Swings of the Pendulum

Waiting for the ship to join the northbound convoy through the Suez Canal, I’ve been reading the Duff Cooper Diaries (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005). As always when studying political memoirs of the period 1922-1959, I’m struck by the number of MPs who defected from the then Liberal Party to Labour following bitter divisions amongst the Liberals. From the pages of Liberal Democrat News, it would appear that the trend is in the opposite direction at present, though mainly among councillors rather than MPs. If the Iraq misery goes on for much longer, however, it can only be a matter of time when others cross the floor (preferably before losing their seats!).

Duff Cooper, of course, was a Conservative — very much part of the Establishment, yet libertarian in most things. His candour regarding his amorous activities (including his enthusiastic patronage of Paris brothels before the War) is startling and certainly perplexed his son, John Julius Norwich, who edited the Dairies. I heard John Julius give an excellent, witty talk on them at last year’s London Library Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in London. It must have been very odd growing up with a Society beauty (Diana Cooper) as a mother, and a rake of a man-about-town, politician and diplomat as a father. I don’t know who my father is (or was). But I guess at least in my maturity I would have preferred that he were a lothario, rather than a bore.