Julie Burchill

They say that politics is showbiz for ugly people – but with the rise of the radiantly beauteous Keminator (and, grudgingly, for the eyelashes, Soft-Lad Burnham) this is no longer true, though Zack Polanski is bravely still flying the flag. I’d say these days that it was truer of the legal profession, especially the limousine-chasers among them who often end up working for celebrities; it would be interesting to see what proportion of those currently strutting and pontificating in courts of law originally dreamt of treading the boards. Everything about this puffed-up popinjay is absurd Exhibit one, Jolyon Maugham.

There’s an ungallant phrase from the old days, generally used by men, the rotters; ‘Coyote Ugly’ which refers to the unhappy happenstance of having a few shandies and falling into bed with a pleasant-seeming partner. On waking up sober, however, one realises that the bedmate is so unsightly that the option of gnawing one’s own arm (inconveniently placed under the sleeping swain) off, as coyotes are reputed to do to escape from traps, rather than wake them seems preferable. You see the reflections of a series of grotesques: freshly elected local councillors yelling ‘Allahu Akbar!

Rather like Andy Burnham, you can imagine a younger version of Zia Yusuf being sent into Love Island in the third week – when things are getting a bit comfy between the youthful love-seekers – as a ‘bombshell’ to freshen things up a bit (probably the only thing they have in common). Looking like a Disney prince – the modern, inclusive kind, not the boring old blond-haired blue-eyed type – you can see the girls getting all a-flutter over this dashing self-made swell who suddenly makes the humdrum Tylers and Jordans look a bit too boy-next-door. All the ladies would be hoping to be picked for the romantic dinner, but as the also-rans peep over the parapet, their envy of the chosen girl starts to wane. Isn’t the dark-eyed charmer a little…boastful?

When I was a young punk, my favourite badge (we loved badges!) was a big white one which a reader sent me and which simply read I HATE STUDENTS YEAH! I wore it proudly pinned to the thigh of my skin-tight jeans for many a month, until I lost it in a 1977 scuffle with a police horse during an anti-fascist demonstration in Lewisham. (I trust that no wiseacre is going to ask which side I was on.) A lot of people simply shouldn’t be at university wasting their time and money on Mickey Mouse degrees But the sentiment has stayed with me throughout the decades and still remains strong; living in Brighton, with its manifold institutes of ‘higher’ and ‘further’ education, it’s very hard to avoid students.

We’re living in a golden age of parliamentary sketch writing; never have so many been made mincemeat of by so few. Our own Madeline Grant combines coruscating character assassination with a sense of humour so light and playful that she often appears like a kitten prancing on a keyboard, delighted by the sound she’s making. And of course there’s Quentin Letts, the doyen of sketch writers, formerly of the Times and Telegraph and most recently returned to his natural home at the Daily Mail. I reviewed a book of his some years back and found it elegant, muscular and witty. It’s always a joy to behold someone who excels at what they do – that is, if the beholder is also good at their job. If not, then excellence can appear somewhat… threatening.

Oh Thomas Tuchel, how I love you! Unlike the last boss of the England team, Saint Gareth of Southgate, there’s no smart suit and fashionable theories about sad young men for you. You won’t write a book called ‘Anything Is Possible: Be Brave, Be Kind & Follow Your Dreams’. No one will ever write a play about you, though you are beautifully portrayed in the current series of Radio 4’s Dead Ringers, repeatedly correcting Gary Lineker’s sloppy thinking and Harry’s Kane’s flights of fancy with a kindly but firm ‘No, Gary’ and ‘No, Harry’ before explaining to them exactly what’s what. There’s always a special affection about the way the studio audience laugh at your small speeches and cheer when the sketches conclude.

I knew that the endless hours I’d spent watching reality TV would one day stand me in good stead in my trade – and now it’s happened. For Andy Burnham’s journey to No. 10 is recognisable from a good many such shows.  It’s notable that his wife, Marie-France van Heel, was once a contestant on Blind Date. Andy himself would be a shoo-in for its sexy and souped-up heir, Love Island. There’s always an episode a few weeks in when the original contestants get a bit bored with each other – so enter the Bombshell. Bombshells can be of either sex, but they have to be more attractive than the majority of the boys or girls already in place; this is certainly true of Burnham.

I didn’t fully realise how much Brexit Derangement Syndrome – the reaction to being on the losing side in the 2016 referendum – had got hold of even people I loved until I complained to a friend that my 2018 play People Like Us (co-written with Jane Robins, who had been asked to leave her North London book group for liking a pro-Brexit Spectator column of mine on Facebook) would close in the small London theatre where it had played for six weeks. It wouldn’t transfer to a bigger London venue, it wouldn’t open in any provincial theatre and it wouldn’t tour – despite selling out before it opened.