A long time ago, we used to watch Play For Today on the TV, my mother and me. The pioneering drama series, which ran from 1970 to 1984, is being revived – and hurrah for that. Perhaps oddly, though, it will run on Channel 5 rather than the BBC.

The BBC must have been too busy trying to serve up a half-baked season of MasterChef featuring two presenters it had just sacked; oh, and making sure its news departments mention Nigel Farage in every other bulletin.

My mother would have been perhaps in her 40s when we watched Play For Today. Now she is 93 and in hospital after a fall.

We visited her earlier in the week. At one point, the woman in the next bed had the curtains pulled round while talking to an occupational therapist about going home.

A series of questions gauged the suitability of where she lived, how many stairs there were, if she had a bath or a shower, and so forth. Then she was asked if she smoked, and if she did how many cigarettes in a day. “As many as I can possibly get my hands on,” she said as her wheezy laugh rose from behind those curtains.

What a line, a real-life exchange worthy of a TV dramatist.

Play For Today dates from an age when British television was not afraid of serious drama. With fewer channels and few distractions, the box then had a broad reach; and it was a box, not a panoramic glass canvas hung from the wall.

While there is undeniably much more choice today, it’s a fragmented TV universe with too much on in too many places; and too many companies wanting a slice of what you don’t have (money, attention).

Play For Today, still recalled as one of the most influential British television series, was known for exploring thorny societal issues. It began so long ago that I’d not even started at university.

Actors who appeared in the dramas included Ray Winstone, Alison Steadman and Helen Mirren, while Dennis Potter was among the playwrights whose work was featured, including Blue Remembered Hills, with an adult cast playing children during wartime.

Potter also contributed Brimstone And Treacle, wherein a strange young man (played by strange young Sting, no less) has a sinister effect on the family of a middle-aged writer.

It’s not possible at this distance to say for sure which dramas we watched together. I recall one about a George Best-like footballer who, when cornered by a man accusing him of being a softie about being kicked, slammed a car door into his shin, saying: “That now I earn my living”, or something like that.

Disappointingly, a trawl through the list of dramas doesn’t pin that memory down, so perhaps it wasn’t a Play For Today. Plays that do occur include Our Day Out by Willy Russell, Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh, Spend Spend Spend by Jack Rosenthal, Nuts In May (Leigh again), and Edna The Inebriate Woman, by Jeremy Sandford and starring Patricia Hayes.

I can’t ask mum what she remembers about all that, or not at present. A question to be saved for another day.

As I sat typing this, my wife came in with my mother on the screen on her phone for a video chat. Calls keep being missed or cut off, the wrong button having been pressed, or the right button having been pushed the wrong way. But here she was. Mum said she was having a good day as assorted friends had been to see her, and she was out of bed at last. So that was something.

Channel 5 has revived Play For Today to “give young writers, actors and producers from lower-income backgrounds a way into TV, helped by established talent”, according to a report in the Guardian.

Good for them.

If those writers want any steers on dialogue, perhaps they should hang around a geriatric ward.

Flags, flags, flags. When did we all get so hung up about bits of fluttering material?

Surely it is possible to harbour no strong feelings about the union flag or the St George’s flag; to think, oh there’s the flag, then turn your mind to higher matters, or lower matters if you prefer.

Of course, most of those hanging these flags from lampposts do so because they wish to engineer a row, cause a spat – and then act all affronted about their ‘rights’. To them flags are a symbol of Britishness, although heaven knows why. A country strong in its identity, one sure of its culture and history, doesn’t need to pull such playacting patriotism from the dressing-up box.

The weaponisation of flags will disappear soon, if only to flap back when those with angry insecurities wish to cause a fuss.

As for pride in your country, that always seems a strange feeling to indulge. Shouldn’t you rather have pride in your own achievements, or better still those of people you love or respect. Being proud about the mere happy accident of your birth seems odd.

Of course, those demanding this dusty fealty really just want to have a scrap, so best to walk on by and leave them to it.

Here’s a nubby conundrum. Should my typing fingers address ‘lawless Britain’ – or go straight to the new Naked Gun film?

Oh, with a tug of reluctance, let’s start in that Nigel Farage-fabricated land where people are too scared to step outdoors for fear of being mugged.

This maliciously made-up place does not exist, as Fraser Nelson pointed out in his column in The Times: “NHS hospital data shows knife assaults last year fell to a 25-year low, with the number treated for violent assault close to half what it was in 2000. Crime surveys agree. By such measures our streets have seldom, if ever, been safer. So what’s going on?”

Oh, right-wing fearmongering, the rise of social media distortions, people’s dumb determination to believe whatever they wish and never mind the evidence, that’s what.

Nelson says that when “shrill voices dominate, hyperbole wins and Britain is portrayed not just as troubled but in ruins, terrorised by immigrant-driven crime, even close to civil war. And if the official figures show none of this? Well, then those figures must be wrong”.

