Whittington's Diary

I was in Dover today. You will often find me there, waiting to hop over to the Continent by hovercat.

This afternoon I was there for Tony Blair's speech on immigration.

While we waited for him to appear, we were played Vera Lynn's greatest hits over the public address system. Eventually he appeared - wearing a tin hat.

He looked rather like Private Pike in Dad's Army.

"Let no one say that British people aren't decent, aren't generous," he said. "And let no one say we'll let any more foreigners in."

There was a commotion after the speech when Nick Robinson from ITN asked: "Prime Minister, why was every face in the audience white? Aren't you playing the race card as well?"

Mr Blair look flustered. He went pale under his orange suntan. He looked desperately around the hall.
"There!" he said, pointing directly at me. "He's black - well, black and white at any rate."

I refuse to be a token anything, so I left in a huff. (That's a kind of taxi you find in the channel ports.)

A better question would be why there weren't more cats in the audience.