Madeline Grant

A doe-eyed Andy Burnham has appeared looking sad across media outlets, hurt that he has been politically outmanoeuvred by Sir Keir Starmer. Burnham has positioned himself both as the wronged victim of Starmer’s Stalinist instincts and the only hope for a foundering party to find its popularity again. A cross between Bonnie Prince Charlie and Bambi’s Mother. ‘To decide is to divide’, Mr Alexander said. We were in deep Blairite doublespeak territory now Appropriately, for what seems to resemble a community theatre production of Macbeth, the government wheeled out a Scottish MP for the media round.

One of the least successful operas in history received a revival at Westminster this week. ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’ – the woman without a shadow – tells of betrayal, moral weakness and a mad emperor, all taking place around a group of southern islands, and was not a hit for Richard Strauss. Its revival at Westminster had a new title, however: ‘The Man with No Shame’. Inevitably, given the news, the Chagos featured heavily at PMQs, as did the situation in Greenland. The betrayal of south sea, or rather Indian Ocean, islands, no longer seems to be the preserve of opera, or even operetta, but instead the active policy of the man squatting in Downing Street. ‘The future of Greenland should only be decided by the people of Greenland’, began Kemi Badenoch.

This government has many faults, but one really cannot fault them on their comic timing. On the very day when the Americans withdrew support for the Chagos ‘deal’, partly on the grounds that it showed weakness in the face of China, the government also gave approval to a massive new Chinese embassy complete with access to sensitive underground cable systems and an unspecified subterranean complex that definitely won’t be used to torture dissidents.  Inevitably, this provoked questions in the House of Commons. Answering for the government was Security Minister Dan Jarvis. Clearly aware that he was about to get a barrage of difficult questions from unimpressed opposition MPs, Mr Jarvis had deployed a classic Labour two-pronged strategy.

Westminster has its faults, but if you’re looking for a good old-fashioned day of mistakes, backbiting, and last-minute drama, there really is nowhere like it. Today it was there in spades: Titus Andronicus by the cast of Rainbow. The Jenrick sacking had everything – apparent incompetence by a junior aide, wild conspiratorial accusations and a hastily convened press conference. Never mind tea or pomp or sarcasm, nobody does this sort of clattering political cock-up quite like the British. Reform had always planned to have a press conference today. In fact, they had two. Spare a thought for Lord Offord, unveiled as Reform’s leader in Scotland but destined to be only the bridesmaid and not the bride.

Another week, another U-turn! This time the PM had chosen to make Prime Minister’s Questions even more torturous for himself by beating an ignominious retreat on the issue of compulsory digital ID. The climb-down was inevitable. The government has totalitarian aspirations that would make Brezhnev blush, but is sadly fated to be run by people for whom the ‘Do Not Eat’ instructions on Playdoh are designed.  The gap between Labour’s authoritarian instincts and its actual abilities has enormous comic potential. Indeed I’m sure that in time Sir Keir will be considered to have added greatly to the gaiety of nations: just not the one that has to suffer him as its prime minister.

‘New year, new you’. One can imagine the Prime Minister repeating this most hollow of secular mantras in front of a full length mirror in Downing Street. As the embodiment of vapid and valueless 21st century Britain, the PM probably loves New Year’s resolutions. He is the walking embodiment of Dry January after all. Yet, if he did vow to turn over a new leaf as the calendars changed there was little evidence of it at the first Prime Minister’s Questions since the recess. Mrs Badenoch focussed on two areas, not unrelated: foreign policy and the PM’s constant refusal to be scrutinised about it or any other matter.

You may recall the cancellation of the Maccabi Tel Aviv-Aston Villa game back in November. What has happened since is that, due to constant scrutiny by Nick Timothy MP, Lord Austin and a small number of journalists, the narrative that West Midlands police spun at the time – that the Israeli fans were too dangerous to host – has slowly been unravelling. The force stands accused of retroactively cobbling together evidence for a ban that was actually rooted in fears about sectarian violence in Birmingham; ‘elements’ of the local community reportedly wished to ‘arm themselves‘ and target visiting fans. So far, so reassuring.

I’ve just come back from a short holiday in Venice. The city is an unsurpassable monument to the glories of the Renaissance, but its streets and waterways also bear witness to the absolute non-existence of 'international rules'. When confronted by Bonaparte's expansionist aims in 1797, the millennium-old Venetian republic responded as it had always done, relying on diplomatic assumptions maintained for centuries. Meanwhile Napoleon, promising to be 'an Attila to the state of Venice', simply invaded, bringing the Serene Republic to an ignominious end. Venetian art and treasures were plundered to fund the French war effort. In a particular humiliation for the city-state, Bonaparte began filling in the canals to resemble Parisian boulevards.