Praising the former editor of the right-wing Spectator doesn’t come easily, but Nelson is right here, especially in highlighting Farage saying: “We all know that crime has risen significantly over the course of the last few years.”

Ah yes, “we all know” – the nudge-nudge politics of perception. Farage has never been interested in traditional politics; too much like hard work, too little reward. Instead, he dives into social media, flourishes endless lies and exaggerations with shabby elan, and filches policies from his hero Trump.

But, you know, I am forever saying this stuff; does pointing it out make a difference, or will too many people continue to believe the lies?

Incidentally, a Reform supporter who doesn’t know how the electoral system works has started another of those pointless government petitions calling for an immediate general election.

The petition had 639,168 signatures at the time of writing. At last year’s general election Labour won 9,708,716 votes. Perhaps the instigator of the petition ‘knows’ that 639,168 is a higher number than 9,708,716.

A counter-petition instead asks that we should: “Shove a Pineapple Up Nigel Farage’s Arse”.

Sadly, this petition seems fake and appears to be a schoolboy prank (well done that schoolboy, it certainly tickled my inner schoolboy).

Britain isn’t flawless but it isn’t lawless either. It mostly remains a pleasant, friendly and engaging country. Unless you’re a poisoned patriot; that sort hate the country they profess to love, which is odd.

Thanks to Private Eye for its spoof news story on tinderbox Britain, seen below.

OUR eldest son has a dizzy fond memory of watching the original Naked Gun film as a family. He particularly recalls me laughing my head off (something that used to happen with Tommy Cooper, too).

For me the hilarity lay in spotting where a joke was going before it arrived. Anyway, we went to watch the new one the other day with the eldest, at his suggestion.

Liam Neeson stars as Frenk Drebin Jr, alongside Pamela Anderson and Danny Huston. The film is exhilaratingly silly, breathlessly funny and the jokes swarm like witty bees, almost each one a welcome sting.

Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian praised the film as “amiably ridiculous, refreshingly shallow, entirely pointless and guilelessly crass”.

Yup, all that.

Neeson proves to be an inspired replacement for Leslie Nielsen, a hulking straight man given endlessly ridiculous lines and scenes to spin out, including a romance with Anderson, who is fab in the film.

More importantly, at one point the three of us were helpless with laughter, and our son, sitting with his long legs at the end of the row, leaned his forehead on the back of the seat in front, and howled. Another good memory.

Definitely recommended if well-honed foolishness is your thing.

Dr Johnson famously said: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.”

Well, don’t tell Donald Trump for he seems to hate London, reserving especial contempt for its mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan.

On his recent golfing jolly to Scotland, the US President took time out to lay into ‘windmills’ – and into Mr Khan.

When a man is tired of hearing Trump blather on about everything, he is perhaps tired of life as it is presently being played out, for there is in Trump all that life can ill afford.

When a man is tired of Trump – well, you get the picture, one fuzzy with contempt and corruption (how else do you describe a sitting President using US taxpayer dollars to fund a five-day business trip to promote his own golf clubs?).

Those windmills tilted at by the orange Don Quixote are in fact wind turbines. Trump hates them in an unhinged manner, but then he does most things without calling on a hinge.

At one of his audiences with the press, Trump said wind turbines compared unfavourably to a small hole in the ground. He didn’t elaborate, but he was talking oil, and that ‘small hole’ would need to have a massive oil rig built on top.

To Trump the turbines spoil the view from his golf courses. I’d say Trump spoils the view of every horizon along which he shambles and halters, but there you go.

Anyway, isn’t there something beautiful about a line of wind turbines, touching the sky, and generating power only from what blows by.

Nigel Farage, that Trump Mini-Me, is turning Reform UK against all eco-energy, but then his party is said to be funded by big oil (small man, big oil; small man, big noise).

But let’s return to London. I love our capital city and earlier this year spent a great weekend there with our eldest son, as written up in a blog published on March 10.

There is so much to see and do in London; so much culture; and it is a fully multicultural city. All that culture, all those diverse people – that must be why Trump so often disparages London. The city is the opposite of his low-culture, fools-gold glistering world of tasteless glitz.

And while Trump’s behaviour is killing tourism to the US, London has just been named the world’s top destination for 2025 by Tripadvisor. Maybe he just can’t stomach that.

Why he hates Mr Khan isn’t clear, but it’s a long-time antipathy. No-one would be surprised if race came into it, and Trump last week called Mr Khan “a nasty person” who has “done a terrible job”. He previously called Mr Khan a “stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London”, proving once again that Trump insults are schoolboy slights spat from an old man’s mouth.

Nigel Farage is always talking down London by exaggerating crime in the capital. He does this by referring to his favoured statistical measure: the department of things he just made up or wildly exaggerated.

It’s an odd sort of patriot who so often talks down the country he is supposed to love. Wearing Union Jack socks is no defence either and probably should be recorded in the crime statistics Farage chooses to ignore.

