I GLANCE at this morning’s headlines and in the background people on the radio are discussing the same headlines. Sometimes it seems that my life has be laid out in big print.
Many of this morning’s headlines concern Theresa May, roundly mocked for her terrible conference speech, complete with a comedy heckler and the fridge-magnet letters of her slogan slipping off her noticeboard as she spoke.
In a weak moment, I felt sorry for her, an unaccustomed feeling. We all get colds and coughs and she was battling through. Was the ridicule she faced another example of the misogyny that stains our politics? Maybe a bit, but it was a terrible speech, cough or no cough, a rotten speech from a rotten speaker.
Mrs Maybe, that cough lozenge on wobbly legs, is splashed all over the Sunday papers, supported by John Major in the Mail, told to sack the old guard in the good old Observer, and said to be planning to demote Boris in the Sunday Time. The trouble is, Boris Johnson is like one of those toys that can’t be pushed over: he just bounces back every time, shirt artfully untucked, hair ruffled, and ready to carry on being Boris, a seemingly playful sort who is in truth as ruthless as he is undependable.
Anyway, politics. What a lot of it there is in our lives. Wall to wall politics, and yet a great many people take little notice. They just shrug as Mrs Maybe says: “It’s never been my style to hide from a challenge and I’m not going to start now.” Dull even when showing determination, that’s Theresa May and…
A voice cuts in… “Are you making me toast?” Ah, yes, sorry. One of the Polish musicians, the one who turned out in fact to be Portuguese, came down mid-blog and I made him breakfast, but left the toast in the kitchen. You’d think I’d have the hang of this breakfast lark by now.
Anyway, politics. My favourite headline of the morning, the only one that really stirs these laptop fingers, is from the Sunday Mirror – “Exposed: Cons partying on drugs, vodka and fast food.” Oh, that’s more like, just the sort of scandal we need. Sadly, a skim of the words reveals that this headline refers to prisoners and not Conservatives. The wrong sort of ‘cons’, although both have perhaps been guilty of cons. The story is about the high life being lived by prisoners. If it’s true, it’s probably a disgrace, but not one I can work myself into a lather on this Sunday morning.