Gyles Brandreth’s Diary

The MPs’ guide to whips and prostitutes

Fancy an orgy? I preferred dinner with Nicholas Parsons

Flagellation has never really been a big thing with me.

In fact, it’s never been ‘a thing’ at all. I did go to a boys’ boarding school back in the early 1960s, but my kindly parents chose it specifically because the headmaster did not believe in beatings.

In the 2010s, when Fifty Shades of Grey appeared and became the fastestselling paperback of all time, I heard it was about BDSM (bondage/discipline, dominance/submission) and thought I had better read it.

I did. It’s not very well written and, as far as I’m concerned, not much of a turn-on either.

But what do I know? Nothing, it seems. The lucky author, EL James, has sold more than 150 million copies of her spanking bestsellers. They have been translated into 52 languages and turned into a nicely profitable series of films.

Thinking it would be more my cup of tea, for my Christmas reading I have embarked on Simon Heffer’s hefty yet meticulously edited three-volume edition of the diaries of ‘Chips’ Channon.

For 23 years, from 1935 to 1958, Chips was the Conservative MP for Southend. He was the father of Paul Channon MP, who became a good friend as well as a colleague when I joined the House of Commons in the 1990s.

I have reached only page 350 of Channon Senior’s diaries to date. To my surprise, there hasn’t been much high politics so far, but there has been a good deal of sex and violence.

Flagellation ‘has always exerted a strange fascination over me’, Chips confides to his diary on Valentine’s Day, 1928. He is 30 at the time. ‘I should love to be beaten by a priest or schoolmaster,’ he writes, ‘and never have.’

Me neither, and I am 75 next birthday. And while I am looking forward to the New Year and to doing things in 2023 I have never done before, there are limits.

Is this a mistake on my part? Am I missing out? The ever-adventurous Mae West told us, ‘You only live once,’ adding significantly, ‘Do it right and once is enough.’

When it comes to the pleasures of the flesh, Chips Channon was a good deal bolder than I have ever dared to be.

Not only did he manage to find ‘a lecherous old priest’ to give him a good thrashing, he seems to have had a string of amiable and obliging prostitutes on call. He wines and dines and beds them and gives the impression of a good time being had by all.

I have had friends (members of both Houses of Parliament among them) who have visited prostitutes and, naturally, I don’t approve because prostitution is exploitation and wrong in my book – but ignore me taking the moral high ground.

The real reason I’ve never knowingly been inside a brothel is that I wouldn’t even dare ring the doorbell.

When it comes to concupiscence, I’m a coward. Years ago, sitting in a hotel bar after recording an episode of Just a Minute somewhere in East Anglia, I was approached by a friend who said he had booked a room upstairs for an orgy.

His wife was up for it – was I? Casually, I murmured that it was ‘a charming idea, of course’ but, sadly, I couldn’t because I was committed to having dinner with Nicholas Parsons.

‘Oh, bring him along, too,’ said my friend excitedly. ‘He’ll love it.’

‘Nicholas has a heart condition,’ I lied, suddenly sensing I was off the hook, ‘and I’m afraid he hasn’t brought his defibrillator.’

I am planning new adventures for the New Year, but they are pathetically predictable and safe. I am taking up painting (landscapes, not life drawing – rest assured) and I have engaged the services of a physiotherapist who is going to improve my posture and my gait. I have fallen over three times in the past three years, because my balance isn’t as good as it ought to be and I am shuffling when I should be striding and looking at the ground when I should be keeping my eyes on the horizon. My physio is keeping me on my toes – literally. Eventually, my balance restored, I will be on my toes on just one leg with my eyes shut.

As far as the lurid lust-filled Channon diaries go, I have started – so I’ll finish. And he does write beguilingly well.

I have another book on my bedside table as well, and I am dipping into it between chapters of Chips to cleanse the palate, lift the spirit and nourish the soul.

This is a fun volume of Latin wisdom, Et Tu, Brute?, brought together by our Oldie editor Harry Mount with his friend John Davie. The book is there to remind me of the Roman poet Juvenal’s famous exhortation ‘Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano’ – ‘You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.’

Do that, because, as Juvenal also says, ‘Semita certe tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae’ – ‘Certainly, the only path to a tranquil life is through virtue’.

Happy New Year!

Chips loved whips: Henry Channon MP

Gyles Brandreth’s biography of the Queen, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, is out now (Penguin, £25)