About 15 years ago, when Alan Clark was still alive and when he was Britain’s only entertaining MP, I rang him up and asked if I could interview him.
He said he’d be delighted, but I would need to pay him for his time. Oh no, I said, all prissy and shocked. The Financial Times would never consider such a thing. In that case, he replied, no dice. Saltwood Castle, his medieval family home in Kent, needed a new roof, and there was no way he was going to work for nothing.
At the time I took this as evidence of Clark’s solipsism and greed. But now I have changed my mind. For him to ask for money was so reasonable there was no need for him to invoke the leaking roof. He was selling his time and his opinions, and he had the same right to charge for them as someone selling soap powder.