Melanie McDonagh

So is it good news that Citizens' Assemblies are to sit to decide on how best to address the issue of climate change, one of the most contentious on the political agenda? The BBC observed this morning that this was something that Extinction Rebellion had been calling for. And that this had already been used in Ireland to determine the abortion issue and in Australia and the Netherlands on electoral reforms. The proposal which was made by half-a-dozen select parliamentary commissions, will work in the usual way for these things: the organisers will send out letters to 30,000 people to invite them to take part. From the people who accept, 110 lucky individuals will be chosen to decide the way forward about everything from transport to household kitchen appliances.

Short of a miracle, abortion will become legal in Northern Ireland tomorrow. It’s a result of a shabby legislative deal back in July, when English parliamentarians amended the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) bill, to override the entire principle of devolution. In other words, the abortion laws of the north of Ireland will be annulled at the say-so of the Westminster parliament and – without a single vote in its assembly or any consultation with its people – brought into line with the rest of the UK, only slightly more liberal.

My colleague at the Evening Standard, the excellent cartoonist, Christian Adams, has been having a bruising time of it since his cartoon in yesterday’s paper was published. It features two leprechauns, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson, capering around a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow – the pot bearing the legend: “no backstop”. It is quite plainly a jab at the illusory, fantastical and delusional notion – his view – that the Irish backstop can simply be magicked away, as both candidates intimated when they visited Northern Ireland yesterday. Plainly, the people being caricatured were Boris and Jeremy, not the Irish, nor indeed leprechauns. It was an Irish trope used against English politicians and visually striking.

Well! Just when it looked like the only political question anyone would be talking about is the start of the leadership hustings, what do you know? All anyone can think about is Boris Johnson’s row with his girlfriend on Thursday night. The one police were called to. Just after he’d seen off Michael Gove and the leadership contest seemed pretty well sewn up, now this: a proper row a plate-throwing, loud enough for the neighbours to hear every word sort of row. For anyone who hasn’t actually read the details, here’s the Mail’s account: 'Neighbours told last night how they heard plates and glasses smashing during a "proper tear-up" at the London flat Boris Johnson shares with girlfriend Carrie Symonds in the early hours of Friday morning.

Jeremy Corbyn’s right about Iran, isn’t he? On the attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, he tweeted (and don’t you just wish politicians could use a more considered medium?): 'Britain should act to ease tensions in the Gulf, not fuel a military escalation that began with US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement. Without credible evidence about the tanker attacks, the government’s rhetoric will only increase the threat of war.' What, precisely, is wrong about that? What exactly about it caused the Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to call him 'pathetic' and 'predictable'? Hunt himself didn’t exactly follow the US party line in announcing Iran was to blame for the attacks initially.

So it turns out that there may have been a quid pro quo behind Amber Rudd’s backing for Jeremy Hunt, her former political mentor, beyond the usual conversations about Cabinet jobs. Amber – who is for some reason that escapes me is considered a kingmaker – was interviewed this morning about one possible impediment to a shared world view between the two of them: Jeremy Hunt’s take on abortion, something that Amber says “is very important to me”. Of Hunt's view, expressed on Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday, that the legal limit for abortion should be reduced from 24 weeks to 12, she said it was his "personal, private view".  "That has always been his view," she said.

Well, very obliging of Donald Trump to back Boris Johnson – 'a very good guy…he’d be excellent…I like him very much' - in his interesting interview in The Sun, I’m sure. That’ll go down terrifically well with the kind of woke constituency that’ll be on the streets from Monday to make clear that the president is very, very unwelcome here; as it happens it also includes Jeremy Corbyn who is boycotting the president’s state banquet… though I don’t know whether he made clear that this is what he’d so if he were PM, which is kind of worrying. Happily, Mr Trump made clear he doesn’t much care. Anyway, will Mr Trump’s endorsement cut any ice with Tory members?

There’s nothing wrong with radio continuity announcers; one is a friend of mine and he’s very sharp. But the doubts about whether reading the news and the jokes between one item and another is a qualification to present programmes that actually require you to know what you’re talking about remain, now that Kathy Clugston has completed her first session as presenter of Gardeners' Question Time. She’s got nice diction, Kathy, but as a gardener she hasn’t got a clue – and in fairness she did let this be known at the outset. She started off by getting her audience at Tiptree in Essex to shout out – on the basis they live near a jam-manufacturers – whether they put jam or cream on their scones first.