In the far-right conspiracy world – also known, sadly, as ‘the world’ – just saying that London is ridden with crime is enough for that to be true. No dry statistical heckle will silence those who shout.

Sadiq Khan and his team conducted ‘social listening’ research after Trump’s verbal assault in Scotland. This concluded that 94 per cent of those commenting online posted from outside London: 94 per cent as opposed to 6 per cent of Londoners. Maybe it’s because I’m not a Londoner, as the old song almost has it.

Not sure what Dr Johnson would have made of all this. When a man is tired of social media he is probably just tired. I’ll plead guilty to that.

Johnson, by the way, was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and later moved to London where he struggled to support himself through journalism. Well, echo me that one, if you replace Lichfield with Cheadle Hulme.

Despite his travails, he remains known today mostly for his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755.

“The task took eight years, and Johnson employed six assistants, all of them working in his house off Fleet Street,” according to BBC History.

His quotation about London took less time and is surely remembered by more people. By literary law, those words are also dug up every time Dr Johnson is mentioned.

As for London today, here to close are wise words on Threads from a woman called Jenna Chowdhury. I know nothing about Jenna but like what she has to say:

“London thrives BECAUSE of its diversity, not despite it. It’s not perfect. Racism exists. Inequality is real. But Londoners show up —for protests, pride, for each other. We don’t just talk diversity — we fight for it! Next time someone says multiculturalism has failed tell them: It’s alive & thriving. It’s called London.”

There is a file I keep for blog ideas. At present it’s swollen like an appendix fit to burst, but mostly that’s down to Nigel Farage.

Many of the bits and pieces put into the ‘blog stuff’ folder are examples on social media of what seems to be growing agitation with the BBC for giving undue prominence to Reform UK. This has only grown after Farage was granted yet another audience with Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday programme last weekend.

Let’s have an investigatory prod at that aching appendix to see what pops out.

Oh look, here is Farage fuming that anger in the UK is the worst it’s been for 60 years. Small boats are to blame – of course they are. Farage would be quieter than a Trappist monk in a library if he didn’t have disadvantaged migrants to complain about.

Every time he or anyone else jabs a mean finger at migrants, just remember that deeply disadvantaged people in small boats don’t cause all your problems. I’d worry more about the ones in big boats who hoard wealth to themselves and resent paying their fair share of taxes.

Migrants fleeing here on inflatable dinghies have surmounted problems a privileged moneyed man like Farage has never encountered – and anyway they constitute a tiny fraction of immigration to this country.

Sadly, Farage has been horribly efficient at tricking people into believing what he says. Just remember it’s always about the moan; just remember he’s a shoddy peddler of grievance politics.

After his Sunday outing, Farage was back on the BBC the following day with a televised press conference about crime, almost as if there was an election round the corner, which there isn’t. Britain faces societal collapse, he spouted. Not true, but Farage just tramples the truth to create the impression that this is so.

He’s like an arsonist who sets a blaze, runs around shouting that he warned everyone there would be an inflagration, then seeks praise for phoning the fire brigade.

Let’s take another tentative prod. What emerges this time is Caroline Lucas, the former Green MP, saying sensibly: “Farage should never be interviewed without being forced to answer for the failures of Brexit.”

Quite right – but good luck with that. No one ever asks him about Brexit on the BBC, preferring to let him spout off on his chosen topics.

As you will have noticed, much of Farage’s shtick is to suggest that we are not being told the truth about something, even after he’s just been presented with the evidence. Crime is rising dramatically, he says, only to grumble about the reliability of crime statistics if anyone points out this isn’t true.

Let’s prod another infected spot.

Ah, yes, here is Farage claiming on social media that Essex Police bussed counter-demonstrators to a far-right protest earlier this week outside a migrant hotel in Epping. The chief constable should resign Farage blabbered.

He showed footage of what had “happened”, only for Essex police to say he was “categorically wrong”. Some of the counter-demonstrators were instead “escorted by vehicle away from the area for their safety”.

What a typical Farage move – being inflammatory before the truth.

He later issued a sort of apology to Essex Live, containing this slippery line: “I was slightly out on accuracy, I apologise, but I think the gist of what I was saying was right.”

After that press conference, the right-wing papers were happy to be Farage’s echo chamber. “Police not ready for summer of unrest” wailed the Telegraph. The Mail went for a splash about asylum seekers “gambling away taxpayer cash”. They were, in fact, using some of their meagre allowance to gamble, and in a sense you can understand why, foolish hope perhaps being their last resort.

Here’s a confession: I gamble away a small portion of my pension on doing the lottery, but don’t tell the Daily Mail.

Oh well, right-wing papers do what right-wing papers do. I am more concerned about the BBC giving Farage endless free publicity without ever asking tough questions.

Another prod, yet more septic politics. This time on climate denial. Reform UK is reportedly funded in part by big oil, hence its hatred of anything to do with climate change. Deputy leader Richard Tice wrote an alarming, if absurd, threatening  letter to energy firms warning them against bidding to provide clean power provision as Reform would do away with all that.

