"I never had much desire to go. I heard stories, of course. There was one hunter -- tigers, you know -- who used to tell stories at a club I attended. But it was for the adventurers, not the politicians."

He had always been quite happy to stay in London, in the centre of everything that was happening, rather than in a more wild place. By the time he'd gone to the Caribbean, after all, it was far more than it had been when he'd been Home Secretary.