A couple of weeks ago there was this business about Boris Johnson and that insensitive editorial in The Spectator, which got him into trouble with Liverpool; and all kinds of people in the media were sneering at the idea that it was possible to feel real grief for someone you had never met.

It seems to me that today's sad news about John demonstrates that, sometimes at any rate, it is quite possible. In fact, I'm sure, for many of us, it would be impossible not to.