my youth and therefore Nadine’s too were generally free of large scale worklessness and had not yet been flooded with cheep heroine by organised criminals.

But the icing on the cake of this little drama is the performance of Austin Mitchell. Why this former TV presenter agreed to take part when he wasn’t prepared to even try to play by the rules, had to be accompanied by his wife, live in a separate flat and generally claim that “MPs and councillors can’t do anything” beggared belief. Mitchell, who first won his seat in a difficult by-election and survived a hostile trend with a reputation as a good and popular local MP is probably too old to be expected to sleep on sofas. He’s also been too comfortable for too long and, despite having penned the funniest thing written during the entire expenses frenzy, is now an argument for a limit on the term that can be served by any individual MP. He’s old enough to know himself better and experienced enough to know better of the media. But worst of all was his playing up to the cameras - always a mistake on reality TV. His failure to have confidence in his power to deliver for people was miserable enough - when you lose that it really is time to stop, but even when he got a result, getting TV attention to the closure of a local youth club, it was all about Austin and not about the issue.

But anyone watching these political skirmishes might think it was the decision of the MPs alone to take part in the series. Don’t you believe it. Their party whips and press offices are sure to have had a shout and if they didn’t then they were failing to do their jobs. 

The Conservatives played it smart. Laughton was a safe pair of hands and he understood that the programme’s agenda suits the Tory narrative. Dorries, who is under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, is a self-made, working class Tory who has retained enough of a Scouse twang to be believable. If she does OK then fine, if not her bonkers-safe seat will re-elect her anyway. The Lib Dems backed a win-win. Rather than a Lembit Opik, with a larger ego and a smaller majority, they gambled on Oaten who is standing down at the election. Mr O, if he did OK might just give his successor a chance and rehabilitate himself for a future after Westminster or if he didn’t - well, what do you expect…

But what on earth was Labour thinking? Austin Mitchell was clearly not up to it. There were several MPs who could have carried it off and been a credit to their party. John Mann, the Bassetlaw MP, once lived in a council flat considerably more squalid than those featured, Martin Salter in Reading West is a man who can manage without creature comforts and Don Valley’s Caroline Flint may have misjudged her exit from the Government, but has definitely tolerated at least one Labour Party Young Socialists Summer Camp as part of a tiny minority of non-Trotskyites back before the expulsion of Militant - if you can survive torture  a Tower block is a doddle.

I’m sure there are others equally capable.  And this, I’m afraid, sums up Labour’s problem going into a close election, the political and media judgement of the party’s organisation has repeatedly been found wanting on the most basic of fronts. It is this that has let a Conservative Party that has still failed to date to convince the merge 40%+ needed for what passes as a mandate in this country hold a near winning lead.

Despite the manifest failings of the politicians, there were moments that showed that there is still hope. When the 30 or so Dagenham tenants got together at Mark Oaten’s instigation to kick off a campaign to have their blocks demolished they gave short shrift to the BNP councillor who gate crashed their event. You had to cheer.

David Cameron is so frequently compared to Tony Blair and by the same token Gordon Brown with John Major that it is worth looking for clues in the first few months of 1997.

During the winter of 1996-7 Conservative ministers tramped in front of the microphones, making the only claim they could reasonably make about the dire opinion poll position of their divided and exhausted party - that history shows the gap between parties narrowing, with the Government picking up support as an election approaches and that they expected things would be much closer than the polls suggested.

Broadly speaking this did not happen. Certainly some froth was blown off Mr Blair’s cappuccino from the dizzy heights of 25 point leads, but the expected landslide came about. However from January to April New Labour made very few mistakes. The policy mantras were by then finely honed, Mr Blair had slain his dragons, he was firmly in charge of his party and his team looked convincingly like a government in waiting. 

During January 2010 David Cameron still looks like a smooth performer, generally unruffled in the media and with an instinct for what not to do on camera. Other similarities with New Labour’s cakewalk in 1997 are less clear. The Conservative Party is patently less at ease with what David Cameron stands for than Labour was with a resurgent market-led social democracy in an immediate post-communist world. The financial crisis has meant that every party must re-evaluate its positions for the next Parliament. For the ill-at-ease Conservatives this has meant an opportunity to challenge Mr Cameron’s apparent acceptance of the New Labour consensus on the funding of public services.

