“John is John”: from union bruiser to deputy prime minister

Heroes
Rats, which appear to really love driving. After researchers in the US found that they could teach the rodents how to steer a miniature motorised vehicle, they pimped out the rides with rat-proof wiring, indestructible tires and ergonomic driving levers. “Unexpectedly,” study co-author Kelly Lambert tells The Conversation, “we found that the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the ‘lever engine’ before their vehicle hit the road.”

Hero
A primary school pupil in Hampshire who went the extra mile for a show-and-tell by bringing in an unexploded bomb. Party-pooping teachers at Orchard Junior School in Dibden Purlieu immediately evacuated the premises and called in the bomb squad.

Villains
Captain Tom Moore’s family, who personally pocketed more than £1m from the centenarian’s Covid fundraising foundation. A Charity Commission inquiry concluded that the late war veteran’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, Colin Ingram-Moore, were culpable of “serious and repeated” instances of misconduct, mismanagement and failures of integrity.

Hero
The Clifton Suspension Bridge, for joining the exodus of liberals from X in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory. One can only imagine the “agonising discussions” within the structure’s social media team, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph, or indeed “how Elon Musk would have taken the news”. But I’m pleased to say you can still find out about bridge closures on Facebook and Instagram.

Villains
The 132 hamsters that grounded a plane for four days after breaking free in the hold and running riot. The rascal rodents escaped during a flight from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada, on Portugal’s São Miguel island. Maintenance staff had to recapture every one of them in case they gnawed through the aircraft’s electrical cabling, a task that took rather longer than expected.

When did being a centrist become “right wing”?

In recent weeks, my inbox has been flooded with messages asking the same thing, says Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times: “Why have you moved so far to the right?” These correspondents tell me I have become a “far-right headbanger” – possibly, some imply, the result of sinister “pressure” from my Sunday Times overlords. Their evidence? Columns calling for cuts to immigration, asylum, deficits and welfare. How much simpler life would be if this were true: that after standing as a Labour candidate in the 2001 general election, I had been on a “journey” and could now “see the light”; that I now “cleave to Friedmanite ideology” and take Ayn Rand’s works into the bath. Alas not.

The political world has veered so far to the left that people like me are now in a “surreal position”. We remain in our minds centrists while looking to an ever more socialist world, like “Hayek’s love children”. What’s most striking about this shift is that it has been led not by the Corbynista battalions “waving the Little Red Book”, but by “diehard Tories”. It was the Conservatives, remember, who introduced the pensions “triple lock” (Rishi Sunak wanted to quadruple it) that is hurtling us towards bankruptcy. Net migration, which stood at 150,000 when I ran for Labour, has ballooned to an unprecedented 745,000 last year. The recent run of Conservative governments also ran deficits. “Every. Single. Year.” So national debt is now around 100% of GDP. Is it right wing to point all of this out? I don’t think so. I think it’s merely “sane”– and therefore “far, far to the right of the mad socialists of today”.

Say Nothing
Simultaneously a history and a tragedy, and at times a caper as well as a brutal thriller, Say Nothing is a “sensational amalgam”, says Benji Wilson in The Daily Telegraph. Based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s book of the same name, the series spans four decades of “murder and betrayal” in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It is a “bravura tapestry”, stitching together the stories of key figures from the period including IRA militants Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Adams, and Jean McConville – a widowed mother of 10 who was abducted from her home in west Belfast in 1972 and never seen again. Nine episodes, 45 minutes each.

Brown bread ice cream
My first taste of brown bread ice cream was the moment I realised “how good classic British cookery could be”, says Olivia Potts in The Spectator. It’s rich and creamy, with delicious little clusters of “buttery and sweet” toasted brown bread. To make it at home, bring 300g double cream, 250ml whole milk and a teaspoon of vanilla paste to a simmer. Add a mix of 4 whisked egg yolks and 150g light brown sugar, gently heat until it’s the texture of single cream, then sieve into a bowl and refrigerate. Meanwhile, brown 30g butter, combine with ½ teaspoon salt and 60g light brown sugar, then stir into 175g brown breadcrumbs. Toast for 15 mins at 180C then, once cool, mix into the ice cream and freeze for 30 minutes before serving.