What is it with the Tories and bonkbusters? When they’re not writing their own, they’re coyly briefing on their love for the genre. Last week, just as we had managed to sandblast from our minds’ eyes the image of Rishi Sunak in cycling shorts, punching the air to Britney on his Peloton, we were obliged to reckon with the revelation that he likes nothing more after a tough local election day than to kick off his Prada loafers, slip into his sliders and curl up with a copy of his favourite novel, Jilly Cooper’s Riders.
If it was a briefing – the revelation came courtesy of the Spectator’s Katy Balls in a reference to the prime minister’s cultural guilty pleasures – it’s a remarkably clever one, for who doesn’t love Jilly Cooper? She’s one of the few popular writers who transcends the divisions between high and low culture and is almost universally adored by readers regardless of political affiliation.
