New London mayor Ken Livingstone was notable by his absence at the President’s lunch at the Chelsea Flower Show today. There was no place set for the plant-loving new mayor; instead the assembled groups of horticultural judges, gardening writers and luminaries of the plant world were treated to a platitudinous speech by Joyce Quin, Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture, in which it was hard to find anything of substance at all.

Persistently referring the gardening as a ‘sector’, which always annoys the many specialist nurseries who exhibit at the show, the audience thinned noticeably during her speech, preferring the inspiration of the flower show to her formulaic remarks.