A General Election year also means that ‘the team’ must come out of the cupboard in which they have been, seemingly, locked. David Cameron has succeeded brilliantly at ensuring that very few Conservative shadows beyond himself, George Osborne and William ‘Pop Boy’ Hague appear much.

The botching of proposals for married couple tax allowances shows the dangers of this approach. Suddenly different lines were emerging and Mr Cameron had to admit having he had ’screwed up’ as the only practical way of closing the story down.

Aside from the long-term wisdom of suggesting that tax advantages are a good reason to commit to married life, the episode also showed that the Conservatives are far from settled in their view of how they will manage their fiscal plans. Bold proposals for an emergency Budget within 50 days would, presumably, mean some idea at least of what it would involve. Little has emerged. The need for such a budget has since been played down. I suspect that David Cameron has known all along that austerity wouldn’t be popular.

Always best to ask somebody else how you look - and someone more objective than your wife is advisable.

Poster launches are something leaders can control. Mr Cameron ought to know something about agencies and how they are managed but it is all so much more difficult when the person in the photograph is yourself. I have no great insight into the detail of the Conservative campaign but I don’t expect we’ll see the same absurdly airbrushed image of ‘Dave’ at the next poster launch. The airbrushing was a mistake only acting to underline one of Mr Cameron’s negative - many voters see him as all presentation and no conviction.

Of course when the team comes out the cupboard they don’t just mess up their leader’s media, they mess up their own. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, appears to be well out of his depth. Getting caught fiddling the figures is never good and on a serious subject implied a cavalier disregard for the fears this kind of media raises. Grayling’s appearance on screens should lighten Labour hearts - it must be worth a few votes every time.

Matters may improve, but at present the Conservative team looks unconvincing, certainly less so than Tony Blair’s Shadow team. Brown, Straw, Cook, Mowlem, Dewer, Cunningham, Mandleson, Prescott, Blunkett, Beckett - OK so there was Ron Davies, but that aside it all had a bit more gravitas. Maybe there is a cunning plan - after all ‘Dave’ has now been around for quite a while - in fact ‘Dave’ has become part of the political furniture - not much of a change really.

How much of this matters is a moot point. If the country has made up its mind then all of this may amount to simply the blowing away of froth. The difference may be that, while there may be a settled view on Labour, the electorate is far from content that the Conservatives are a convincing alternative. If February and March continue in the same vein for the Conservatives then Mr Cameron could yet have a problem but as it stands it is his election to lose.

Not because of any strange allergy, but because I just have to finish the bag/bowl/dish - whatever’s there in fact. I know I shouldn’t and it’s probably impolite but the last few in the bowl always seem to be screaming ‘EAT ME’.

My own manifest failings aside, good nibbles should be an essential part of any evening involving food and drink but there’s nothing wrong with nibbles for their own sake. There’s so much more around to chose from than average crisps and nuts - so why be boring?

Those who bought into the post Christmas diet and are clinging onto the wagon for dear life might not want to read any further. Calories go with the territory, but good pre-dinner nibbles should really avoid the sacks of chemical flavouring that is liberally strewn over many of the snacks on the market.

Some of the best nibbles are available from oriental stores and corner shops, mostly without carrying a brand. Here are five easy to find nibbles to try - and remember, you don’t have to eat the whole bag!

Kasugai Peas

If you like your nibbles spicy and you are fed up Bombay Mix try these. There are two varieties of spice coated green peas, Kasugai are milder and more edible to most people while the fiery Wasabi Peas will bring tears to the eyes of many a hardened Vindaloo fan. Those who have to eat the whole bag will be reassured that they are a relatively low calorie alternative to most nibbles. The packaging can be confusing - so if in doubt ask for help before you buy.

£1.40 Seewoo Chinese Supermarket, Cradock Road (10-6 daily)

Tyrrell’s Chips

You can’t have a list of nibbles without crisps and Tyrrell’s are best. At least when you are eating far too many of these no less fattening but really rather brilliant crisps you can assuage your guilt by reading the pious blurb on the bag. To summarise, potatoes grown their own farm by this small Herefordshire manufacturer, cooked on site, no artificial flavourings and so on. Personally, I’ve always veered away from most flavoured crisps/chips (when is a ‘crisp’ in fact a ‘chip’?) and though some of the Tyrrell’s range are passable, the Lightly Sea Salted of Naked (salt free) varieties win out. Their Mixed Root Vegetable Chips also deserve a mention, though at £2.99 for 150g are on the expensive side.

