Look, ok, I know it’s not supposed to be like this. But sometimes, as a dog, you just can’t seem to bond with your owner. It may be their smell. It may be their stinginess with the kibble. Or, as in my case, it may be their politics. The situation wasn’t helped when he brought in a puppy. Another Labrador, but yellow. Me, I’m a dog of colour as they say. So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I was completely superseded in his affections.

I can’t help thinking that he only got us as sort of ‘trophy’ dogs. You know. Man of the people; cloth cap; pint of beer, and pair of Labs. Of course we don’t see much of him. He’s too busy talking horlix on his GB News radio programme. And rushing round every other radio and TV studio, spouting about anything and everything – like how he’s more popular than Rishi Sunak (not that that would be difficult) and that the Conservatives will choose him as their next leader. Which is a bit ‘Richi’ since he’s not even a party member. Which brings me on to the matter in hand. You probably know that he recently bought a seaside pad in Lydd. Nice enough I suppose if you like living next to a clapped-out nuclear reactor but, from what I can gather, he has his eye on a town a bit further along the coast. Yes, my lovelies: Hastings. Clearly he’s got to ditch the Reform Party first. And get readmitted by the Tories. But that might not be too difficult if, as predicted, they get wiped out by Starmer at the election. Then the headbangers on the right of the party who argue that Brexit has been a big success reckon they’ll take over. And as Nige said, he’ll “have to” eventually end up in the same party as Conservative MPs like Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. Gosh. That’s a thought. Somehow I feel they deserve each other.

Anyway the one minor stumbling block to Nige’s Machiavellian machinations is the current Hastings incumbent, Sally-Ann Hartless. I’m not sure he’s told her of his plans yet. But I’d advise her to watch out for a man in a cloth cap and cavalry twill trousers walking a pair of dogs on Hastings beach at low tide. One will be yellow and slavering over its master. The other will be black and following a few paces behind with a haughty but decidedly disdainful look above the whiskers. They say you can’t choose your parents, but there’s no doubt some have more luck than others when the cards are dealt out.