Iain Dale reports that the former Conservative cabinet minister Paul Channon has died. Time, I think, to uncork one of my favourite trivial facts. Channon was the dedicatee of Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy, as this article confirms: Rattigan began writing the play in July 1945 while Great Britain was in the midst of a General Election which would oust Winston Churchill, the hero of the war, from office. We know Rattigan was enthusiastic about the theme because he read portions of the work in progress to his close friend, the well-known man about town, diarist and Conservative MP, ...
