Horny Dogs and Scally Stonkers

Matthew Parris's autobiography will mainly appeal to political anoraks like me but it does contain an unusually perceptive assessment of Thatcher by someone who worked in her private office along with some great stories from the wacky world of Westminster.
Thatcher was famously humourless and impervious to double meanings. In the seventies The Sun used to put two short editorials on page 2, opposite the topless model. On one occasion Thatcher threw down the double page in front of her advisors and said: "What do you think of those two, eh?"
After Matthew Parris had rescued a drowning dog from the Thames, Thatcher (who thought he should have let the dog drown) attended a photo-shoot with the RSPCA and Jason the dog. Jason, like some Tory Cabinet ministers, was captivated by Thatcher's legs. Gripping her knee with his front legs he began that masturbatory lunging for which dogs are notorious, unaware that he was doing to Thatcher what she would later do to Britain. Thatcher, who always liked to avert her eyes from what was happening below the Olympian heights she inhabited, smiled radiantly at the cameras as though nothing untoward was occurring and the press obligingly cropped the pictures.
There's also a new and unusual story to add to the many about the perils of political canvassing. Knocking on doors in his constituency, Parris encountered a youth of about eighteen who seemed unusually keen to engage in political discussion. "As we chatted I noticed he was developing a real stonker of an erection. It was quite extraordinary. The more I talked about manifesto promises and prospects for taxation, the bigger it got."
Now there are more fetishes in this world than you can shake a stick at but "I love it when you talk Tory taxation policy" was a new one to me.
In case you're wondering, Parris made his excuses and left. Shock, horror....gay man passes up a sexual opportunity; politician turns down a chance to secure a vote. The late Tom Driberg, who combined promiscuity and religiosity, would never have stared a gift horse in the mouth and would probably have paused only long enough to thank his maker.