Saturday column – July 6

It's probably top secret and going under a name like The Fitness For Office Commission, meeting as occasion demands in the back room of a prestigious central London club, with comfy padded leather chairs, and a well stocked bar.

For obvious reasons, there will be no written agenda, although if you send a civil servant to a meeting their hands will start to twitch at the opportunity to produce some paperwork.

With the future of the country at a crossroads, and the identity of the next Prime Minister critical to the national destiny, this commission (if it exists) will have been taking a close look at the candidates.

Here's how I imagine such a meeting will have gone...

Enter Sir Humphrey, beaming. Seated in anticipation are his colleagues, The Fitness For Office Commissioner (or FF Off Comm for short), and Agent X, from the MI5 typing pool.

"Have you got them?"

"Yes," replies Sir Humphrey, "They're all here. And very interesting reading too!"

He takes the bundles of dossiers from under his arms, and hands out copies. Written in red ink on the covers of each are the tell-tale words, BORIS JOHNSON, JEREMY HUNT, JEREMY CORBYN.

They start reading the first.

"Good grief! He's a Yank!" cries Agent X as he reaches the end of the first paragraph.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," smirks Sir Henry.

FF Off Comm: "Oh, Eton. Jolly good show. Oxford too."

"Wait until you get to the bit about his personal life."

They get to the bit about his personal life. They are engrossed for the next 20 minutes.

At length Agent X breaks the silence.

"It would be terrible if any of this leaked, wouldn't it?" he guffaws.

"Why, the public would think he was a buffoon with truth issues."

FF Off Comm: "This is all excellent. It gives us something to work with."

It's time to turn to the folder marked JEREMY HUNT.

FF Off Comm: "Charterhouse, eh? I see that he was at Oxford too. Thank heavens we haven't got any of those Cambridge Commies."

Sir Humphrey: "He became a very successful businessman. He's rich."

"Oh lord, he's not a member of this club, is he? I can't picture him. What's he like?"

"A bit of a blank canvas, I'm afraid. He was health secretary for years and seemed to enjoy it. It gets worse, as Theresa May thought he was a safe pair of hands. And he didn't resign over this ridiculous Brexit business either."

Discouraged, the three turn to the last folder, marked JEREMY CORBYN and immediately begin to cheer up again.

"At last, a Left-wing, tax-and-spend rabble rouser to reclaim power for the State!" says FF Off Comm excitedly.

"He'll need a vastly expanded Civil Service to implement all those plans of his," chirrups Sir Humphrey.

"No question about it, he is the man to be Britain's next Prime Minister," says Agent X.

"I think I should warn you, he isn't one with an eye for detail."

FF Off Comm: "Oh, this just gets better and better. What school was he at?"

Sir Humphrey is unsure.

"It was up north somewhere."

They go back to the files but are having trouble finding the reference.

Agent X: "Maybe it was somewhere like Haileybury."

They come across the answer simultaneously.

"A grammar school," they chorus in pained incredulity.

FF Off Comm: "I don't think this Corbyn chap is the type Britain wants."

As Sir Humphrey collects the folders, he says to Agent X: "You know what to do."

......................

There has been a great fuss about levels of pay at the upper echelons of the BBC.

But isn't all celebrity pay madness? We don't know what they get over at ITV, or Sky, but I'd guess they are paid considerably more.

I'm curious about the other end of the league table. Who is the worst paid media type in the entire Beeb empire?

Which DJs and presenters are so low-flying that they are at the bottom of the salary table? And are their shows correspondingly bargain basement rubbish?

We must be talking about somebody like the BBC adviser on the Swiss navy.

Or somebody in the realms of local TV and radio, like the cricketing correspondent in Aberdeen, or the hip-hop gangsta garage rap (if such a genre exists) DJ in Eastbourne.

And also the person who wipes the cobwebs off cameras at Wimbledon, who is so meanly paid they've jacked it in.

..............

One of the bizarre aspects of the Hong Kong protests was the unveiling by the students of a flag harking back to British imperial rule.

If they really are students, how can they possibly remember what it was like before 1997? They probably did it to wind up the Chinese authorities.

When I went to Hong Kong in the days of British rule – my brother-in-law and sister lived there – nobody was bothered about a lack of democracy. British rule involved leaving the Chinese population to get on with it.

My memories are somewhat tainted by an encounter with customs at Gatwick on my return who tried to confiscate my brand new camera, which I had actually bought just before going.

They searched my luggage and their eyebrows raised as they found an ornate silver pipe which I had bought at Temple Street market as a glitzy gift for somebody.

"It's an opium pipe," they told me.

A couple of hours in detention followed while they did forensic tests which gave it (and me) the all clear.