'Everyone' says that IDS is doomed, which is a good reason to suspect that he is not

Thank you. Charles, for putting me through such hell. Thus Diana, Princess of Wales, in the newly revealed letter to

her butler, Paul Burrell, not long before her death.

Ours is an imitative age. Epistolary revenge — the letter only to be made known after the feared and forecast catastrophe has happened — could catch on among public figures who, rightly or wrongly, feel themselves persecuted. The way things are going, we may expect in a few years' time a letter to come to light which lain Duncan Smith wrote just before the crash. It would have been sent to his deeply devoted butler, Bernard Jenkin.

It could begin with the same words as Diana's did: 'This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous.' It could go on: 'X is planning an accident in my leadership. . . . ' The X would indicate a person who cannot be identified for legal reasons but whom future scholars would assume to be either Michael Portillo, Theresa May, John Maples, Francis Maude, or the entire backbench parliamentary Conservative party.

'I have been battered, bruised and abused mentally by a system for two and a half years now. . . . Thank you, Michael/ Theresa/Francis/the Times/the Sun for putting me through such hell. .

The question will arise: why is the butler making Iain's letter known now? Why did Mr Jenkin not hand it to the authorities immediately after the crash? Obviously, one explanation will be money. Mr Jenkin offered his buttling services to all the candidates in the election for Mr Duncan Smith's successor, but was rejected. His heart would always be with fain, they thought. No, no, he vainly cried. There must be closure. My heart is available to either Michael, as well as to Ken or David, though I draw the line at Theresa. To no avail.

Then, inevitably, will come the attempt to discredit his story. Mr Maude will go on all available television and radio stations. 'Face it, fain was under stress. He said all sorts of things during those last months. At one stage, he said something very odd to some people when he thought no one was listening — the Conservative party conference. He told them he was going to lead them to victory at the next general election, or maybe it was that, at the next election, he was just going to lead them. He was so distraught at the time he was speaking that it was unclear exactly what he was saying.

'Anyway, just because he said it, it did not mean it was going to happen. Also, this butler, Jenkin, sounds a highly dodgy character. For a start, he's believed to be heterosexual. That's pretty strange in a butler.'

We shall probably never know exactly how Mr Duncan Smith met the fate that, at the time of writing, nearly everyone seems to think he will. But, also at the time of writing, the Guardian has just published the results of an ICM poll under the headline: 'Voters reject Tory rivals.' The poll shows Mr Duncan Smith to be more popular, or at least less unpopular, than his, at the moment, two most talked-of successors: Mr Howard and Mr Davis.

This confirms my own suspicion that a leadership election would hinder rather than help the Conservatives. The month or so of further disunity would enable the party comfortably to sink back to where it was when Mr Duncan Smith became leader. For it should be remembered, though it seldom is, that it has risen in the polls since then.

But there is another reason why the Tories would be unwise to remove Mr Duncan Smith. It is because 'everyone' says they should. In politics, 'everyone' — that is a few media people at London dinner parties — is always wrong. When Margaret Thatcher led the Opposition between 1975 and her victory in 1979, 'everyone', for example, said the country could not be governed without 'an incomes policy' — preferably a statutory one. Today the phrase 'incomes policy' is never used. There are plenty of other examples of Mrs Thatcher ignoring what 'everyone' said at the time, and which 'everyone' does not say any more. Now *everyone says Mr Duncan Smith should go, and will. Only a few who say so have unimpeachable motives. Mr Duncan Smith aptly described most of them who are in the Conservative party as 'cowards in the shadows' — a good phrase for someone who is not thought of as a phrase-maker. Hardly any of them have dared publicly to call for his departure. Mr Crispin Blunt, who has, is thus to be admired, unwise though his cause may be. So too is Sir Patrick Cormack, of the 1922 Committee executive. He publicly wrote to the chairman, calling on Mr Duncan Smith to put his name forward for a vote of confidence.

'Everyone', then, says that Mr Duncan Smith is doomed. This is the best sign that he might still avoid that crash.

Tis a difficult time for those of us 1 who have come to think that, on balance, the United States should not have invaded Iraq, and that the occupation is going wrong, but who also want Britain and the United States to enjoy a 'special relationship'. It is possible to be proAmerican without always approving of what America does.

With this in mind, I would draw attention to a visiting British politician's speech on American soil as reported in the Washington Star on 31 December 1940, and quoted in one of the books of diplomatic reminiscences by the pre-war Italian ambassador to several countries. Daniele Vare.

'America's entry into the [1914-18] war was disastrous not only for your country but for the allies as well because had you stayed at home and minded your own business we would have made peace with the central powers in the spring of 1917 and then there would have been no collapse of Russia, followed by communism; no breakdown in Italy, followed by fascism, and nazism would not be at present enthroned in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war and minded her own business, none of these "isms" would today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government.'

My sentiments entirely; but, had the neoconservatives existed in 1940. the author of those words have been denounced as just an ungrateful European anti-American envious of America's power. Absent though they are from Martin Gilbert, the words are Churchill's.