I’ve been to Morocco a number of times in recent years – it’s a country that holds a deep fascination for me. I penned this letter from Tangier on the day of the parliamentary elections in October 2016:

It’s election day today, though you wouldn’t know it – I haven’t passed a single polling station or even a political poster, and the feeling I get from online news outlets, from taxi drivers and hotel staff, is that only half of the electorate will actually bother to vote. Parliament’s not that significant in Morocco – it’s the king who’s absolutely key. So long as he’s around (and he really doesn’t look very well), then Morocco stays firmly anchored to its western alliance, on the path to a relatively liberal accommodation with Europe and the free market economy. But if he dies before his delicate young son comes of age, then the wicked uncle takes over – with predictably operatic consequences.

The journey here from Rabat was entertaining. The train was half an hour late, but there was a jolly atmosphere in my compartment in the first-class carriage at the back of the train: me, two cackling Dutch women in their early 60s, and a sweet Indonesian family of three. The time passed quickly, with chatting, snacking, gazing out of the window at donkey carts, and then almost falling out of the open door of the train while on a visit to the toilet – where, somewhat incongruously, a smart young woman was charging her iPhone.

Just after 3pm the train pulled into Tangier Gare de Ville, and a short taxi ride later I was stepping through the doors of the Hotel Continental, high above the port. Queen Victoria’s son and Churchill stayed here, though it’s come down a little since then – a handwritten scrap of paper placed on my bedside table advised me that “eau chaude” would be available from 6-11 and from 18-23 hrs…

My third floor room overlooks a jumble of sugar-cube houses and satellite dishes; sweet tea is served on the terrace overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, where poised young women sit in clusters holding forth, some with headscarves, others without.

Dear, sweet Tangier is like a rakish uncle – a little scrawny and long in the tooth after years of excess, but dressed in Portilloesque pink trousers and smelling of tobacco, sweetmeats and musty carpets. As we’re just a dozen miles from Europe, the cars are ever so slightly more likely to slow down and let you cross the road than they are in Casablanca. But the children roaming the medina like packs of mini-wolves are rapacious, scheming and only to be fended off with money or sweets. Who cares what the election result was – all the theatre is on the street…