If you’ve not watched the Anglo-Japanese drama Gir/Haji yet, you’re in for the treat of the year.

When you consider the fuss made of lesser dramas, Giri/Haji is astonishing and easily the most underrated drama of the year.

Served up in eight enjoyably complex parts, the final episode was shown last night on BBC2; it’s also been streaming on the i-Player since the first episode.

This is a story of many strands and more moods.

The main plot concerns two Japanese brothers, Kenzo (Takehiro Hira) and Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka), one a cop, the other a hitman for the Tokyo mob.

When Yuto is suspected of carrying out an execution in London, his big brother is sent looking for him. His official role is to bring him back; his fraternal role is to get mightily and fraternally pissed off, while also protecting his little brother.

It is a story of brotherly shove.

Some of the drama happens now, some in the past, yet the time-flipping is intriguing rather than irritating. Thank God but there is no clumsy Kodachrome palette to indicate the past. The Giri/Haji viewer is a grown-up who can cope.

As to those moods, this drama is brutal and tender, sombre and occasionally properly amusing; it’s sharp as a knife (many blades are put to unwholesome use) and yet as comforting as a hug.

There are many subplots, all swimming around or beneath each other, while managing never to get in the way.

Kenzo’s neglected wife copes with her father-in-law dying while his son is in London; and then with her spunky mother-in-law. The two women go in search of Yuto’s girlfriend (the daughter of a gangster) and her baby, launching a subplot worthy of its own series.

All that and gunfights in London and Tokyo, and too many wonderful performances to mention (but we can’t leave without giving the nod to Will Sharpe’s portrayal of Rodney, the cruising gay with a death-wish; or Aoi Okuyama as Kenzo’s daughter).

This series always looks astonishing, sounds lovely thanks to perfectly chosen music. In the final episode, writer Joe Barton pulls off a conclusion that is fully satisfying. It also contains, amid more fights and further mounting threat, a moment of astonishing beauty to steal your breath away.

Giri/Haji is a little slow to gather momentum, but as the story builds it turns into something remarkable.

Here is a wholly expected plot twist: Boris Johnson will not agree to be interviewed by Andrew Neil.

This news was passed on using that now disreputable method of swallowing what unnamed government sources say. The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg (who still strikes me as mostly admirable) passed on the news in a tweet. This said: “Senior Conservative source claims public might not be interested in Johnson interview – ‘The public are fed up with interviews that are all about the interviewer and endless interruptions. The format is tired and broken and needs to change’.”

It is true that Andrew Neil likes to grandstand. But it is equally true that Boris Johnson’s handlers fear he won’t be able to hack 30 minutes alone with Neil.

This member of the public would love to have seen the cowardly Johnson being kippered by Neil.

He was happy to have a pathetic selfie with Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on ITV’s This Morning. Or to be filmed today making Brexit doughnuts (honestly, this shit makes itself up).

Here’s how the exercise went. Headlines were cut from the tabloids and the students received the stories only. Their task was to guess the headline.

One was from yesterday’s edition of The Sun. The winner of that story held a scrap of newsprint. A common tabloid technique: massive headline boxing in 100 or so small words.

The story concerned Donald Trump arriving in Britain to say he was not interested in the NHS, even if it was handed to him “on a silver platter”. He also said he had no idea where the idea of him wanting a bite of the NHS had come from.

Sometimes you can scratch your head till it bleeds in this world. Who did say that? Ahem, Donald Trump on his last trip here in June. Asked about possible post-Brexit trade deals with the US, he said the NHS would form part of any negotiations – “When you’re dealing in trade, everything is on the table.”

Do we believe June Trump or December Trump, or all those other Trumps in between, spouting off assorted wild contradictions? And did The Sun’s snipped-out headline acknowledge such Trumpian inconsistency? Don’t be silly.

The Sun said Trump’s comments crushed a main election claim by Jeremy Corbyn that the NHS was being privatised – “Trump thumps chump over NHS lies”, its headline shouted.

The students weren’t impressed, with one saying (unprompted): “The Sun – isn’t that the one you’re not supposed to read?”

Many newspapers remain blatantly biased against Labour. The Telegraph and the Express also led with that Boris-supporting story. The Guardian and the i-newspaper allowed Labour’s side of the argument on their front pages.

If you dip your head in the Twitter stream, you will see plenty of comment about the horrible newspapers – occasionally of the “come the revolution” ilk, promising the evil press will be shut down.

As someone who’s idly watched politics for years, I’d say Corbyn suffers the roughest treatment of any Labour leader since Neil Kinnock.

Set against that is the rapid fall in newspaper sales and influence since those Kinnock-bashing days. The papers are still powerful, but their might has diminished; the arrival of social media and blogging creates other platforms for pro-Labour opinions (and all variety of opinions).

The argument about the NHS being at threat won’t go away. After all, this has been a favourite Labour scare story for years, and not without reason. Its potency can be seen in Boris Johnson’s hot denials and his invention of 40 new hospitals, all designed to park himself on Labour’s lawn.

