I was going through my paces in Hyde Park, sweating out the booze, raising the heartbeat with short wind sprints, keeping my mind off the weekend’s debauchery and the ensuing Karamazovian hangover. I sat down on a bench, took off my sweaty polo shirt, opened the Daily Telegraph, and took in some rays.

A police officer approached me — but with a smile. ‘Are you by any chance Taki?’ he said. ‘Guilty as charged, constable, but this time I’m clean.’ He smiled broadly and asked if he might sit down.

Well, Constable Hackworth turned out to be straight out of The Blue Lamp. A Spectator reader, he somehow recognised my 80-year-old countenance and complimented me on my training. His beat that day was Hyde Park, and he gave it his full attention without being too obtrusive, as a good policeman should. American tourists kept asking him for photos, and he was generous to a fault. But he was also eagle-eyed and took everything in. I’d hate to be on the run with Constable Hackworth on the lookout. I haven’t had my picture in a newspaper in 20-odd years, but he spotted me among hundreds. We didn’t discuss politics, just how coppers used to be loved — under Attlee, say — and how the leftie media, and scummy people such as John McDonnell, have slowly but surely turned the young and spoilt against the blue line that protects us from the mob.

The left romanticises street thugs, but I learned to love the fuzz early on. I was about seven when I saw policemen whose salary hardly fed them and their families die right on our doorstep defending us from commie guerrillas bent on cutting our throats. Yes, men who ate bread and a little cheese as a main meal gave their lives defending a couple of indulged little rich kids. That is all I said to Constable Hackworth, who asked me about Rod Liddle, whom he greatly admires. ‘He’s even nicer than he looks,’ was all I said. The constable went on his way and I on mine, but I kept thinking of him for the rest of the morning, imagining what life would be like without cops — and Hamburg hadn’t yet taken place. Two hundred officers injured by professional anarchist-scumbags, and the mayor of New York among them, peacocking and chest-puffing. This is what trendy lefty politics have led us to.

Let’s face it. There is a concentrated drive by the left to gain power by intimidation and certain British ‘institutions’ are in cahoots with it. Jeremy Corbyn has been a loser all his life and now the young are clamouring for him to become top banana. As the duchess who stepped into a brothel by mistake said, ‘Er… something’s very wrong here.’ Like when there’s more outrage over an accident (Grenfell) than a deliberate act of multiple murder (Manchester). And by the way, last week I attended the Goldsmith–Birley bash at 5 Hertford Street, where 250 swells celebrated until very late. What I wonder is how much outrage there would have been if a fire had roasted all of us alive? Not even 5 per cent of that expressed over Grenfell, where most of the gestures of grief and outrage felt as though they had been stagemanaged in order to protest against Britain’s uncaring attitude towards immigrants.

When the shadow chancellor describes those responsible for an accidental fire as murderers, when one Ishmahil Blagrove demands a revolution following Grenfell, and when an MP demands that a white middle-class judge step down for being white and middle class, it’s time for wet Conservatives to pull their finger out, give the police the freedom to restore law and order, and make the word ‘racist’ one and the same as the word ‘fire’ — in a crowded cinema. The fascist left calls anyone who doesn’t agree with them racist. They are the internet trolls who accuse the police of being racist. They are the ones who incite violence. But the walls will grow hairs before those jerks in power do something about it.

But enough about scum. The question put to us 20 Pugs members last week was, to be or not to be? Should the club of 21 members continue following the death of our founder and president Nick Scott? We posed the question during our annual lunch, which began at 12.45 and ended at around eight that evening. We decided to give everyone present an equal vote (a dangerous principle, I agree, but we were all hung over from Prince Pavlos’s bash in the Cotswolds). To our delight, everyone voted to keep going, like Captain Scott of South Pole fame, with probably the same results. What we didn’t agree on was a president to succeed Captain Scott. Commodore Hoare and Count Bismarck suggested that I be head, but I rejected that out of hand. I can’t even find a porn site, let alone run a club. The ideal candidate would be Bob Miller, a man as generous as he’s rich and a great club benefactor. By eight that evening we were too far gone to decide, so we remain rudderless and without a Führer. But life could be far worse; we could have Corbyn at No. 10.