I was inspecting tomatoes at the East end of the property here tonight, and noticing how – despite having put them in high-humus soil and in full sunlight – they weren’t doing very well. They’d not been good to eat, either: the skins are too thick, and although they’re brilliant for making sauces, I was expecting much more from the crop.

Afterwards, I came back down to the house and started working with some lamb for supper. Spare Rosemary I’d had left over from two lunches ago had been put in a glass of plain water. It was thriving. I peeled the thin, green leaves off the stem and bunged them in with the lamb, peas and mint. The mixture tasted delicious when I ate it soon afterwards.

The parallel with contemporary Western life was too obvious to miss. We all exist in soil too rich for our own good, and crave the sunshine that we hope will bring us happiness; but all it delivers is a transient tan….and public figures with unpleasantly thick skins.

The best, most natural and clean taste comes from a plant reared in pure water. It has been hot and dry down here for five weeks now: what the tomatoes craved was clean water – and the more the better. I’d failed to realise this, and that’s why the result was (at best) mediocre.

Sunshine may ripen, but only zero-toxicity water will nurture. We live in a culture of over-ripe, thick-skinned pillocks like Jeremy Hunt, Ed Balls, George Osborne – and sun-dried tomatoes like Harriet Harman. What we need is more of the irrigators: those who – from Christopher Booker to Kate Hoey – are interested solely in helping to grow real people with self-starting thought patterns, and encouraging ordinary folks to believe in their talent to blossom personally…..while helping others to deal with their disabilities and inadequacies.

Clear, pure and simple is good. Arid, polluted and complex is bad.

The former tends to typify the small and vulnerable idea. The latter is far too often the product of big and powerful knucklehead process. Britain lacks a movement to protect the delicate fruit of original opportunity. It used to be the Labour Party. It isn’t any more, but by God we need something.

Earlier at The Slog: Hoodlums walk free while prisoners of conscience get 35 years