£2.95 300g / £1.77 150g, good supermarkets

Home Cooked Prawn Crackers

Out of ready-cooked bags or from the local take away prawn crackers have about as much taste as the average slab of. In fact you could be forgiven at times for assuming that prawn crackers ARE polystyrene but when freshly cooked prawn crackers are a different proposition entirely. Chinese supermarkets stock ready-to-cook boxes containing loads of the things - excellent value. Just heat an inch of oil (vegetable, nut oil, anything but olive oil) till hot. Put the crackers in the oil till they puff up, drain on soft paper and serve. Quite impressive, though dead easy and light years better. 

65p Seewoo, 15 Cradock Road, Reading or good Chinese supermarkets

Imperial Japanese Style Rice Crackers

There may be a variety of rice crackers that doesn’t contain various E number colourings, but if that doesn’t bother you then this variety is well worth trying. Rice crackers are somehow less bloating than other nibbles are work well with beer. Some people, however, find rice crackers rather tame, if so try Osaka Hot Crackers as an alternative.

95p 100g, good supermarkets (or unbranded varieties from Chinese supermarkets)

Bhuja Mixes

Bhuja Mixes are made in Australia and there is a good argument for simply popping to the corner shop and buying perfectly good mixes made more locally for rather less. But if that’s just not convenient and you have to get some mix at the supermarket then Bhuja’s range is a good bet. Their Nut Mix with peanuts, almonds, cashews and good spice flavouring is the pick, though the cracker mix offers a fusion of south Asian and Japanese styles to amuse your guests.

£2.19 150g, most supermarkets

In the Summer I wrote about the widespread outbreak of whinging that followed the few days of half-decent warm weather. Now, after a few days of cold-ish, if stunningly pretty weather they are at it again blaming whoever and whatever for having to spend a few extra hours in our cars or, God forbid, having actually to WALK!

I managed to get caught up in it myself. I’m normally pretty sensible about not taking my car out when there is snow forecast, but I wanted to get to Bob Green’s funeral. So having checked the forecast on the BBC website the previous evening I set out from the office expecting the advertised show shower to to be just that - a shower. Jokingly I departed with Oates words, “I’m going outside now, I may be gone for some time”. Four hours later having made a round trip of two miles from my office to Caversham Bridge I managed to escape the IDR, found a sensible place to park for the night and walked home.

Parked on the IDR the phone calls I received made it very clear what had happened - seeing the weather getting worse employers around town had let their staff leave early. Traffic piled onto roads already becoming treacherous, the sudden increase in traffic on a very busy shopping day meant that the junctions and pinch points locked up and traffic ground to a halt. Once there is gridlock with snow falling whatever ‘plan’ might exist for gritting has no chance.

I tuned in to BBC Radio Berkshire, something I rarely do as it plays excruciating middle of the road music, but BBC local radio has proved its worth again and again in times of emergency, mild or more serious. To anyone listening it was pretty clear that it wasn’t just an accident, but general gridlock and there was nothing to be done but be patient and wait. But then the moaning kicks off: “Where are the gritters?” - stuck in the traffic with you, obviously! “Where are the Council Officials?” - stuck in their office - and what, exactly, are they qualified to do about it anyway? “Why won’t the Council grit the pavements?” “Where are the Police?” “Why can other countries cope with the snow when we can’t?” “Why won’t somebody do something? Anything!”

Some of these things might be fair questions but underlying it there is a widespread failure for individuals to take responsibility for their own lives. Those of us who have lived in places generally colder than balmy Berkshire realise that we have to take precautions, remember how to drive in bad conditions, follow the rules of the road, use a shovel, walk even. If, instead of whining for the Council to clear the paths when it has enough to do getting the roads moving for things like Ambulances, we all cleared a bit pavement in front of their home, or maybe helped a neighbour if they really can’t, things would be a lot easier for everyone.

While less complaining and more getting on with it would make this a better and more successful country, the serious points that deserve addressing.

The fact is that during fifteen years of mild winters Council’s looked to save money but cutting back on what they call ‘winter maintenance’. Reading deserves some credit for having resisted this trend, even so, if you put all of Reading’s roads in a straight line they would stretch all the way to Sheffield and the pavements would stretch there and back, so there have to be choices over what gets done and what doesn’t. So the main routes and then the bus routes (mostly) get done and the rest doesn’t.

