Is there other life anywhere in the Universe? That is a virtual certainty: as the great Belgian biochemist Christian de Duve commented, “Life is a property of the Universe” – and some of it seems bound to be intelligent. Will it find signs of life past – perhaps a billion years old? Very possibly – although it is far from clear how Nasa scientists will know it when they see it Was Martian life ever intelligent? Almost certainly not. So will Nasa’s Pathfinder find life on Mars? Probably not. Might not the ubiquitous Cherie be prevailed upon to act likewise?. When my own locks grew past their historic best, I invested ten shillings (old money, forsooth!) in the flat cap you see pictured above I have worn it, come rain or shine, ever since. Indeed, as a leading economist, I recommend that the wife of the current Prime Minister should have her hair cut at least twice a day for the next five years, for, hair for hair, it is one of the most inexpensive pastimes to be had in contemporary Britain.”I beg to disagree.

Tackling the controversy in the Times on Wednesday last, Lord Rees-Mogg roundly condemned those who balked at the cost. “From a mathematical point of view the total cost of her haircut works out at less than .001 pence per hair,” he opined, “which makes it most affordable. “Mind you,” he added, with a malicious gleam in his eye, “my locks have quite a bit more bounce than young Hague’s, please note!”And so to Cherie. My fellow columnists, have, of course, taken different sides on this important issue. Paul Johnson was for, Simon Jenkins against, Hugo Young for, Barbara Amiel against. It was, he recently confessed to me under the drier at Lord’s, one of the only regrets of his premiership that he had never managed to inject quite the necessary bounce into his lacklustre hair. In fact, they used to cut each other’s hair in a side-office in Downing Street, often in the few minutes they could snatch between important meetings with visiting statesmen.

In many ways, John was more interested in the possibilities of hair than Norma: he once told me that had he not been a Member of Parliament he would have very much liked to be a hairdresser in a West End salon, perhaps working under the supervision of one of the acknowledged superstars of the profession, such as Nicky Clarke or Mr Teasy-Weasy. This was, she said, topiary – but topiary with a smile on its face.In my experience, John and Norma Major bothered very little with barbers, if at all. Later, she was to see the very same hairstyle on her chief rival for the leadership, Michael Heseltine. Shortly after her fall from power, she privately placed much of the blame on her hair: it had, she claimed, let her down, refusing to back her in a third ballot.

Needless to say, it always looked supreme: marvellously manageable, luxuriant, never less than tremendously smart and floating like a cloud of the finest spun gold above that most regal of heads. As the years went on it had, to a very great extent, a life and position all its own: on occasion, it would supervise second-division cocktail parties and chair some of the more minor committees, particularly if Margaret herself was found to be unavoidably absent. Many leading experts, including Lord Blake in his definitive history of the Conservative party, were later to claim that it was this decision, above all, that gained him the golden prize: both the electorate as a whole and his fellow Conservative MPs found the baby-doll curls he sported in the lead-up to the election well-nigh irresistible.Of dear, dear Margaret and her hair, too much has already been written. Admittedly, to secure his election to the leadership of the Conservative party, he had briefly imported Angelo Brazilio, the coiffeur-in-chief to the Beverley Sisters, to his private office in the House of Commons. Callaghan removed the wig at the earliest opportunity, and from then on it was worn solely by Roy Jenkins, and even then only on State Occasions.Edward Heath had always adopted a similarly no-nonsense line to his silvery locks. But the experiment came a cropper when a visiting delegation from the Trades Union Congress led by Hugh Scanlon mistook him for the attractive young newscaster Moira Stewart and proceeded to wink heavily in his direction.