At times like this, I think of Stafford Cripps. A vegetarian and teetotaller, who reputedly lunched exclusively on carrots, Cripps was Labour chancellor during the postwar austerity years. Even after he devalued the pound, the public gave him a positive approval rating of 11 per cent. Before that, despite strict rationing and income tax at nine shillings (45p), it was 33 per cent. Cripps came from a wealthy background but, to look at him, you wouldn’t have known it. For most of his time in office, he was very thin and very ill, and he died shortly after stepping down. He was described – by a diplomat, not a Labour colleague – as “the nearest thing to a saint I have ever met”.
How unlike our own dear contemporary politicians, for some of whom life seems to be one champagne reception after another, and many of whom so visibly enjoy the high life. Corfu isn’t at all exotic, or even particularly fashionable. But there’s one almost ludicrously beautiful enclave on the north-eastern coast which is much favoured by the people with the kind of cut-glass accent you normally find in Surrey and Bucks.
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