When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.
What I have found is that real friends stand by you.
I've been doing nineteen hours a day on London, nothing else, I mean this has been my whole life, and writing has been put on one side, and if I'm privileged enough to be the Mayor of this city, then I will not write again.
Well I think after leaving prison, and having written three diaries about life in prison, it became a sort of a new challenge to write another novel, to write a new novel.
Very few people deserted me when I went to prison. They stayed loyal.
I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!