Never mind that the clean energy industry has seen a growth of 10% and now supports nearly a million people in well-paid jobs in the UK, according to the CBI.

Almost there now, although this file sure is bursting. Another prod finds Farage moaning about the government’s plans to give 16-year-olds the vote, saying it’s an attempt to rig the system.

Ah, yes – 16-year-olds are too young to vote but it’s perfectly OK to have a 19-year-old Reform councillor as leader of Warwickshire County Council. A little hypocrisy goes a long way.

A final dip into the infected file brings up something heartening at last. On Threads you will find an excellent account called Reform Are Not Your Friends. This has endless examples of how you really don’t want to end up with a Reform government.

I rather liked this one…

Reform really need to do better with their attack bot accounts… 😬

😂 They’re almost always called “Derek”, “Brian” or “Graham”.

😂 They typically have 0-4 followers.

😂 They’ve never posted anything other than rant responses to us and others.

😂 They don’t respond to any facts.

If you’re on Threads, given them a follow.

And to conclude, if you want a climate denying, gun toting far-right grifter who uses politics to enrich himself – he has nine jobs now, apparently – who says he will his install multi-millionaire mates as Cabinet ministers, and is basically a Trump tribute act, go on and vote for Reform.

Just remember they’re not your friends.

Footnote: Sarah Pochin, the Reform MP for Runcorn, filmed herself for her YouTube channel saying that Greenway Road in her constituency was riddled with crime and social unrest because of illegal immigrants. BBC North West Tonight interviewed locals on the street who said that’s not true and it’s a lovely place to live.

Here are pieces of flotsam found in the stagnant pool of my mind.

You can’t move nowadays without tripping over two vowels yoked together in the name of progress. No prizes for guessing those letters.

Great things are being promised in the name of artificial intelligence (AI). Putting a search in Google brought up the following:

“Artificial intelligence refers to the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. According to a BBC article, these tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making…”

That was how artificial intelligence explained artificial intelligence to me – a sort of tech version of mansplaining. Tech-splaining, perhaps.

In a sense I don’t know enough to be writing this, but such a deficiency doesn’t bother others, including our government which is setting great store by AI. Something we don’t fully understand is going to perform miracles of efficiency, apparently.

Perhaps it will; perhaps it won’t.

I worry we are being oversold something that isn’t finished yet. And fret that many of those doing the selling are US tech bros, a cold clan who already seduced us with social media, upending the world and in the process hoarding all the available money; or much of it, at least.

Are we willing to trust them all over again – and what are they going to take as their reward this time?

My other doubts lie in the admittedly small matter of my first novel, which was among those appropriated by Meta without permission or reward. An investigation by The Atlantic magazine in March revealed that Meta “may have accessed millions of pirated books and research papers through LibGen – Library Genesis – to train its generative AI (Gen-AI) system, Llama,” according to the BBC.

I typed in my title, and there it was, nicked.

Our own government seems dangerously relaxed about American tech companies conducting a smash-and-grab raid on the creative vaults, all to train their AI systems.

The word processing system I type this on also interrupts me all the time, asking if I’d like help writing. No thanks – I know how to write, and even if I don’t, those are my mistakes to make, my own stumble towards something complete and human made.

Then again, on the BBC news just now was a breathless report about switching on the UK’s most powerful supercomputer. It’s called the Isambard-AI machine and apparently hails a new age of artificial intelligence. A surgeon interviewed praised the medical work of AI, adding that his job might not exist in the same way in the future.

Incidentally, I am rereading my three Rounder Brothers novels as I am trying to find a way to bring them back. They were written long enough ago for me to have half-forgotten the plot, as it were. Some parts seem good; others leave me wondering why did I write that? No artificial intelligence was used in writing those novels, just the rusty old-fashioned sort.

KEIR Starmer was foolish to suspend seven of his more left-wing MPs last year; and now he’s banished four more, again for ideological insubordination.

He’d do better to keep MPs who disagree with him onside; and to admit that perhaps sometimes they might have a point. But no, it’s the naughty step for them.

It’s one problem with what some describe as Labour’s ‘loveless majority’. Last year’s general election saw a whopping win for Labour, yet no-one much seems to like them. As it happens, I mostly think they’re doing an OK job compared to what went before.

But having so many MPs does allow Starmer to make an example of those who step out of line; a small majority would make such bullying behaviour unwise.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell is one of the recently expunged MPs; her ‘sin’ was to have led a rebellion against disability benefit cuts.

I don’t know Rachael, but she is my MP, and we have met on the doorstep. She seems to be serious-minded and not someone you would recklessly call light-hearted. Yet she is hard-working, principled, willing to stick to her beliefs, and a good local MP.

She knocked on our door while electioneering last year. She had time for a chat, was pleasant, listened, and spoke like a normal person, not a party robot.

