previous meetings when we encountered one another not long after. And oddly enough, this never, ever happens with Labour politicians -- even though we are clearly in genial disagreement over major issues. They inevitably greet me with warm recollection years after a joint radio or television gig -- even if the occasion involved heated conflict. (Indeed, most senior Labour figures, at least during the Blair era, seemed to have startlingly accurate recollections of every interaction with a journalist they had ever had. Do they keep a database?) And again oddly, it is the Tory modernisers -- perhaps because they are more likely to  be "toffs" than striving achievers from ordinary backgrounds -- who are the worst. It is not the Thatcherite, aspirational, state school-educated Tories who look over your shoulder when they are talking to you: it is the snotty, condescending "one nation" paternalists for whom you are only of interest so long as you are being "supportive" (ie as faithful as a Labrador). No names, no pack drill, but you know who you are. I wonder if the Tory leadership, so anxious to expunge its "nasty" image, has any idea that the real answer lies not in embracing unpopular environmentalism or unaffordable foreign aid policies but in addressing their own deeply unpleasant social manners? Believe it or not, the great mass of voters whom they will never meet do pick up the vibrations -- the hint of contempt for the views and anxieties of ordinary people (about say, immigration)