This has been a bad couple of days for UK political journalism. So much self-referential, unsubstantiated gossip. I got the gossip too, but you don't have to publish it. So much attention to undeclared results, so little analysis of policy. Such bad extrapolation.

Patti Smith, (via Words of Women, fb).

Shame

It's time to call out these comments. When I started my career, the BBC called a programme I went on, about debt crisis "Hey Big Spender" - I objected. The biggest cause of debt crisis was change of circumstance. Since we've had a pandemic, cost of living crisis, mental health

Looking back on 14 years of the Tories is like looking back at the traumatising post-vindaloo shit you just did in the toilet.

They partied , they bet on elections , they crashed the economy, they broke every public service, they destroyed integrity and honesty in public office , they paid their mates billions , they put their friends in the House of Lords, they gave their cronies knighthoods, they went

This by Tanya Gold really is as good everyone says it is. politico.eu/article/rishi-…

My friend Con has a message. “Vote them out. Scandal after scandal, lie after lie, entitled arsehole after entitled arsehole. Misleading the House, lying to the public, lying to the Queen. All to get their own way. And when they got their own way, they failed. Vote them out.”

I cannot vote but please get them out.

Boring. Boring. Boring.

Once in a lifetime. That is to say I loved it but wouldn’t go again.

Today is a very dark day

One more time: I have a spare ticket for Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich in the Champions league next Wednesday in the Bayern fan block. I am going. Does anyone fancy joining me?

The Orange Scarf, 1927 by Tamara de Lempicka #WomensArt

Who do I know who is a member of Directors UK or Pact? And who wouldn’t mind looking something up for me.

Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.

Eine „Merz“-CDU gibt es im Grunde nicht. Es ist jetzt zunehmend die liberale, die „Merkel“-CDU, die Merz jetzt stützt - andere orientieren sich schon Richtung Schwarz-Blau, um nicht irgendwann Blau-Schwarz machen zu müssen. Mein Leitartikel heute in ⁦DIE ZEIT⁩