Making this hardworking Labour MP sit as an independent seems shameful and a little stupid. If an election were called tomorrow, Rachael would probably keep her seat, and Labour would be down another one.

Here I am, cycling to the university for a game of squash (result foretold, as usual). On the iron girder bridge in Holgate, a woman whizzes past as I am about to signal right. Oh, she’s on one of those cheating electric bicycles, I think. But no – turns out she is using those cheating young legs, the ones that don’t get tired. I follow her for a while but soon she is a bobbing speck on the horizon, rushing to wherever it is that young women on bicycles go in such a hurry. There is a metaphor in here somewhere, one that I will leave unturned.

Even younger legs now in a small family story. That same morning the alarm went off at 6.20am at our daughter’s house. She asked her own daughter, heading for three, if she’d go to work for her instead. The little one got out of bed so that she could stand to her full height and deliver her indignant rely: “Just look at the size of my legs. They’re teeny.”

WHAT links Jeremy Corbyn and Elon Musk? Both have announced they are establishing a new political party, that’s what.

Musk, former Trump buddy and backer turned fury-spitting frenemy, is setting up the America Party to “give you back your freedom”.

Might that be freedom from the Trump autocracy – a rotten state Musk himself helped secure?

A madman’s vanity project to counter the other madman’s vanity project. It can only end well if one undermines the other, but Trump seems immune from harm or consequence, although death can’t be ruled out. That applies to us all, of course, but Trump stands haltingly near the front of the queue, bathed in cholesterol and sociopathic ill will.

In the thankfully calmer waters of British politics former Labour MP Zarah Sultana has said she is quitting to co-lead a new left-wing party with Jeremy Corbyn.

The man himself, seemingly not expecting her announcement quite yet, said “discussions are ongoing”. One of his allies told the FT that “Zarah has really overplayed her hand” by speaking too soon.

That’s the sort of squabble more commonly found in Reform UK when underlings cross Nigel Farage, although, to be fair, Corbyn is said to favour a collaborative party, and no-one could accuse Farage of running one of those.

Corbyn released a statement saying just what you’d expect, really.

“One year on from the election, this Labour Government has refused to deliver the change people expected and deserved. Poverty, inequality and war are not inevitable. Our country needs to change direction, now.”

Well, a year isn’t exactly long to achieve any of that, and ‘refuse’ is only one way to sum up Keir Starmer’s dull stubborn pragmatism, and former leaders have a weak hand when making demands.

Dissatisfied Labour supporters may well rally to that flag, especially those usual suspects who like Labour until they’re in power when they say, oh, this is the wrong sort of Labour.

Names for the new party are reported to include The Collective and Arise, neither of which seems likely to set hearts racing.

Still, Starmer created this problem thanks to his bad habit of suspending MPs who disagree with him. Sultana and six other MPs faced that fate last year after voting against the government. Corbyn too was suspended and now stands as in independent.

Better, surely, to contain and appease your internal critics rather than erecting a righteous platform for them to stand on.

One fear in all this is that Jeremy Corbyn, who has already lost two elections for Labour, could help them chuck another by diluting the vote and accidentally giving Farage a piggyback.

Still, Farage usually manages to trip himself up. I’m no political Nostradamus, but I’d wager he’ll end up doing the same again, never mind what the polls are saying now. Reform UK is a ragbag protest movement, not a party that deserves to be anywhere near government.

Front pages about the BBC and Glastonbury, as highlighted on Threads by Adam Bienkov

Zarah Sultana is among those who’ve been critical of Keir Starmer’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as inflicted by Israeli troops. Isn’t it more a case that Starmer has simply gone with the misguided western consensus that supports and funds Israel, never mind what its government does?

It is no longer a stretch to suppose that history will eventually record what is happening as genocide. In that context, the row last weekend about an unknown band leading chants of ‘Death, Death to the IDF’ at Glastonbury seems wildly overblown, as these matters often are.

Sadly, our newspapers and broadcasters seem much more agitated about that chant than by the Israeli military killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza, including those reportedly hit by a 500lb bomb aimed at a Gaza café (The Guardian, July 2).

We seem intent on turning our eyes away from Gaza, much as we are similarly intent on ignoring the climate crisis, even as countries burn and floods in Texas sweep away nearly 50 people.

Incidentally, if you can hold your nerve, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack – the documentary dropped by the BBC and picked up by Channel 4 – is shocking beyond words but deserves to be watched.

With so much that is gloomy, here is a chuckle. Trashy Trump has released two colognes called, would you believe it, Fight Fight Fight. They embody “strength, power and victory”, apparently.

My juvenile side prefers Shite Shite Shite, but there you go.

Here is a splendid response on Threads from Sir Michael Take CBE, a satirical account that sometimes sounds all too real:

Jill has a bumper stock of cut price Donald Trump fragrances in the village shop. I bought a bottle yesterday. I immediately liked the subtle scent of sausage & chive. However later in the day I started talking gibberish, became incontinent & tried grabbing my wife Bunty’s crevice.