But what these contracts have never managed to achieve, and because of mild winters there is no decent list of locations, is to deal with those areas off the main routes that cause real danger in icy conditions - bad corners, steep hills and so on. If politicians want to do something constructive and officials want to respond to public concern then making a list for next time would be a step forward. But they can’t do that without the help of the public who would need to let them know which bit of road turns into a skidpan in icy conditions - it might seem obvious, but it really isn’t. After that we need more flexible contracts that allow for bit of gritting by hand.

Also there is a basic problem with winter maintenance - much of what it costs pays people to do nothing. The BBC website couldn’t get a forecast for Monday right on Sunday night - the person planning the Council’s budget can’t predict when, exactly, snow and ice will happen or how much there will be. The result is that gritters have to be on call from the middle of October to the middle of March - that costs money whether it snows or not. If anyone can think of a better way I’m sure the Council will be all ears - so far nobody has.

Gritters also rely on weather forecasts - and if they are as wrong as they seemed to be on Monday the job is much more difficult.

But despite the whining from some calling in to radio stations, once I had got out of my car I saw all sorts of people pitching in to help try to get the traffic moving, giving people a push, helping dig them out. The University of Reading staff assisting on Redlands Road and nearby are just some that deserve a special mention.

There was even a loud Scotsman near the town centre advising sliding drivers to “Yer dinnae want te dey that, Jim. Stope revvin’ yer engine an’ pyut the damn thing in secon’ gear, reet.” Normally it can be assumed that people shouting at the passing traffic might have had too much Christmas spirit - but in this case it was sound advice.

Happy solistice.

There are some must haves: the photography should draw you in, make you hungry and do justice to the presentation, the ingredients should be clear and quantities unambiguous; method should be well written, using easy to grasp descriptions and should be set out in a way that is usable while actually cooking or should just be a beautiful thing. Attention to detail is important too. Unfortunately there is no way to tell these days if recipes have been tested. In todays trimmed-to-the-bone world of publishing it is often skipped - a sloppy approach that leads to slop on a plate.

Giving a any book for Christmas that’s about Christmas is a little too late in the day to be of any use. I’m something of a Humbug when it comes to Christmas, but those I know who aren’t swear by Delia’s Happy Christmas (Delia Smith, Ebury). Like her or loath her, reissued this year with updated and appropriately swish photography, it’s a reliable bible for the season.

A really useful chef doesn’t necessarily produce a really useful book.  There’s a place for stuff like The Fat Duck Cookbook (Heston Blumnethal, Bloomsbury) but it is firmly on the coffee table. Popping down to Lidl for 50g of gold frankincense tears then legging it to John Lewis to pick up a rotary evaporator to complete your 16 element Saddle of Venison creation may well prove a challenge if you leave it till Christmas Eve.

So here are five from the cream of the 2009 crop.

Snowflakes and Schnapps

(Jane Lawson) Murdoch £14/£20*

Profit conscious publishers shy away from producing beautiful things like this these days. The dust jacket alone would be an early Christmas for any printer. The recipes, despite being put together by an Australian, provide a tour of Northern European winter cuisine. The photography and design are flawless and provides a plethora of ideas. The culinary influences can be found in the best modern American cuisine. Books like this deserve to succeed 

World Kitchen

(Gordon Ramsay) Quadrille 2009  £8/£12*

The ubiquitous Gord is not to everyone’s taste. I find him inspiring, fun and he shares my attitude to vegetarians - I can see how he might irritate some. But his books are clear, well written, accurate and, highly usable. World Kitchen’s recipes are solid and it would be an excellent book for someone who wanted to cook but lacked confidence - put your trust in Gord!

The Songs of Sapa

(Luke Nguyen) Murdoch £15/£20*

Vietnamese food is about as trendy as it gets. Luke Nguyen is chef of The Red Lantern, one of Sydney’s leading Vietnamese restaurants - and in Sydney. If the design and typography are perhaps a little too elaborate to be entirely practical that is compensated by the photography which is part culinary and part travelogue. Interestingly organised into the regions of Viet Nam, the ingredients may seem challenging but most can be sourced through Chinese supermarkets such as that in Cradock Road, Reading.

