You’ve got to remember that he never harmed anyone but his own. Unfortunately, I was one of his own.” No, of course, it isn’t, it’s Chancellor Kenneth Clarke on a fact-finding mission to Consett. Hobnob went into hiding under the East London line between Whitechapel and Stepney 33 years ago after Ronnie told him one rowdy night in the Kneecapped Costermonger: “You’re dead, Hobnob.” A relieved Sid told me yesterday: “All right, he might have been joking, he was a great joker, Ronnie, but I wasn’t taking no chances. Captain’s counsel: let him go, John, they could do with a bit of excitement down there!All clear: Sid “The Helmet” Hobnob emerges blinking into the daylight after hearing of the demise of Ronnie Kray on Friday. Following his storming of New York, when he became one of the few men ever to cause Tina Brown the slightest consternation, Mr Major’s brother, Terry, is contemplating a second foreign venture in the company of his Boswell, James Hughes-Onslow, the Old Etonian journalist.All of Terry’s major activities are cleared by his brother, who will have to weigh in the balance the pros and cons of a visit to an international garden gnome exhibition in New Zealand. Red and Proud: more checking on dead reds, I think.n ALONG with what to do about Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Kenneth Clarke and things like that, there is, the Captain is given to understand, another tough decision approaching for John Major.

I ring his department and say I have a question for Mr Dorrell “Which one is he?” asks the switchboard operator They say they will try to ask him They do not ring back It’s a good job I’m not a redhead. Then I remember that Cromwell is the hero of Stephen Dorrell, Secretary of State for National Heritage. The National Portrait Gallery allows Shakespeare a reddish tinge, but says Cromwell was light brown Mr Hand claims he was usually in a helmet. They have a list: Neil Kinnock, Van Gogh, Alan Ball, Shaw, Churchill, Nero, Napoleon, Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, Elizabeth I, General Custer, William the Conqueror, and Rod Laver I am suspicious of some of these The French Embassy will not have Napoleon as a redhead. They are also “outing” unnatural redheads, including Cilla Black I ask for their red role models. Mr Protheroe and Bernard Hand, his chief executive, a nurseryman from Milton Keynes, tell me they hope to mobilise the world’s redheads. Theirs is a cultural guerrilla organisation “strong, vindictive and hell-bent on revenge”.

I ask Mr Hand why there is this prejudice against redheads and he is unable to tell me, but he hopes to hold a convention later this year, to be catered by Jane Asher. The editor passes it on to the Captain, who has long experience of dealing with this type of thing. Simon Protheroe, from the Retaliation Department of Red and Proud, demands an apology, or else. Our Opinions piece last Sunday, following the policeman who hit the yob on a train, asked people whom they would like to punch In it, a librarian nominated “ugly redheads”. Captain’s caution: never go for a 50-50 ball with a novelist.

Personally, I’m not surprised Hugh didn’t go into the showers afterwards. Sorry? Oh, all right, Hugh scored a goal from 40 yards and we lost 2-1.AN ANGRY letter arrives in the mails. It is from Red and Proud, an organisation bent on defending redheaded people against the rank prejudice that is their sad birthright. The flashpoint came when a V&A full-back and film star, Hugh Grant, went to contest a ball with the Independent’s legendary literary hard man, Sebastian “Birdsong” Faulks, uncompromising author and stopper.

Come with me now to a gymnasium, or “fitness centre” as I understand they are now known, close by the Palace of Westminster. And who is this imposing figure “working out”? Why, it is Gordon Brown, the Shadow Chancellor, pedalling away on an exercise bicycle while at the same time reading a sheaf of his press cuttings Perfect! It should feature in a party political broadcast Or, perhaps, a portrait in the heroic style. I should reassure you, too, that, as befits a prudent, putative occupant of Number 11, Gordon was there during the off-peak, cheaper, period, and his kit looked very, very old.n SOCCER shock: this year has already seen far too many befoulments of the field of dreams; so it gives me no pleasure at all to have to record yet another unsavoury event, this time during a match in Chiswick last week between the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Independent. Next, please!
IN THE week that Tony Blair unveiled the new Clause IV – which, in my view, is a good deal less convincing, less well-written, and certainly far longer than the winner of my acclaimed competition to write your own Clause IV, “Fair Dos” – I thought I would bring you a vignette which, for the Captain, sums up the new Labour Party. There is battery back- up for cloudy days, but we are so high up here at Canary Wharf that I find I just have to approach a window for a recharge It is available from Quorum International for £29.95. But this natty little number, as you can see from my picture, sports a solar panel on top which powers a fan that blows air over the wearer’s head. For those extra-hot days, a sponge in the headband can be wetted to facilitate “evaporative cooling”, as we call it in the solar topi trade.