U-turns seem to be having a moment, especially if you are the political editor of the BBC. That’s Chris Mason, by the way, that over-eager weasel with a scrap of something bloody caught in his teeth.

Incidentally, I am old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher saying: “You turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning.”  This line, incidentally times two, was crafted for her by the playwright Sir Ronald Miller, and was itself a pun on Christopher Fry’s play The Lady’s Not For Burning.

Thatcher did not get the reference but whistled that tune anyway.

Sir Keir Starmer has partially changed his mind on three big policies: efforts to make it harder for people to claim personal independence payment, the winter fuel payment for pensioners and holding a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.

The headline on Mason’s ‘thought piece’ on the BBC website says: “A hat-trick of U-turns – and this is the most awkward of the lot.”

A longer feature marking the first year of this government, in this case not by Mason, is headlined thus: “Starmer’s stormy first year ends in crisis – now he faces a bigger battle to turn it around.”

It has not been an easy first year, but ‘stormy’ and ‘crisis’ seem to be words better suited to the 14 years before that, when the Conservatives set about exploding themselves and the country, thanks in part to a bomb called Boris.

In a sense you can call something whatever you want. But are these U-turns or just embarrassing concessions to political reality? Grabbing the U-turn label from the big box of political cliches seems, if nothing else, lazy. I’d rather have a prime minister who is prepared to change his mind. Better that, say, than cowering in the court of Mad King Donald, where truth is whatever Despot Don says it is.

But that is to digress into an all-too-easy cul-de-sac.

It was good to me that Starmer won a year ago, although reactions to the anniversary will depend.

The haters can perhaps be divided into two camps, one to the right and one to the left.

Many on the right hate Starmer because that is their reflex and, if they own or edit newspapers, their job. Some on the left hate Starmer because he isn’t Labour enough, because he isn’t Jeremy Corbyn – or just because.

I have my doubts, especially on his keenness for defence. Is that really what we want from a Labour prime minister? It’s not what I want but you don’t always get what you want.

Incidentally times three, I have always thought the defence industry should really be called the attack industry, as that’s what it does, too often with innocent civilians as the victims.

As for those Labour supporters who dislike Starmer, they are passionate in their antipathy, and I know some in that camp. Fair enough, but let’s skip back to that ‘just because’.

To support a party in opposition only to abandon that party when it wins power might be seen as a petulant sulk; such desertion also has consequences. Democrats who turned against Joe Biden helped push Trump into the White House for a second time. As Labour supporters or voters who turn against Starmer risk helping Nigel Farage win power – a grim eventuality Chris Mason and the BBC seem determined to report on every other day.

Two celebrities today add their views in newspaper interviews. Rod Stewart tells The Times that he ‘quite likes Nigel Farage’, while Maxine Peake tells the i weekend that she is ‘petrified by Reform. Just look at America’. Unsurprisingly, I am with Maxine on this one.

I’d suggest that the problem with Starmer’s government is that no one knows exactly what it’s for, what it believes in. Starmer is so fixed on what he sees as his pragmatic purpose that he forgets to raise his head, look around, and try to work out what is it that people are thinking.

A lighter and kinder touch, a glimpse of wit wouldn’t go amiss either. And whoever is telling Starmer that the way to beat Nigel Farage is by being more Nigel is leading him through the wrong door.

Perhaps you never get the governments you want. One thing is certain, though: one led by Farage would be a government no-one should want.

However you view all this, these are merely the thoughts of one man peering down from a ledge and raising matters that, at the moment of writing, seem worth raising. No offence is intended, unless you are Nigel Farage.

Hate to say this as I’ll be one soon enough, but old men are ruining the world. Not all old men, just those who drag their stubborn tired legs into politics.

At the last US election, voters were initially asked to choose between two male wrinklies. The lesser of those querulous old geezers called the other one ‘Sleepy Joe’, while the one thus addressed muddled his responses.

The sleepy one was persuaded to drop out at the last minute, a capable-seeming woman took his place, but the election was won by the least reputable of the original old codgers.

Was it a fair and seemly election? Only time and history will tell, but few would be surprised to learn something or other went on.

Now Trump – mocked by some on social media as DonOld – has started dozing off at international summits, tripping on the steps to Air Force One, losing the plot whenever he speaks, then flinging out insults and deranged decrees on his own social media platform.

Dodderier by the day, but no less dictatorial or dangerous, as shown when he ordered National Guard troops and then US Marines into Los Angeles to quell what started as small protests about the arrests of immigrants.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, fast becoming the Anti-Trump, responded that US Marines “shouldn’t be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfil the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American”.

Over in Israel, another old man, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has presided over genocide in Gazza, and has now also turned his attentions to bombing the shit out of Iran.

A country that is led by the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, who is 86, and reportedly not much loved by many of his own people.

Take your pick which old man most deserves our disdain.

