Easter Monday marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. One of the most interesting things ever written by its most famous architect, Tony Blair, appeared (in the Sunday Telegraph) at Easter 1996, two years earlier. The piece, largely devoid of his vague boosterism, suggested he had thought about his subject. Under the title, ‘Why I am a Christian’, Blair wrote of Pontius Pilate: ‘The intriguing thing… is the degree to which he tried to do the good thing rather than the bad. He commands our moral attention not because he was a bad man but because he was so nearly a good man. One can imagine him agonising, seeing that Jesus had done nothing wrong, and wishing to release him. Just as easily, however, one can envisage Pilate’s advisers telling him of the risks, warning him not to cause a riot or inflame Jewish opinion.’ Pilate was ‘the archetypal politician, caught on the horns of an age-old political dilemma…Should we do what appears principled or what is politically expedient?’ I think Tony’s answer to that question was best expressed in Peter Mandelson’s formulation that New Labour offered ‘the politics of both/and rather than either/or’. It must both appear principled and be politically expedient. Then all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. In fairness to Tony, the GFA was a bravura effort in this perilous genre. Most people were reluctant to point out its underlying flaws, and so it sort of worked. Its flaws remain, however. They help explain why we have twice (including right now) had the suspension of the power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland. The baddies, especially Sinn Fein/IRA, did better than the goodies out of the deal without having to give up their badness. So they still do not have peace in their hearts. 

Blair’s reference to Pilate’s ‘advisers’ (not mentioned in the New Testament) amuses me. Is he imagining himself arguing for Jesus while Alastair Campbell tells him the fellow is just another quarrelsome Israeli getting in the way of a peace process? You could call Pilate’s solution to the Jesus problem the first ever Good Friday Agreement. ‘Look,’ he is saying to the chief priests and scribes who wish to please the mob, ‘I can’t see anything wrong with this man, but if his guilt is your truth, do what you like.’ They go ahead and crucify him. As if to record for posterity that he does not agree with the murder he has authorised, Pilate inscribes the words ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’, pinned on the cross. When challenged, he says: ‘What I have written, I have written.’ Yes, intriguing, and in a way that Tony Blair instinctively understands.

When chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who has just died, attacked ‘teenage scribblers’ in the City. He knew whereof he spoke because he had been one, joining the Financial Times in 1956 and becoming City editor of the Sunday Telegraph when it started life in 1961. From 1966 to 1970, he was the editor of this paper. Pre-Boris, Lawson was the most successful post-war journalist to become a leading cabinet minister. He retained his journalistic traits – clarity in writing, a certain amused raffishness and a fondness for trouble. Christopher Fildes was appointed The Spectator’s City correspondent by Lawson, whom he found ‘positive, cheerful and dilatory’ – Nigel’s leading articles were so late that they had to be rushed page by page to Waterloo to catch the train to the printers. Christopher unearths for me the following tone-setting notice at work: ‘Mr Auberon Waugh and Mr Christopher Fildes have today joined the staff of The Spectator. As from today, The Spectator is no longer insured against libel. Gatley’s Libel and Slander may be consulted in my office. N. Lawson. Editor.’ Waugh was appointed political correspondent and found that Nigel shared his profound suspicion of politicians’ motives. He considered him ‘by far the cleverest person I have ever worked with’. Nigel eventually sacked Bron because of a prank at the printers, but there was no rancour. In retirement, Lawson used his writing skill to good effect. His book An Appeal to Reason is a pellucid and brave argument for climate-change scepticism, so powerful that the BBC banned him from discussing the subject on air.

All sales of traditional house coal are illegal from 1 May. On Wednesday this week a kind friend who no longer has any use for the stuff delivered her coal to me in sacks. As I write, I am vividly reminded of the need for it. In our house, we depend for central heating, hot water and cooking on LPG. Calor Gas, our supplier, has an agreement with us to refill whenever our tank sinks to 15 per cent, but frequently fails. We therefore suffer, like a power grid dependent on wind power, from ‘intermittency’. As I write, we have been gasless for three days. Besides, the prices are now so colossal, amounting to a five-figure sum per annum, that even if the gas is available, we shall probably have to keep the home fire burning in a single room, falling back for as long as we can on poor old deposed King Coal.

The London Library, which has helped my reading life so much for 40 years, is about to launch its second literary festival. Last year’s one included Tom Stoppard, Edmund de Waal, Salman Rushdie and Sarah Waters. Hooray, I thought, but when I looked at this year’s programme, I had heard of none of the names on offer, except for Ben Okri and T.S. Eliot (and the latter will not be present). Realising that this ignorance might well be a function of my age and prejudices, I tried out the festival’s cast list on several well-read people in their early thirties. Not a flicker of recognition. Here is a flavour: ‘Meanwhile, flipping the patriarchy on its head in their most recent books, activist and writer, Yassmin Abdel-Magied brings together Carole Hailey and Ayisha Malik to explore gender, silence and revolution.’ I think I’ll avoid being flipped on my head and explore silence elsewhere.