David Cameron has revealed that he likes to start his holiday reading with "a really trashy novel". You need, he says, "something to completely empty your mind and take you back". His aides subsequently suggested that for this year he probably had in mind the latest of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta crime thrillers, The Scarpetta Factor.
Dave, Dave. We shake our heads sorrowfully. We understand the need for relaxation. But these are important days for you. It is vital that you should not waste a minute in laying down the groundwork to usher in a new golden – well, OK, pasty – age of Conservatism. By all means, read trash. But make it trash that can help you to help us. Here's a shortlist to get you started:
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
It's a rollicking thriller about a hugely wealthy, secretive, elitist, self-deluding, religio-political cult purportedly on the side of the angels but ultimately dedicated to advancing the interests of its own, frequently closely related, members and denying the common good. Plenty to enjoy and plenty to learn.
Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins
How new money lives. An insight into the kind of people who might one day be persuaded to donate. Give it to George Osborne when you're through, to help him nail the finer points of West Coast rather than Russian oligarch schmoozing.
Career Girls/Tall Poppies/Venus Envy/Glamour/Glitz/Passion by Louise Bagshawe
Something for Sam to settle down with while you are doing your share of the housework – a spot of chick lit by the next Conservative candidate for Corby. And perhaps if she reads the entire canon, that will be support enough and you will never have to leave Notting Hill for a general election cheerleading trip to the East Midlands.
Anything by Jeffrey Archer
Convincingly spun policies – I mean, yarns – whose utter lack of originality laid the author open to charges of plagiarism, from a shamelessly shallow, opportunistic showman who managed to give 'em the old razzle-dazzle for an impressively long time before he was finally caught. Again, plenty to enjoy and plenty to ponder.
Anything by Joanna Trollope
Her brilliant, psychologically acute portraits of the resourcefulness of the middle classes, some of whom have only one house in the Cotswolds and have to buy their own Agas will enable you to talk to almost every 10th man in the street as if you were one of him.
Misery memoirs
Connect with the other nine men in the street. Take your pick from every publisher's array of tales of the terrible sufferings of ordinary people. Neglect. Abuse. Being sold into child prostitution. Going to Harrow. All human life is here. And remember – the first step to pretending to care about the electorate is pretending to know about them. Happy reading!