Netanyahu seems hellbent on keeping himself in power by fighting endless wars; Trump seems hellbent on grabbing all power, while also making himself and his family as rich as possible.

Leading a country demands a certain vigour, something old Trump lacks, outside of play-acting the tough guy.

Still, sometimes he stumbles not on steps but his own ego. Last weekend he hijacked an Army anniversary parade to mark his 79^th birthday. It turned into a damp squib, a low-energy military trundle, mostly remembered for the poor turnout, Trump looking sour and grumpy, and a small squeaky tank. Did you see that tank? You couldn’t have found a better metaphor for the rickety vanity of one old man.

No one paid much attention, as America was more interested in the nationwide No Kings protests. Across the States, an estimated five million people took to the streets to complain about Trump’s behaviour since he returned to the White House.

Trump’s press people responded with a made-up figure of 250,000 attendees for his birthday walk-by, but nobody much was buying that.

Come on, old men – let some younger, less deranged people have a go at running the world. And let a woman be president of the US for once.

Musical footnote: Not all old men are up to no good. At nearly 80, Van Morrison has just released his best album in years. Remembering Now has been getting enthusiastic reviews all round. It’s properly good, too.

Certain newspapers and media groups now exist almost exclusively to push a one-sided view. In the US, Fox News has long been a right-wing shouting shop, and now an embarrassing number of its former presenters have lickspittle roles in the American government.

Over here we have GB News endlessly agitating for Nigel Farage to lead the next government (closely followed by the BBC; see last blog).

Thanks to the US commentator Mary-Jane for reminding us on the Threads platform how this all goes back to something called ‘the Fairness Doctrine’, a 1949 policy that said American broadcasters had to “be honest, show both sides, and serve the public interest”.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. Apparently, he believed the “free market” should decide what the public hears, not the government. Deregulation allowed the big media companies to say whatever they wanted. “They called it freedom of speech, but what it really did was open the door for partisan media to run wild,” says Mary-Jane.

And that, among many other things, is how doddery old Trump has twice ended up as President.

What is it with the BBC and Reform UK? Those of us who habitually stick up for the BBC are having a hard time of it right now.

It seems all news headlines must by decree mention that Nigel Farage’s latest self-made party is changing the face of British politics. And if that gurning, nicotine-hued visage is now the face of British politics, God save us, everyone – as Tiny Tim almost says in A Christmas Carol.

Every setback for Keir Starmer is read out like the last rites for Labour, while every small step forward for Reform UK is proclaimed from the rooftops as a massive victory.

This has been going on for a while but seems now to have reached fever pitch.

The other morning on Today on BBC Radio 4 Nick Robinson launched into a rambling sermon about how Farage could be prime minister. Thinking sod that for a grubby lark, I switched to Radio Three and took a deep and calming breath.

Social media, especially Threads, has been rattling with complaints about the BBC’s obsession with Reform. As pointed out here previously ad nauseum, we have the BBC largely to thank for Farage in the first place. He’s been endlessly paraded on the news programmes and appears on Question Time almost as often as presenter Fiona Bruce.

The gradual normalisation of this far-right politician is how we ended up with innocent listeners having to run screaming from the Today programme to the calm waters of Radio 3. That’s my experience anyway, but those complaints are real and rising.

Just as I was thinking there must be something in all this, up pops a story in Byline Times, the independent, reader-funded newspaper.

Adam Bienkov reports that the BBC’s director general Tim Davie has drawn up plans to win over voters of Reform UK thanks to a belief that BBC news and drama output is creating “low trust issues” with supporters of Nigel Farage’s party.

This was also reported by the Daily Telegraph, should you prefer your stories from a potty right-wing source.

According to Byline Times, minutes of a meeting of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee in March show that “BBC News CEO Deborah Turness gave a presentation in which she discussed plans to alter ‘story selection’ and ‘other types of output, such as drama’ in order to win the trust of Reform voters.

I must have missed the meeting they had after last year’s general election when BBC bosses suggested altering story selection so as not to offend those who’d voted Labour.

Never mind ‘low trust issues’ with Reform voters, what about no-trust issues with those of us who detest Reform? What about those of us who expect the BBC to report diligently and deeply about Reform – to put proper questions to Farage, rather than wheeling him out to do his third-rate Trump tribute act.

Here’s your timely reminder that the Editorial Guidelines Committee has caused much internal disquiet at the BBC, thanks to the influence of BBC Board Member Robbie Gibb. Gibb was appointed to the board by former Boris Johnson in 2021 and was later identified by former BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis as an “active agent of the Conservative party”. He also had a role at the Reform-supporting GB News, where Farage has a show – on which he frequently disparages a BBC that is now fawning all over him.

And what’s been Farage’s big idea on the councils his party now runs? Trying to copy Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency – so-called Doge – even though the American original is in chaos after the door-banging departure of Elon Musk. Besides, councils in this country are on their knees thanks to years of cuts.

