I’m puzzled. I’ve just had a telephone call purporting to come from the Conservative Party of Canada. I was asked whether I would vote for Mr Harper (the current leader of the Conservative Party and colleague of Bruce Carson who is currently under investigation by the RCMP for influence peddling) as Prime Minister.

Presumably, this was in the event that an election were to be called.

I made it clear that no force in heaven or earth would make me vote for someone who has so mislead Canadians. Mr Harper, fearing an election, brought the word “prorogation” onto everyone’s lips. He issued a handbook to new MPs to tell them how to make parliament dysfunctional (as though it wasn’t already). I could go on, and on, but won’t.

What interested me most was the idea that the Conservative Party believes that ordinary voters vote for the Prime Minister. That’s an interesting idea but not one in the Canadian democratic system.