Peter Rhodes on voting for a monarch, scrapping HS2 and a useful purpose for Boris's Bridge

IS anyone else drawn to Boris Johnson's idea of a bridge linking Ireland and England? It would be about 25 miles long, running from the west of Scotland to Northern Ireland and, according to Johnson, would "shore up the Union." Maybe so. And if it served no other purpose, it would be a useful place to stack vehicles waiting for visas and customs clearance into post-Brexit Britain. Beware of long delays. Sea views guaranteed.

HOWEVER, when Johnson denounces Mrs May's Chequers EU plan as "a moral and intellectual humiliation" for Britain, he probably has less support. Let him discuss intellectual issues by all means but he's really in no position to lecture us on morality.

THERE is one sure fact about HS2: there is no great rush for it. So why not, as some top Tories are suggesting this week, put it on the back burner, kick it into the long grass and then find another suitable metaphor, such as knocking it on the head? Lord Adonis, the unelected champion of both Remain and HS2, has declared that if the UK left Europe he would be delighted, some years in the future, to climb aboard a high-speed train to Brussels to sign up again. He is not a man stricken by excess humility. Scrapping HS2 would spare us the grisly prospect of Adonis on his train to Capitulation Central.

AND off to Bosworth Battlefield for a glorious sunny day in a strikingly pretty corner of Leicestershire. Here in 1485 our last Plantagenet king, Richard III, was slain by Henry Tudor's soldiers, stripped, chucked on the back of a horse and carried off to Leicester where they buried him in a car park. If you believe Shakespeare, Richard was a malevolent hunchbacked thug who murdered all and sundry, including the Princes in the Tower. But Shakespeare was a blatant spin-doctor for the Tudors. Most scholars now accept that Richard was a brave, educated and progressive monarch whose claim to the throne was stronger than the Welshman Henry Tudor's.

AS you enter the visitor centre at Bosworth you are given a token to cast in a ballot on whom you believe was the better king - Richard or Henry? As far as I could judge from the piles of tokens, it was a dead heat.

BUT then so many questions involving age, education, upbringing, patriotism, history and politics seem to produce a split of about 50:50. Would you have been a Roundhead or a Cavalier? Do you vote Labour or Tory? Are your sympathies with US Democrats or Republicans? And, of course, did you vote Leave or Remain? Each time, the vote dithers at roughly 50:50.

BUT these days we can at least choose as we wish. Back in 1485, the local baron simply handed you a pitchfork and told you you'd be fighting for good King Richard, unless it looked as though Henry were winning, in which case you'd put on a Welsh accent and fight for him, boyo. In those days, politicians were really cynical.