Norman Arches

You would be very surprised if I were to name one of them, but people have told me that Norman Tebbit was charming and kindly in real life. I believe that, both because of who has said it to me, and because it is people with carefully cultivated reputations for "niceness" who are complete and utter nightmares in the flesh.

So it is sad to see Tebbit reduced to the bad schoolboy point about the name of the Nazi Party, as it is sad to see the Daily Telegraph reduced to publishing that, above the line and in its hallowed print edition.

Alas, Tebbit is of the generation that has never quite recovered from having been both too young to have fought in the War, and too old for rock'n'roll. Elegantly skewered by Philip Larkin, they tellingly devoured his work as it was published. And they were key drivers of Thatcherism.

Not that it did much for them. Defunding the Police, which has largely been pursued over the last 10 years, is little more than semantically different from privatising the Police. With its advocacy of drug legalisation and of uncontrolled immigration, with its talk of "gender identity" and of "sex work", reading Black Lives Matter is like reading the post-Thatcherite Right.

But the Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.