But Mr Bloch has set an example it might profit other biographers to follow. On the grapevine, I hear tell that Mr Michael Holroyd is busy rewriting the first volume of his learned biography, Bernardette Shaw: The Beardless Years, and my old friend and quaffing partner Kenneth Rose is hard at work revising his acclaimed Royal biography, King Georgina V. At the same time, I am the proud possessor of a comprehensive library on the Falklands conflict and I watch the BBC's Top Gear every week: further proof of my masculinity is surely no longer needed. But is Mr Bloch correct in his belief that the Duchess of Windsor was a fellow? Alas, I can shed precious little light on the matter, as I only met the good lady once, backstage after her victory at the International Arm-Wrestling Championship in Copenhagen - and gained no impression one way or the other. Or, in other words that Wallis was not a Wallis but a Wallace.

I suppose we may now expect a flood of books claiming that I myself am a woman. But nothing could be further from the truth, I wear tweed suits, smoke a pipe, subscribe to the Spectator, take pleasure in exchanging banter on sporting themes with male colleagues, and whenever I spot a little birdie flying through the air I celebrate the event by miming ("Bang! Bang!") a successful potshot at it. Instead they will open another pack of lager, and drink it silently and very fast.. In this latest tome, Michael claims that the Duchess may have been a Duke. I note with interest that my old friend and quaffing partner Mr Michael Bloch has penned another of his annual biographies of the Duchess of Windsor.

But they are not inclined to love the party of the virtuous, who warned them at the time that there was more to life than the trough.When the day of judgement comes for the Tories, these chastened citizens will not swarm to Trafalgar Square with champagne and funny hats They will toast the result at home in front of the box They will not dance. Millions of people took the Thatcher shilling for nearly two decades, and used it to buy into a system whose values were greed, selfishness and the right of the strong to trample the weak Now they do not like themselves very much They will punish those who led them astray. Instead, Labour in particular faces an electorate impatient to see the Tories out but with phenomenally low expectations about what Labour might achieve.Disillusion with politics, the Thatcherite myth that all change results from external and uncontrollable economic forces, is only part of the story Shame is an equally potent factor. When I lived in Germany, and the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) used to agonise their supporters by one ghastly blunder after another, they joked: "Scheisse! Trotzdem, SPD!" ("Oh, shit! But we're SPD in spite of it!") That dogged hope is something that neither Labour nor the SPD can count on today. I suspect that the early years of a Blair government will turn out to be more vigorous and interesting than we think, but Labour is carefully avoiding any Wilsonish promises to transform society in its first hundred days.Even the scarred old constancy which made people vote Labour through thick and thin has faded. The same people anticipate in opposition only a merciless internal shoot-out, which will probably end in the party's capture by the extreme nationalist Right.Nobody expects a New Jerusalem from New Labour. Britain under Tony Blair may be necessary and inevitable, but it is hard to find much driving enthusiasm for it.