It was not as if he knew either of the deceased specially well They had met a few times; that is all. And the Mail, despite its half-hearted conversion before May 1997, had done its best over the years to damage the Labour Party in all kinds of ways, sometimes in ways that were none too scrupulous.When Sydney Jacobson had his memorial service in October 1988, not one member of the Labour Party was present in an official capacity. Jacobson had been editor of the Daily Herald and the first editor of the Sun, when Hugh Cudlipp’s intention was to make it (“The paper born of the age we live in”) a popular purveyor of sweetness and light. As we know, it turned into something quite different under Mr Rupert Murdoch. Jacobson had done more for the Labour Party than Murdoch, Rothermere and English put together.Admittedly Mr Blair cannot be blamed for Labour’s non-representation at Jacobson’s memorial service The leader then was Mr Neil Kinnock. It was no more than a standard example of the party’s customary lack of manners. There was no official representative, either, at the memorial service for the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner.

I have yet to receive a letter or a note of any kind after entertaining a Labour minister or MP to lunch. Yet you do not have to go to Eton and Christ Church to learn to write a thank-you letter.If Mr Blair’s recent assiduous attendance at various obsequies for the rulers of the capitalist press was part of a scheme to make Labour not only new but polite as well, I should applaud But I fear it was nothing of the kind. It was an attempt to suck up to the Daily Mail.Similarly, should Mr Murdoch be so unfortunate as to take off for a better place between now and 2001-02 (though as far as I know he enjoys robust health), Westminster Abbey would be requisitioned, the Archbishop of Canterbury summoned, Mr Blair selected to read a lesson, give an address or, conceivably, both and Mr Luciano Pavarotti flown from Modena, or wherever it was he was resting his head at that moment, to sing some rousing numbers – all at the expense of the People’s Party.Does this sucking up do any good to New Labour, as Mr Blair now prefers to call the party? Mr Peter Hain was the first minister to break cover and to suggest it did not. Since then we have had the European election and the party’s report into it. Apparently this says (from the version leaked to the papers) that Labour did as badly as it did not only because of the unpopularity of Europe, boredom and the Stalinist nature of the ballot papers but also because of the party’s failure to improve public services, principally health and education, as it had promised to do before the election.Apart from constitutional promises which Mr Blair has largely kept, they were virtually the only ones he made He made a virtue of it. Unfortunately, not many people are interested in the constitution It is rather like county cricket in this respect Unlike cricket, however, it can affect their lives So can the international monetary system.

Not many people are interested in that, either, though it can affect their lives even more profoundly.This conveniently brings us back to the euro. However much sucking up he goes in for between now and the election, it is unlikely that Mr Blair will be able to change the minds of the editors of the Mail and the Sun on this subject. If Mr Murdoch discovered some commercial advantage in our entry into the system, no doubt the Sun would speedily find some hitherto unrevealed benefit in our joining – just as it embraced the Millennium Dome when Sky Television did an about-turn But on the whole this is unlikely. On their present positions and on Mr Blair’s recent policy, their only logical course is to urge their readers to support Mr William Hague and to reject Mr Blair.As we know, papers are not always or even usually logical. In 1983, for instance, the Daily Mirror continued to exhort its readers to vote Labour even though many of the party’s policies at that time (notably of withdrawal from Europe) were opposed to what the paper had always stood for. It may be that they will simply prefer an unreconstructed Mr Blair to a newly optimistic Mr Hague. Mr Blair has always followed Disraeli’s advice and laid on the flattery with a trowel Even so, I do not think he will take the risk.

For the past few weeks, on the euro, he has been reconstructing himself as busily as any beaver damming a stream.. Last Tuesday I took part in a debate with John Redwood – “This house believes that Britain should join the euro and abolish the pound” And good knock- about stuff it was too. One contribution from the floor gave me a clear sign of the mountain that those of us in the pro-European camp have to climb. A speaker rose and proclaimed that he had been born in Swansea in October 1939, and was there when German bombers tried to obliterate the city. He went on to say that we had won the war, and secured our freedoms, and that we had no right to deny historic British liberties to future generations by joining the euro.