Poor old Edward Heath. This year is the centenary of his birth and how has Britain chosen to honour it? By rejecting the one crowning achievement of his premiership:by choosing to reject our membership of what is now known as the European Union. As Gyles Brandreth (who was once sick on Heath’s shoes) has said: “were Ted still alive, it would kill him”.

Last year, was an even worse year for his posthumous reputation with the emergence of a number of allegations made against Heath, that he had sex with underage boys in retirement. Despite the fact these seem to have very little foundation, (Heath seems to have been homosexual by inclination but not in practice) the damage to Heath’s reputation seems to have been done. Thankfully, he never knew of them, having  died in 2005.

This is a slightly odd book. There seems to have been a  proofing error…