Farage promotes himself through whatever grievance he finds convenient. He is a nasty moaner, a man of constant complaints, one who knows little outside of those grievances, a man who often seems to spurn the UK for America, where he is said to be backed by ‘dark money’ from the Trump-loving American right.

And yet he is being spoken of as a potential prime minister.

God save us, everyone.

NOT everything is bad about BBC news. On the website now you will find an excellent think piece by the veteran correspondent Jeremy Bowen, speaking in his role as the BBC’s international editor.

Under the headline “Israel is accused of the gravest war crimes – how governments respond could haunt them for years to come”, Bowen begins as follows:

“Even wars have rules. They don’t stop soldiers killing each other but they’re intended to make sure that civilians caught up in the fighting are treated humanely and protected from as much danger as possible. The rules apply equally to all sides.

“If one side has suffered a brutal surprise attack that killed hundreds of civilians, as Israel did on 7 October 2023, it does not get an exemption from the law. The protection of civilians is a legal requirement in a battle plan.”

A sobering but important piece of writing from a man who has been on the ground for years and knows what he is talking about. It clearly addresses Israeli war crimes. Read it before some bigwig panics and takes it down.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0r1xl5wgnko

Today it is ten years since I shuffled onto this ledge. Perhaps I should have a word with my slighter younger self. Are you sure you want to spend a whole decade writing a blog read by a handful of people?

To which my slightly older self might reply – Yeah, well, shows how little you know about life, matey.

All those words. Possibly as many as 300,000 by now, as 28,000 were written last year. But I am too lazy to count.

Why I started is easy to explain. I’d been made redundant after 27 years on one newspaper. That was shocking, the worst of days, but people are made redundant all the time. Especially if they are foolish enough to work on newspapers.

Time offers perspective, distance. Oh, that’s when that happened. It was awful. But other things have occurred since. Good things, bad things; near misses, scratches on the paintwork.

I spent that first post-redundancy year as a freelance feature writer, only to conclude my elbows were not nearly sharp enough. It would have been sensible to have saved the redundancy money and tried any old job. But I stuck at journalism, all I knew.

You do what you do.

All those words.

The first blogs were written to make sense of my changed life. And then I just kept going. Early on I wondered if someone might notice and offer me a column, to follow up the one I wrote for 25 years. A foolish notion, but life is full of those. Anyway, writing this blog has kept me saner than if I did not have those words to file.

Much can happen in ten years. A much-loved granddaughter was born. My father died, alongside other older relatives, and a cousin my own age. I had that heart attack, and could have died myself, but that gave me another topic, words tapped out as my bruised heart sought to recapture its rhythm. Personal catastrophes can be helpful like that.

Before writing this, I skimmed over some of my first efforts, wondering what to write – or even whether to mark the anniversary at all. In the end I sat down and wrote this one. Because words. Because, oh, you have to keep going.

Books, literature, films and music have been addressed. As has baking my own bread – a subject on which I rarely remain silent for long, as those dearest to me may testify with a sigh.

But all too often, all too easily, it’s been about politics. Some of my political blogs hope to amuse, while others are just pebbles dropped into the deep sour well.

Sometimes I wonder why anyone should care what I think about politics or anything else. An unhelpful doubt to harbour if pontification is your game.

I return to politics because it’s there, a ready scab to pick at. Lately I have sworn more than once not to write about the idiot cruel vanities of Donald Trump, a pledge broken almost as soon as it was made. The world would be a better and kinder place if everyone ignored all the stupid spite spilling from that man’s tight puckered mouth.

Is it time instead to now address the inconsequentialities of life? Writing about politics can stir opinions stronger than your own, hurled back like rocks. Or indeed the scone we ate in a café while on a family holiday this week in Withernsea.

That scone was long past fresh, but then so am I. The holiday was lovely, by the way, three generations in one house near the sea in a tired town with a lovely long beach, and a favourite new bar.

By some quirk of time, I was the oldest family member on that holiday. It happens eventually.

Away from this blog, newspaper features have been written, mostly for the Yorkshire Post Magazine, almost 80 in ten years, with two appearing last Saturday. A sort of validation, suggesting I can still pull off what might be called my craft.

I still enjoy meeting people to hear their stories; their stories told in my words, a good union. Some of those I interview email to say how much they liked a feature; others offer only silence.

Alongside the blogs have been the novels, either now forgotten or never yet published, but still being written, on and off, alongside a memoir.

Some days I feel like I have survived a lot, without ever getting going properly. But that’s just what life is like.

After my year as a freelance feature writer, I had other jobs in journalism. Two editing spells at PA Media, alongside two side hustles as a journalism lecturer, weaving lessons from the frayed fabric of my working life. Given another go, I’d have done the lecturing for longer, but my time at the whiteboard ran out.

Now I am mostly retired, mostly happy, buoyed by family and friends. As for this ledge, I plan to hang around, agitating away at this and that.

If you have been reading, thank you. What a fine, if select, bunch you are.