Philip Pullman appoints himself as honorary adviser to the Conservative Party:
I've noticed that the Conservative party has been rather at a loss recently. It doesn't know what it stands for or what it ought to be proposing to do in government. So in a friendly spirit of helpfulness, I thought I'd point out some policies that resonate with old-fashioned ideas of the sort that a truly conservative party might well feel at home with. By good luck, these policies are without a current champion, and any party taking them up would find a natural body of support ready and waiting... ...
Lovely stuff! I'd vote for the Tories if they had this manifesto. But please don't give Philip Pullman a Dukedom - he's already too much in demand. I called to get tickets for his lecture in Newcastle on the morning they were released - and they had all gone. The same thing happened to me when I tried to get tickets for Coldplay at Newcastle Radio Metro Arena this December. The man's as popular as the biggest selling band of the year!