In a sense, though, both arguments miss the point, as a report by Tamasin Cave on the Open Democracy website makes clear. Privatisation by stealth has been going on for years, as we know – just ask Richard Branson. His Virgin company won £2bn worth of NHS contracts in the two years up to August 2018 (according to a Guardian report in that month).

Both sides know this, but what’s different in the Open Democracy report is the line that US private healthcare firm Optum has been ‘planting seeds’ in our NHS for a decade.

The report points to meetings between our government officials and representatives of US healthcare companies. The paragraph below tells most of what you need to know…

“The secrecy of these trans-Atlantic meetings matters. It has allowed the UK government to tell one story to the public, while quietly inviting a giant, for-profit US corporation, bent on overseas expansion, to embed itself in our NHS.”

Of course, you can always believe that headline in The Sun, if you wish. You could always believe Johnson and Trump, both so well known for never staining the truth.

Or you could listen to your doctor and all those other doctors.

Dave Merritt calls on great clarity today in composing a tribute to his son, Jack, one of two young people who died on London Bridge last Friday. He rises to the sombre occasion in a way that humbles the reader.

How remarkable to think so clearly at a time of such personal loss.

Writing in the Guardian, he describes the many good qualities his son possessed – proud, “absorbingly intelligent… fiercely loyal…”

“But Jack was also angry, frustrated, selfless, stubborn. He was angry because he saw our society failing those most in need.”

He says his son would be “livid” if he could comment on his death. “We would see him ticking it over in his mind before a word was uttered between us. Jack would understand the political timing with visceral clarity.”

Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones died in the attack, killed by the knifeman Usman Khan. Both were attending a conference celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Learning Together prison programme; three other people were injured.

The tributes to Saskia, 23, were as heartfelt as those for Jack. Her family recalled her “wonderful sense of mischievous fun”, then said: “Saskia had a great passion for providing invaluable support to victims of criminal injustice.” She had, they added, recently applied to join the police graduate recruitment programme, hoping to work in victim support.

Jack’s name was the first to be released. His father pleaded in a Twitter post for politicians not to use his son’s death as an excuse for draconian action. “My son Jack would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily,” he tweeted.

His plea fell on deaf ears, or on Boris Johnson’s ears. For there the prime minister was the next morning, tub-thumping in the Mail on Sunday. “Give me a majority and I’ll keep you safe from terror,” he bellowed.

Two mentions of himself in one headline.

Hard not to see that, and subsequent statements, as making political capital out of two brilliant young people who’d believed in helping others.

Politics should have gone to sleep for a day or two. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn should have kept quiet. Instead he pointed out that he’d always said the invasion of Iraq would “set off a spiral of conflict, hate, misery, desperation…”

Never mind that Corbyn is probably right about that. It just wasn’t the time.

The greater sins of political opportunism lie with Boris Johnson and his spinners. Just look if you have the stomach at the social media ‘poster’ with Johnson waving his fist beneath the words “Tough on Terrorism” and Corbyn pictured beneath the words “Soft on Terrorists”.

And look too at the lickspittle right-wing newspapers lining up to parrot the message this morning: “New blitz on freed Jihadis” in the Mail and “Boris blitz on freed Jihadis begins” in the Express.

Look, too, at the Tories and Labour squabbling over who should be blamed for this latest atrocity (big clue, those who’ve been in power for a decade, perhaps).

The party leaders joined London Mayor Sadiq Kahn at a vigil today to mourn the victims. Afterwards, Boris Johnson slipped back into the blame game. If you wish to join me in mumbling, “How does he live with himself?”, feel free.

Politics should have taken a holiday. The politicians should have put their words back on the shelf. And the family and friends of two bright and brilliant young people should have been left to cry and to mourn.

I’ll leave the last word to Dave Merritt: “Through us all, Jack marches on. Borrow his intelligence, share his drive, feel his passion, burn with his anger, and extinguish hatred with his kindness. Never give up his fight.”

Every time you think this election cannot possibly get any weirder, the screwball waltzer takes another crazy turn. The latest political fool stepping onto the fairground ride is Michael Gove.

Last night’s leaders’ line-up on Channel 4 was the first such debate dedicated solely to the environment. Boris Johnson declined to take part and his place at the podium was taken by a melting ice sculpture.

A smart move or a childish stunt? Oh, your view on that will probably depend on the shape of your ice-cube tray. A touch juvenile, I’d say, but no less than Johnson deserved for ducking such an important debate.

Nigel Farage, who also declined to attend, was replaced by a piece of ice, too. But we don’t need to talk about Farage, as his support is falling away like a doomed iceberg – for which you can thank your icy stars.

Relations between the Tories and Channel 4 were reported to be, well, chilly all day yesterday. This ended in Gove, a former environment secretary, arriving at the Channel 4 studios with his own Tory propaganda camera crew in tow.

A short film on available on Twitter shows Gove receiving the traditional welcome from the crowd – “Liar, liar!”. He then enters the building to do his best courteous thug act. He asks if he could represent the Conservatives in this debate. “We’re weren’t expecting you,” says a Channel 4 bigwig.

