‘A ntonia is too old to go to Chequers,’ said my mother. I was bitterly disappointed.
‘You mean she can’t rule the country at the age of 13?’ said my father, making it clear this was a good joke.
It was Christmas 1945 and the Labour Party had been elected in the summer. Although Frank Pakenham — as he then was, before he became Lord Longford — had failed to be elected for Oxford, most of his friends now filled the government benches.
The question was