The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

(Tarek Malouf) Ryland, Peters & Small £8.45/£20*

Cute cakes, comforting cookies and other sweet things from the Portobello Road bakery. Baking may or may not be the new rock and roll, but this is as good a guide as any to re-creating fashionable American cakes. An invitation to bake, sensibly organised and slim - even though two recipes per page seems a little mean on space for the price.

The Exotic Meat Cookbook

(Jeanette Edgar and Rachel Goodwin) The Friday Project 2009 £12/£20*

Not everyone would thank you for a cookbook that includes recipes for antelope buffalo, ostrich, kangaroo, crocodile and even camel. But the fact that venison, veal and rabbit are among the ‘exotic’ meats is testimony to home limited our collective tastes have become. Many of these meats can be sourced here in Reading through Vicars in West Street and some can even be found in supermarkets. Zebra Saltimbocca, Stuffed Wild Boar Tenderloin - why not?

* typical online/in store prices, rather than RRP.

Why on earth did Raymond Blanc, who seems a sensible enough chap, agree to continue with the third series of The Restaurant (BBC 2 Thursday) once the current band of no-hopers had been selected to appear.

Surely there must have been a point where Raymond and his sidekicks might have held up their hands and said ‘let’s call the whole thing off’. Is this really the best that a nationwide trawl for would be business partners of one brightest stars of UK cuisine can produce? Last year’s lot were pretty poor but this year’s are just dire.

We are now halfway through this debacle and there are very few signs of improvement.

Aside from Natalie and Sandy who were thrown out largely because of their kamikaze attempt to open a coconut with a kitchen knife before the competition got started, the attempts to address the various catering challenges have revealed either borderline competence at best but more often complete ineptitude.

Natalie and Sandy were a danger to themselves and couldn’t cook. Sarah and Joe were eliminated because they couldn’t explain their concept, not even a bit, not even a name. I find myself again asking the blinding obvious question about reality TV “had these people not bothered to watch the previous series? What did they think was going to happen?”

A pair of florists from Windsor bit the dust - Janet combined interpersonal skills of a cabbage and the culinary talent of a tulip while husband Sean trotted out the blarney in a feeble attempt to conceal his total lack of organisational ability.

When finally the restaurants opened Frances and Lucy, both young blond and painfully naïve, hit some hard luck when the oven appeared to be out of action - shouldn’t production check out this kind of thing before it all starts - but they proved incapable when it came to the relatively simple task of ordering decent fish.

Then in Thursday night’s episode (19 Nov 09) ex-army misfits with the exceedingly silly names Barney and Badger fell on their swords despite appearing to be the pair most likely to succeed the previous week. Barney, or was it Badger but why should I care, failed to run front-of-house despite an Army career in logistics - scary. He decided he just couldn’t cope, as it was “all so different to the army”. Just get the can of Tenants Purple Tin now and start shouting at passing cars.

This sorry performance leaves four couples as putative business partners to the very short French bloke. Being short, as I have pointed out before, is de rigueur in business reality shows - Alan Sugar sits in a high chair between Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer, Le Blanc stands on a step between David Moore and Sarah Willingham.

The remaining four couples inspire little confidence. Daisy and Nadine stood around like lemons at the market and produced badly presented slop. Chris and Nathan bitch at each other. While it seems Chris can cook, front-of-house Nathan’s relations with the customers are modelled on Basil Fawlty. JJ and James, are a culinary Jedward - blond and dangerously talentless. These eighties leftovers and quite the most annoying creatures on TV right now survived past halfway by default without the first idea of how to cook to the manifest exasperation of Sarah Willington.

Indeed Ms Willington’s expressions, which mostly say ‘what the Blanc have I done agreeing to invest in this’ are by far the most entertaining aspect of The Restaurant.

That leaves Rebecca and Stephen, aka Mr and Mrs Blobby. Their restaurant, The Front Room soon to be re-title Chav-u-Like, proved to be the best of a catastrophic bunch largely because Stephen can do the numbers, having worked in a hospital kitchen, and is ‘up for it’, despite Rebecca repeatedly gagging at anything that isn’t spam and beans and having eaten, I speculate, a considerable number of the pies.

Maybe it is a recession thing. Perhaps more sensible people think twice right now
about giving up their day job to take a punt at winning a reality series. Perhaps by now sensible people who might otherwise have been interested have actually, unlike this lot, watched the show and concluded that “running a restaurant is far more difficult than it looks”.

