For Wagner it was Love and Death, for Shakespeare, Heroism and Humanity, for Tolstoy, War and Peace. For me, it’s the Eternal Quest For An Appropriate Sports Jacket That Can Bridge Most Social Occasions. Every writer has his signature themes, his leitmotivs, the subjects to which he feels impelled, by forces greater than mere self-expression, to explore in print. And in my case its the eternal dilemmas posed by the many choices we now enjoy in the world of gents’ tailoring.

Which is why I had no option but to sit rapt for an hour on Saturday night as Piers Morgan interviewed Sir Cliff Richard for ITV 1. Sir Cliff is currently touring the UK with his original backing band, the Shadows, and is, in the process, demonstrating that there’s a place for fuchsia in the older man’s wardrobe this autumn/winter season. Sir Cliff has opted for a shocking pink jacket as the central element in his on-stage outfit, teamed with a black shirt and a matching, shimmeringly electric, pink tie.

Its not a look I’m sure I can bring off — historically, black shirts on politicians haven’t always reassured swing voters — but I am tempted to try. Because after watching Sir Cliff being interviewed for an hour by one of the most deftly feline interrogators on TV, I confess that he has now entered my pantheon of heroes.

Asked about everything from his (very private) sexuality to his (very public) shunning at the hands of contemporary radio stations, Sir Cliff was, at every point, dignified, tasteful and attractively modest in a very English sort of way. Unlike his jacket, I have to concede. But if opting for fuchsia in public (or dressing head to toe in lime green, as Sir Cliff chose to for relaxing at home) is necessary to be as wise and good as Cliff so palpably is, then sign me up for the vivid pastel shades now.

Sir Cliff acknowledged that he was seen as a goody-two-shoes, and gently sent himself up, in the process displaying a level of self-knowledge given to few who’ve been in the public eye for 50 years. But even as he beat Piers to the punch when it came to self-mockery, he also displayed ample evidence that he really is, quite unbelievably, well, nice.

Sir Cliff’s account of his decision to give Tony Blair free run of his Barbados mansion one summer after he’d seen the PM looking exceptionally haggard on TV was delivered so guilelessly you could see that it was exactly what it appeared to be — pure, spontaneous, uncalculated generosity. The fact that Sir Cliff’s offer, and the holiday that followed, generated the sort of publicity he could well have done without only added to the sense that Sir Cliff is simply suffused with fairy godmotherish goodness.

And therefore the loyalty, adoration indeed, that he inspires in his fans is rooted in something more than his Dorian Grayish ability to hold back the years, or his still melodious, still powerful, still affecting, singing voice. In a world shaped by cynicism, where the flip, the ironic, the snippy and the snide mould our modern media conversation, Sir Cliff speaks to a generation who pine for the innocence of earlier days. And that pink jacket, like the holiday offer to the Blairs, sends a powerful signal. I know this sort of thing inspires sneers, but I’m like this because I’m here for the sort of people who’ve had enough of sneering.

Nice distinction

If Sir Cliff does tire of his holiday home in Barbados, his vineyard in Portugal or his place in Manhattan, then I’m certain he’d be very happy in Canada. Although not yet identified as the No 1 resort for billionaire summer hideaways, lagging as it does still somewhere behind Helsinki and Dundee, Canada has much more to offer than fashionable opinion might think. Not least the transparent niceness of its people. While there last week I was met at every stage with the invincible friendliness and automatic geniality you associate with, well, with Sir Cliff Richard. It’s a country against which it’s impossible to feel hostility.

But, as a result, after generations spent being everyone’s friend, Canadians find rudeness directed towards them hard to take. The biographer Victoria Glendinning, who is judging Canada’s most prestigious literary prize this year, volunteered this week that, as with the Booker, rather a lot of the mid-range stuff she’d read wasn’t much cop.

For the Canadians, it was the literary equivalent of criticising your own mother’s cooking. After decades of niceness, this is the reward we get?

Glendinning’s strictures were of the mildest kind, but the reaction to them underlines a truth not restricted to Canadians. The whole point of literary prizes is not really to make insightful critical judgments but to lend authors, through the air of competition that the whole exercise generates, something of the glamour, and a little of the media time, given to sport stars. It is tough enough getting Hilary Mantel, or Margaret Atwood for that matter, on telly instead of, say, Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button. Suggesting that the competition they faced was pretty poor hardly helps.

What contemporary fiction really needs is not more cool dispassionate reviewing but its own Murray Walker, someone so excited by what he sees, it sounds as though his trousers are on fire.

Jim Naughtie, this is your moment . . .

Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

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