As you know, I'm a modest sort of guy. Totally unused to blowing my own trumpet. Can't stand these bloggers who think they're God's gift etc etc... BUT... when your Mum phones you and tells you how proud of you she is after reading about you in the Mail on Sunday... well, I'm sure my readers can forgive me quoting this piece from Dylan Jones in the Mail on Sunday magazine today...
There are many reasons to celebrate Iain Dale. The author, journalist and aspirant politician for the Conservative Party is not only a much-valued contributor to GQ, he’s also the publisher of Total Politics magazine and has become something of an online deity because of his celebrated blog, Iain Dale’s Diary.
Always trenchant, rarely out of step, Dale is one of those political commentators who relies more than most on common sense. Take this, from November last year: ‘I couldn’t care less where our Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition went to school, and frankly I care even less where political journalists got their education – assuming most of them actually had any.
‘Yet lobby hacks seem obsessed with the fact that David Cameron went to Eton, along with 5.5 per cent of Tory MPs. It’s a convenient way for some of them to dub Cameron as a Tory Toff. They produce charts showing that 13 of Cameron’s front-bench team attended Britain’s leading public school too, as if they had somehow committed a crime.’
He then goes on to talk about class, education and politics. Anyway, forgive me for quoting this, but it makes a nice change from the bollocks that people usually write about me.