And a very good morning indeed to you. It is four minutes after ten and there are currently three men whose faces constitute the window that the rest of the world is looking through when they focus upon global Britain. Those men, as of yesterday, are Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Andrew Windsor, the royal formerly known as Prince.

I can't quite believe how far we've fallen, or indeed how fast.

And I know that a lot of people listening to this programme perhaps aren't quite ready yet

to concede the scale or the speed of the decline.

But just for a moment, wonder what we look like to the rest of the world.

Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrew Windsor.

Has there ever been a more damning indictment of the English class system, or indeed a more

transparent illustration of just how insidious it is? I do not know, but I do know this.

Everyone can play this game. It's a horrible game. I'll tell you that for nothing. And it is,

I think, an important one. I am incredibly lucky. And by that, I mean that my little list that I'm

about to share with you now is not matter.

What's the word I want?

It's not as bad as yours might be.

Okay?

I have got my mum's 80th birthday.

I've got my 20th wedding anniversary.

And I've got the funeral of one of my dearest, dearest friends.

Those are my three things we couldn't properly celebrate, if you like, because we'd have been celebrating his life or commemorate.

Those are the three things that we either didn't do at all or did in such diminished circumstances,

that there will always be a profound sense of sadness and regret that we couldn't do

things, quote, properly. Those are the three things on my list. There are others, you know,

there were family birthdays. Of course, there were,

...