Arrived at a nice Soho Chinese restaurant last night slightly before 7pm. My wife managed to get lost somewhere around Poland Street (I tried to guide her in by various local landmarks until I realised they were mostly identical lingerie shops and strip clubs) and the Appleyards were fashionably a little late. So I had a quarter of an hour to survey the street scene. Then there was a lot of urgent rushing up and down Berwick Street- where the market stalls had gone and council workers were disinfecting the gutters. Although I've lived in London most of my life, I've never seen a drug transaction done so openly. A young guy in a hood sold something from a small CD type bag to a gaunt couple. Next, a disturbed chap walking about without a shirt lifted a drain cover and rummaged around for cigarette butts. Anyway these vignettes set me up nicely for an excellent meal at Yuatcha where the waitresses look like they've strayed from a 1930s Fu Manchu film and say things like 'Did you enjoy your evening Sir' with an air of polite menace. By 10 when we left Soho was like bedlam with drunks careening around with the velocity of pin balls. The humidity raises the decibel levels since everyone hangs around outside bars and pubs.

And so to another scene of despair- Glasgow East. Bryan Appleyard ventured the thought that Labour might be the cause of the poverty that afflicts its voters. After all they've been in power there since the turn of the century or thereabouts. If they vote Labour they can console themselves with the thought they are REAL, OLD- actually they never get that far- LABOUR GRITTY PEOPLE. Since they are life's risk takers- boozing, smoking, the fried Mars bars- how come they don't vote Tory on the same basis as buying a Lottery ticket? Who knows? The Tories might then have to come up with something to deal with social problems that are a disgrace to this country and to the Party that has done nothing about them.