Meanwhile spare a thought for Raymond - he could have walked. I’m sure a quick phone call to fellow shortie Nick Sarkosy and the considerably less daunting task of EU President could have been his for the asking.

The fact is it was perfectly possible for the handed down decision of the Prime Minister to go against the advice of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (an awkward title if ever there was) to be robustly defended, politically if not intellectually. It was equally possible while doing so robustly to defend the independence of free academic enquiry and the right of scientists to present the evidence.

These are not incompatible things. The very point of ‘advisors’ is to provide ‘advice’. The point of scientists is to study the evidence and reach scientific conclusions. They do not make policy, neither do they justify the policy that is made. It is not their job. It is perfectly reasonable for politicians and policy makers to disagree with their advisors. To take in other considerations - social, political, even moral is an entirely acceptable approach..

The Government’s justification for its continuing a failed policy of prohibition and the enrichment of organised crime need only to be that is the alternative - regulation and taxation -remains unacceptable to the ’silent majority’ or to ‘middle England’ or to the Daily Mail. In other words, the scientists may be right but our reading of those we represent says that they are not convinced of the alternatives to prohibition.

One might think the Government wrong, but fair enough - it’s their view. However that would, of course, beg the question - ok now, so where’s the debate? But a debate would require a Government confident of their arguments. Instead we have a Home Secretary that has chosen to act like the Interior Minister of a banana republic. The sacking of David Nutt is the single most authoritarian act of any Home Secretary, certainly since the Miners’ Strike and perhaps in my lifetime.

Using organisational means to strangle debate and suppress dissent has been a failure of Labour’s apparatus for as long as I can remember. There have long been disturbing tendencies within the people’s Party to shut down discussion rather than take it on, to attempt to use rules, procedures, whatever power is available to kill opposition. The justification is usually the need for self-discipline. But it doesn’t work. The reality political battles are rarely won by procedural mechanisms alone. When Labour faced the treat of Trokskyite infiltration years of manipulating the rules had failed it require an intellectual and political confrontation to defeat cancer within the party.

But they don’t learn. The sacking of Professor Nutt by a former Union apparatchik is the politics of Labour’s internal fixing in the Government arena. I know about Labour internal fixing - I worked in it and I left.

Had Professor Nutt desperately wanted to keep his unpaid advisory role it would probably have been better not to draw a perfectly logical analogy between the relative safety records of horse riding, a dangerous business in which regularly results in hospitalisation, paralysis and death (even for Superman) and ecstasy where such incidents are rare and largely as a result of a lack of regulation. His statement was part of an argument that the classification of drugs should be based on the harm they cause. Truthful, certainly, wise, less so.

Professor Nutt’s answer was not that of a politician - that’s because he isn’t a politician. That is supposed to be the point of independent advisors.

The downfall of the new Labour project has not been so much about what new Labour did or did not do in power but the failure of many of its disciples to understand that Stalinism doesn’t work, never did, never will.

Their ranking was based on the ‘votes’ of its various correspondents. They gave scores based on art/culture, architecture/cityscape, food and drink, buzz, quality of life and world status. They ended up with a list and a book, “Time Out: The World’s Greatest Cities“, which contains articles on the top 75 and is a decent enough read.

Looking through their top ten in The Times (7 Sept 2009) made me sit down and think through mine - not really against the same criteria, because I’d say some of it is a little dubious - especially ‘world status’, which can be a good or bad thing. Moscow, for example, had a much more significant ‘world status’ 25 years ago than today, but it wasn’t much fun.

The fun of lists is disagreeing with them. I have six of the ten in my top ten with numbers 4 and 5 the same as Time Out’s. Comparing cities is like comparing apples and oranges - unfair and largely a matter of taste. But that doesn’t stop us preferring one to the other.

Here goes: 

1. London

Sometimes you are too close to a good thing to realise just how good it is. It wasn’t until I travelled more extensively, regularly and critically that I really appreciated London. It is also fair to say that during the same period London’s regeneration lept ahead. No disagreement with Time Out on the top two - just the order. Though I love New York, London’s cultural heritage, its history, its landscape and its diversity gives it the edge. And so it should have - after all it had a head start of six hundred years or so. It was the de-facto capital of the world for two centuries and these days you can even get a decent meal. Yes the transport is a pain sometimes, yes it will cost you a few bob more than most cities and yes living there has its drawbacks. But can you seriously beat walking home across Waterloo Bridge as the summer sun rises? Not anywhere on earth. 

