Peter Rhodes: The end of David Cameron?

PETER RHODES on an age of uncertainty, a hitch with smart meters and why we can all marry Yorkshiremen.

BORIS is Foreign Secretary. Cripes.

SO farewell, David Cameron. I never expected to write that quite so soon. I met him on only a few occasions, all before the 2010 General Election. In his early months he was wary, suspicious and unsure of himself, like the young Tony Blair. But he gradually relaxed and grew into the job. Above all, he tended to get on with ordinary people, even when they disagreed with his politics. I cannot recall him ever looking bored or irritated. I liked him. And when Radio 4 announced yesterday that Cameron had left the government front bench "for the last time," I wondered how, after the chaos and upheaval of the past three weeks, anyone could be certain of that. Or of anything.

NEWS reaches me of a much-valued teacher who, on changing jobs, was asked how she would like her presentation silver mug to be inscribed. "Don't forget my name is Rodgers, with a D," she stressed. Sure enough, the mug arrived, beautifully engraved to "Mrs Rodgers-Withadee."

BEHOLD, our lives are utterly transformed. We've had a letter from E.ON explaining that the adapter on the Chateau Rhodes smart meter is potentially dangerous and should be disconnected without delay. A replacement gizmo will be sent in September. So between now and then we will have no little blue light on the sideboard in the dining room. I do not know how we will cope. To be honest, I've never really understood the purpose of a smart meter from the consumer's point of view. If you wish to be constantly nagged about the need for economy, you could always marry a Yorkshireman. I subscribe to the conspiracy-theory view that, when the wind turbines fail and the electricity runs out, smart meters will inform the power companies which consumers to cut off first. That Rhodes bloke, he's not using much.

INCIDENTALLY, thanks to David Cameron championing same-sex marriage, everyone is now able to marry a Yorkshireman. Legacy, or what?

MEANWHILE, a 68-year-old reader tells me he's fed up with the "lies, xenophobia and low-level racism" that conned the English into voting for Brexit. He declares: "If I was younger I would move to Scotland." And in Scotland, of course, you never get a word of bigotry or a whiff of sectarianism. Except on match days.

THE new Chancellor Philip Hammond reckons it could take until 2022 for Britain to leave the European Union. Contrast this with the ten years from 1960-1970 in which no fewer than 23 Commonwealth countries gained their independence from Britain. Why was escaping the clutches of the wicked old British Empire so much easier than breaking free of the EU? What's more, some of those Commonwealth countries left on such good terms that they play us at cricket. Somehow, I can't see that happening with Brussels.

ONE TV pundit declared that Theresa May's message was "Keep calm and carry on." An unfortunate choice. This was the wall poster designed by the British Government to be issued if a German invasion was imminent.

ANYONE else notice the resemblance between Mrs May's husband Philip and Calvin's dad in the cartoon strip Calvin & Hobbes?