2 hours ago
5
Monday
I was at Chequers for Donald Trump and Keir Starmer’s joint press conference last September and remember being open-mouthed when the US president declared he had personally ended eight global conflicts. Trump followed this by claiming one of the wars he had ended was between Azerbaijan and Albania. My eyes switched to Starmer who just nodded as if to say: “Yes. He did that.” Either the war between Azerbaijan and Albania is the least reported war in modern history or it was a total fiction. Just as much as Trump’s later claim to have never met Peter Mandelson, just days after footage of him sharing a joke with the Prince of Darkness in the Oval Office led many of the news bulletins. Keir didn’t bat an eyelid at that either. But maybe I am being pedantic because it seems the US president is now getting round to ending a war that actually is taking place.
It’s surely a bit churlish to point out that the war he is ending is one he started. Hopefully the Nobel committee won’t hold this against Trump this year and gives him the peace prize he so richly deserves. Though the ending of the war between the US and Iran does seem to depend on your definition of the word “ending”. If by declaring you have won a war that is in stalemate is a means to an end, maybe we are halfway there. If also the US and Iran launching missile strikes shortly after Trump declared an imminent peace deal is progress then we should grab it with open arms. Perhaps attacking each other is the way both sides show affection. They enjoy the make-up sex after the lovers’ tiff. As so often with Trump, a suspension of reality is in order.
Tuesday
Peter Murrell may have pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP coffers, but questions still remain. How come no one in the SNP was unduly bothered that donations had gone missing and there were discrepancies in the accounts? How come the voters didn’t seem to care the SNP finances were a bit iffy in recent elections? It had been fairly obvious Murrell had a lot of explaining to do ever since he was first arrested. Surely someone must have thought if the SNP couldn’t be trusted with their own money, how could they be trusted with the country’s. It’s almost as if the SNP was run as a cult where any kind of behaviour was excused. And that’s before we get to Nicola Sturgeon, Murrell’s ex-wife. Sturgeon has always insisted she had no idea her husband was committing fraud on an industrial scale. So one can only conclude that the former leader of the SNP – as such, the woman ultimately responsible for signing off the accounts – is breathtakingly dim. Or at the very least lacking in curiosity.
Instead, we are expected to believe she had thought he had been putting money aside for a rainy day. There was his salt and pepper grinder habit. In 2019 he came home with Peugeot Saveur mills costing £526. The following year he upgraded to Lalique glass grinders costing a mere £2,618. A bargain. Nicola just thought she was living the dream. Who wouldn’t want their partner to spoil themselves rotten. Especially if he was wearing his Slouch Pouch Onesie. That cost just £75. But still far too much for Peter to spend his own money on. It must have been a very understanding marital arrangement. One where neither Nicola nor Peter ever asked questions. Now, I have to confess I have managed to smuggle a couple of books I’ve bought into the house without my wife noticing, but never anything on the scale of Murrell. He was hiding his crimes in plain sight. If I were suddenly to acquire a large Hans Coper pot or announce I had just bought a holiday home, my wife’s first reaction would not be: “How nice, darling.” It would be: “Where the hell did you get the money?” and: “Why didn’t you consult me first?”
Wednesday
Carla Denyer, the Green MP for Bristol Central, posted a letter late last week on social media to all her constituents that she was going to take a leave of absence from work as she was suffering from burnout. While most people were sympathetic, within hours the online abuse had started. Some of it from political journalists whom you would have imagined should know better. What did Carla mean she was burnt out? Burnt out from what? Sitting around in the House of Commons doing nothing very much. Hell, being an MP wasn’t even a proper job. Not like doctors and nurses. She even had staff to take care of her constituency business so no one would notice if she was gone.
