Where to now then? With the budget little over a week away the only thing we know is that we don’t know. How to balance the books without breaking a key pre-election promise? Anyone’s guess. Nor do we have any idea who turned the entire Downing Street operation inside out by suggesting Sir Keir Starmer was for the chop. But, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, all these mysteries feel seriously intertwined.
To sort the money thing first, or at least take a stab at it, Chancellor Rachel Reeves did seem to have a plan. Lay the ground by getting us all used to the idea that she had no choice but to hike income tax, then just about get away with doing it.
Only all that’s down the tubes now. Jolly shame from her point of view, as it was a biggie. Would have gone a long way towards filling the thirty-billion pound hole in our collective pocket.
Instead, it now looks as though she’s going to have to go for masses of tiddlers, it’s said she’s got a hundred of them up her sleeve.
Problem being this sort of thing creates martyrs, often meaning she has to backtrack anyway. Think winter fuel allowance for oldies, or welfare cuts for disabled people. Safe to assume there are torrid times ahead.
So why did she bottle it?
All those spangly new Labour MPs, puffing out their chests after getting in on last year’s landslide are now snarling at the thought of being chucked out again in four years’ time. The party’s opinion poll implosion says it all.
Not a happy ship then. Noisily, scarily, snappy. And desperate for someone to blame.
Maybe the boss. He’s hardly ever here anyway. Just back from the climate change beano in Brazil, he’s off to South Africa for an international top bods’ shindig this week.
Instead of minding the shop he’s travelled more often and further than any other British leader, ever. Ok, bridges to build and all that, but isn’t that what the Foreign Secretary’s for?
Oh, and another thing, everybody knows he’s a rubbish communicator. Incapable of not slithering into millennial management-speak at the end of every sentence.
Wouldn’t it be nice, the rebellious thinking goes, if we had someone in charge who could manage language we can all get our heads round? The Health Secretary Wes Streeting for example.
No one seems to know who dropped that little sweetie into eager scribblers’ beaks last week, but whoever it was certainly got everyone in a right tizz.
And, though Streeting himself comprehensively dissed the idea not long after, the way he put it says it all about how much better he is at getting a point across than Starmer will ever be.
First he invoked the Beeb series that’s had the nation agog by stressing he’s a ‘faithful’ not a ‘traitor’. Geddit?
Then he trampled on all silly conspiracy theories by adding: ‘Nor did I shoot JFK, I don’t know where Lord Lucan is, had nothing to do with Shergar, and I do think that the US did manage to do the moon landings.’
Bingo! Yes, we do all get that sort of thing.
However, he’s rather got his work cut out with the current wave of doctors’ strikes. Which, incidentally, polling evidence suggests most of them don’t even support. But that’s another story. As well as another headache.
As for Starmer, however restive his chaps and chapesses are, it doesn’t look like there’s an assassination squad big enough to do the business. Yet, at least.
But if the party does get ripped to shreds at the town hall elections next May, the writing could well be on the wall. And, for all its lack of policy coherence, Nigel Farage’s Reform Party does look set for a helluva good night.
That said, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is eyeing up one idea that might yet flatten Farage’s sails. While he’s endlessly banging on about people arriving in small boats she’s looking minded to take a leaf out of the Danes’ book.
They might have made a pretty good job of trashing our lot with their Viking ships all those centuries ago, but these days they’re a dab hand at repelling boarders – chucking out nearly all failed asylum seekers.
We, by contrast, only seem to deport a quarter of them. Because we clearly take European human rights law rather more literally than they do.
Flip that around a bit, and make public safety the priority instead, and hey presto, problem solved. Mahmood’s folk are murmuring about the: ‘Most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in modern times.’
Only an idea at this stage, but a space worth watching.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, seems to have gone right off watching British telly, what with Auntie’s Panorama programme doing a splice on his pre-Capitol riots speech that was a bit too nifty for its own good.
Bit rich of him to moan about their version giving the impression that he was egging the thugs on, mind, given the large number of court findings that that was exactly what he was doing.
And that he was actually impeached for incitement to insurrection, indeed came dangerously close to being hauled before the beak for his part in what happened.
Still, he has managed to claim some of the Beeb’s top scalps. And, as if that’s not enough, he’s been spitting his usual fire and brimstone about the huge slabs of money he reckons they owe him in compensation.
No question he’s got plenty of form on that. Using his army of legal consiglieres to try and scare the Yankee media into following the MAGA line, whether they like it or not.
That said, he’s got his own back to watch, as Congress is inching closer to a vote demanding the release of all the files relating to the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, which could yet seriously damage his presidency.
He’s not the only one of course – think ex-Prince Randy Andy – and nor is he personally accused of wrongdoing. But it’s still a sordid tale, and one that he really really wants to keep well away from.
And, talking of keeping unwelcome things at bay, boffins at the University of Exeter have conducted research of their own. On how best to dissuade gulls from nicking people’s food when they’re trying to have a nice day out on the beach.
Believe it or not, they checked out sixty-one of the birds across nine resorts in Cornwall, by playing a recording to them of a bloke bellowing: ‘No, stay away, that’s my food.’
They also treated them to the same words but without the shouty inflection. Then they tried the birdsong of a robin.
And guess what? Dr Neeltje Boogert, a top prof at the uni, announced: ‘The difference was that the gulls were more likely to fly away at the shouting and more likely to walk away at the speaking.
“So when trying to scare off a gull that’s trying to steal your food, talking might stop them in their tracks, but shouting is more effective at making them fly away.’
Well, who knew?
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.