A Macaulay for our times

I have, as I have mentioned before, a mind like a box-room.  There’s an awful lot of clutter, and nothing seems to have been sorted.  This may be why, when reading of the Tories’ youngest canvasser, my mind leapt instantly to Thomas Babington Macaulay.  Macaulay, as well as being the finest of the Whig historians, was the subject of some of the best insulting compliments of all time.

Lord Melbourne said “I wish I could be so cocksure about anything, as Tom Macaulay is of everything.”  Sidney Smith said of him that “he not only overflowed with knowledge, but he paddled in the slop”.  Cracking stuff, but really unrelated to precocious little William Liefting Moore.  The thing that fired the synapses was Moore’s reason why he supported the Conservatives.

I have always liked the Conservatives' ethos; they are more business orientated. I am less attracted to Gordon Brown. Labour's record is unsatisfactory.

He’s 10, incidentally.

When Macaulay was 4, a lady is supposed to have spilt hot tea on him.  When she made amends by asking whether little baby had hurt his ickle finger den, he responded gravely:

Thank you madam, but the agony has somewhat abated.