My sympathies were entirely with Carla. I’ve been there many times and it’s a nightmare. Not least because it creeps up on you gradually. It starts with a vague feeling of anxiety. I wake up in the morning and I can’t bring myself to get out of bed. Then I do get out of bed because I’m running late and slowly the day clicks into gear. Things feel marginally better. OK to function. I go to bed hoping the next day will be better. But it isn’t. It’s marginally worse. And so it goes on until I am near breakdown. Sometimes, after a month or two, things click back into place. The meds start working and my support network of shrinks, therapists, friends and colleagues kick in and life gradually becomes bearable again. I had two months like this earlier this year. Somehow I knuckled my way through. At other times, I’ve needed a period of time off work. Twice I’ve been admitted to a psychiatric hospital with anxiety and depression. And I’m well aware it could happen again at some point. I never take my mental health for granted. Nor should any of us presume to tell Carla how she should manage hers. Sometimes the bravest thing is not to carry on. It’s to know when you’ve had enough.
Thursday
There was a telling moment near the end of the three-part Tony Blair documentary that aired on Channel 4 earlier in the year. It wasn’t about his parents. It wasn’t about his relationship with Gordon Brown. It wasn’t even about weapons of mass destruction and the war with Iraq. It was when the interviewer asked if he had ever considered therapy. For the first time, Blair looked genuinely awkward, as if he had revealed a part of himself he preferred to keep hidden. “No,” he said, nervously. He had never dreamed of therapy. He had never felt there was anything to be gained from looking back. He preferred to look forward and to act. This explained more than the previous two and a half hours of film. Because it wasn’t that Tony didn’t want to look back. It was that he couldn’t allow himself to. He couldn’t bear the idea of being personally accountable for what he had done. He couldn’t go near the burden that he might have been acting out of vanity, a desire to look strong, ego. All human emotions but ones that would mean he had to accept responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. That was too much for Tony. Not even his religion would have been able to save him from that level of introspection. The only way he could survive was to keep telling himself he had always had the best of all possible motives for everything he had done. In his own mind, he was a saviour. There was nothing to say sorry for.
The same was almost certainly true when Blair published his critique of Labour this week. He thought he was doing the party and the country a favour. He thought that what he had to say really mattered. That his truths were absolute truths. But, as before, he was blind to his own motivations. What really was driving him. His desire to be remembered. To remain the only Labour prime minister to win three elections in perpetuity. That his intervention was not benign. It was to make life as difficult as possible for Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham. If he had really wanted to help, he could have called them privately. Most of all, what he had done was to write a manifesto for the Tory party. Let’s see if Kemi Badenoch adopts it.
Friday
I had to miss Spurs’ last game of the season as I was driving to stay with friends at the Hay festival where I had an event the next day. So I listened to the Everton game on the car on the way up. It’s an experience I suggest none of you repeat. It was far, far worse than being at the game in person. The images I was creating in my head from the commentator’s voice were more terrifying than anything I have witnessed at a live game. Just white noise and my imagination to keep me company for the best part of two hours. Still, Tottenham did get the job done. Just. Though it was a typically white-knuckle ride. The illusion of competence. The ball that crossed the goalline by a matter of inches to win the game. Then the usual last 30 minutes of panic stations with every player struggling to remember they were professional footballers. It was weird to find myself almost crying with joy at the final whistle that we had finished 17th for the second year in a row.
I seem to remember thinking this time last year that things could only get better and look where that got me. But third time lucky. Maybe we can aspire to finish 16th next season. That at least would be a tangible improvement. Though not exactly why I pay a small fortune for my season ticket. Which I renewed on Monday, having reconciled myself to the reality the club were not about to reduce the prices while we were still clinging to the Premier League by our fingertips. Since the Everton game, the club non-exec chair, Peter Charrington, has written what passes for a letter of apology to supporters. Only it turns out Pistol Pete isn’t really sorry for anything. Rather, he says the Spurs leadership team has had everything in hand for the last year. Forgive me for not having noticed. Still, maybe it’s time to relax and enjoy some football I really don’t care about. The World Cup. It starts on 11 June. So, with perfect timing, I am doing a show at the Leicester Square theatre in London the day before. Do come along. Your last chance to avoid football mania till May next year.
The week in pictures
