....has anyone else noted, at least in the Guardian, it's continued acquiescence to US spelling and terminology?

Today it's a headline "When August arrives, gloom sets in. How can I manage my fall anxiety?" and in the last few months, labour spelt labor on a number of occasions, and colour as color ?

Are these writers just youngsters who now call the toilet or the loo the bathroom,, say "like" several times in every sentence, , and is it just a sign of the inevitable Americanisation of all western culture, and much more tragically, it's way of doing politics and business? And am I just an old fogey for even thinking to bother and be annoyed?

I've just downloaded Rory Stewart's book Politics on the Edge", I've got up to the point where he's selected, by immense luck, as he himself admits, to the safe Conservative seat of Penrith. He describes how he walked from his home in Crieff, across the borders - some one hundred and fifty miles over six days - to go to Penrith to explore his possible constituency, sleeping under a hedge one night. He writes very entertainingly, I have to say, and as someone who loves walking, whatever his politics, we have something in common.

He reminds me a bit of another cachectic Scotsman, Alec Douglas Home, similar Scottish origins, latter definitely genuine upper class, but former upper, upper middle class, Eton education, both man of action - Home as a first-class cricketer Stewart as a walker and explorer, and similar old fashioned patrician Tory values. Both experienced hardship, Home tuberculosis of the spine and Stewart nearly killed by an dud mortar crashing through the roof of his shipping container office in Iraq.

Stewart is a man for a bygone age, which is sad for him and us, I believe, as noted above, the US inspired corruption of government and business now pervades the whole of the west. Whether you agree with his politics or not, he should still be in politics, but of course he correctly resigned as the party lurched ever more rightist and populist and left him far, far behind. .