2. New York

The USA offers two things that European cities never match - great value and great service. Despite being the capital of the world, New York delivers both - certainly in the stores and the restaurants. New York has a unique buzz, infectious energy and honesty, an evocative setting and a scale for which nothing can prepare you on your first visit. The skyline, different yet equally breathtaking from numerous viewpoints, is one of the greatest sights. The best of those probably from Liberty and Ellis Islands or from the Rockafeller Center observation deck looking downtown. Tiring yes, but never tiresome. I’ve never felt ready to leave New York and I don’t expect I ever will.

3. Amsterdam

Not everybody’s cup of tea, but a personal favorite. The most civilised place in Europe  and the most chilled of cities. Libertarian and liberal, beautiful and business minded, wealthy and welcoming. Great venues, surprisingly good food, world-renowned culture, great and quirky museums. Recreation for the weekend? You couldn’t ask for more than Amsterdam.  

4. Berlin

Clubs, cocktails and the coolest of buildings. A constant series of reinventions - mostly enforced. Two of everything by virtue of its division. The best of modern architecture and regeneration and the most poignant of memorials. Berlin continues to emerge from the horrors of the 20^th century toward its rightful place as one of the world’s greatest cities. The best beer and the best bars push it high on my list despite it not being the greatest place to eat.

5. Barcelona

The editor chapesse from Time Out, Jessica Cargill Thompson, said of Barca: “Though it is much loved by the many who visit, and is at the heart of a fierce Catalan identity, it is hard to argue that Barcelona’s global influence extends much beyond design, football and experimental cooking”. But really, what else matters? Shall we mention the climate, the transport that works, the unspeakably cool bars, the Med and their lasting symbolic resistance to Franco and his murderous fascist scumbags.

6. San Francisco

A string of villages each with its own character within a sprawl around the bay, but it’s the influence and invention of the place that has made SF a true world city. Pacific rim food and Californian ease are all part of it but it’s the most photogenic of places as well as the most open. I doubt that anyone could fail to understand why so many who first intended to visit never manage to leave.

7. Sydney

Another bay, another bridge, another city, same ocean, same feel as San Francisco. Not the most isolated of the Australian cities - Perth has than dubious honour, but isolated enough to be at once a great centre and at the same time out of the world as we know it. Here I agree with Time Out’s collective judgement. Sydneysiders have the lifestyle and the climate to die for and it is easy to argue that its all you could need or wish for, but if you enjoy Europe’s diversity and differences then life in Sydney could prove frustrating and while it has made the effort, culturally it can’t really compete - but then that’s not why you go. Looking at that harbour can make up for a lot of paintings.

8. Milan

Rome has its history and its Pope, Venice has its canals and had its gondoliers, Florence has Botticelli and backpackers, but Milan has the business. The great creativity of that most creative of nations now has its heart in the northern capital. A major world influence,  much under rated, some fantastic food, serious shopping and the most beautiful building on the planet.

9. Paris

The question is really why Paris only makes number nine in my list? Well positives first. Up there with London for culture and history, a beautiful place with an evocative skyline, a tradition of city planning that still holds, decent shopping, yes some great food and THE café culture that defines the rest. The ‘buts’: Paris is hard work, overrun by tourists, its restaurants fail to understand that service means being open when people want to eat, food stands still - while other cuisines move on the French believe they have nothing to learn and there are massive social problems all too evident even close to the tourist centres. Despite all that it is still a great destination. Twenty years ago it knocked spots off London. Not anymore. 

10. Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Of course not in the same league as those above, not a world city and the food’s not great, but this is MY list after all. These days it’s marketed as Newcastle-Gateshead - largely because many of the iconic landmarks are actually in Gateshead - the Angel of the North, the Baltic, the Sage, half of the seven bridges, but the heart beats north of the Tyne in Newcastle itself. A place to party, a place of production and invention, a place of pride and passion. The gateway to the most breathtaking coastline, vast deserted beaches, bleak and beautiful wild spaces and canny shops. Not really England - border country with a Celtic Christian heritage, a place that’s separate, that speaks its own language - Britain’s Catalonia, Britain’s Barcelona. Home, Newcastle.  

Hon mentions: Edinburgh, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester, Rome.

Yet to visit but obviously up there: Buenos Aries, Cape Town, Chicago, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Vancouver.