First-class portraits

Today we can queue at the post office for new stamps showing eight prime ministers. Who would you choose for a letter to a friend (or an enemy) – Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee or Harold Wilson? They’re all first class. Those who prefer to send portraits of Gladstone, Pitt, Grey or Peel must pay 97p each, the rate for a card to go abroad. No doubt a friendly counter clerk will peel you off a few Peels if you think Pitt the pits. But where, you may ask, is Disraeli, where Lloyd George? The answer is that they featured philatelically in 1987 and 2013. If their stamps did not arrive with the post on the doormat, it just shows up the weakness of our commemorative stamp system. Envelopes are more usually decked with dull definitives or feeble frankings. Fans of these famous men (and one woman) will have to make a special effort.