Foot shuffling ensues, before Gove is told he cannot take part as he doesn’t lead his party – despite, it is worth observing, his best backstabbing efforts. Gove goes outside, points his pout at the hired camera crew and puts on a hurt voice (think homicidal teddy bear, and you won’t be far wrong).

Even more batshit crazy, Boris Johnson’s father Stanley did turn up, saying that Gove “would have made a big, big contribution”.

Well, maybe, senior sunshine. But he was more intent on causing a “big, big” political stink by pulling another of those grubby stunts his party loves. Never mind the manifesto, this election is being winged by malign trickery (most but not all of it committed by the Tories).

The Conservatives then made threatening noises about reviewing Channel 4’s public service broadcasting remit if they win the election. It’s up for review anyway, but those noises still sounded thuggish.

A Conservative spokesman, Lee Cain, is reported to have written to Ocfom demanding an investigation. Hang on while I consult my headache. It was the Tory leader who declined to take part in this debate. They sent along a gatecrasher instead, then complained bitterly about political bias as a man who isn’t the leader was turned away from a leaders’ debate. My headache is lost for words.

The party also complained that Channel 4 connived with Jeremy Corbyn, who had turned up.

Will people be fooled by this chicanery? Quite possibly as on BBC Look North last night in another of those vox-pops – please make them go away ­– a Labour-supporting woman from Barnsley said she was voting Tory “because Labour had been stopping Brexit”.

Labour’s position may be muddled, but they weren’t stopping Brexit – no one was. Brexit was beginning to make its way through parliament until Boris Johnson pulled out at the last minute, conniving this nasty election instead.

You know, the one marked on his side by fake Twitter accounts. Dodgy websites pretending to display the Labour manifesto. News footage manipulated to make it appear that shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer hadn’t answered a question when he had. And now faked-up Facebook ads misusing quotes from BBC news presenters.

Don’t you long for the days when the parties tried to win the argument with decent debate instead of fooling the people? Maybe such a time never existed, but everything seems to have turned much dirtier.

The toxic dust has settled, so let’s look again at Andrew Neil’s scrap with Jeremy Corbyn.

For an indication of how it went, #Corbyncarcrash was trending on Twitter yesterday. That alarmed the journalism students in my session – “Oh God, Jeremy Corbyn’s been in a car crash!” some cried. They’d been hashtag-had, you see.

The consensus in yesterday’s newspapers was for “car-crash”, although “horror show” offered some variety.

Standing in lickspittle line were the usual shifty suspects. The Daily Express doffed its cap to ask: “Has Corbyn horror show gifted Boris keys to No 10?” (weary footnote: surname for Labour leader, pally fake first name terms for Tory leader).

The Daily Mail devoted nine pages to the interview – nine whole pages, heavens, almost as many as for rumours of a royal tiff or a regal baby’s first fart. It concluded the Labour leader’s policies had been “torn apart” and that Corbyn had “floundered repeatedly”.

If you belong to no party but would like to vote Labour, it was discouraging to see Corbyn still unable to kill the anti-Semitism row by simply saying sorry. You can only conclude that he won’t because: a) he isn’t particularly sorry; or b) he feels this scandal is a put-up job designed to bring him down.

Whatever the case, it remains distressing that this row has only grown under Corbyn. Repeatedly tweeting, as his supporters do, that “no one is more anti-racism than Jeremy” doesn’t help get him out of that hole. Saying sorry might have got one foot out.

As for the rest of the interview, it’s there on i-Player under ‘news’ should you wish to watch. Andrew Neil does his usual impersonation of an ageing overweight bulldog, snarling and grandstanding, a banner-sized pink tie hanging where his too-tight collar should be. And Jeremy Corbyn remains mostly polite and unflustered, although he lets himself down by not delivering that apology to British Jews.

Watching the head-to-head encounter brought two conflicting thoughts. One: how good to see a proper journalistic interview with tough questions instead of all that social media soft-soap pretend journalism (Johnson’s the worst for that). Two: and yet, saying that, wasn’t it all just the Andrew Neil and His Pet Ego Show, more preening and posturing from the star inquisitor rather than a proper interview?

Writing in last Sunday’s Observer, columnist Kenan Malik, always a good read, drew telling parallels with the weightier approaches taken by TV in the 1970s. This link is also made by Steve Richards in his excellent book, The Prime Ministers.

In the run-up to the 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of the Common Market, Tony Benn and Roy Jenkins spent an hour in a special Panorama debate, chaired by David Dimbleby. A proper, in-depth discussion of the sort rarely seen in our fly-squatting age.

In contrast, the Neil/Corbyn interview was a swift 30 minutes, choreographed to advantage the interviewer over his subject. This wouldn’t matter if Neil had interviewed Boris Johnson on the following night. But no Johnson interview has yet been arranged, leading to anti-BBC conspiracy theories (and what a lot of those there are on Twitter).

It is being reported that Johnson has been approached by the BBC, but no interview has yet been scheduled. If, as some on the left believe, Labour agreed to an interview on the assumption that Johnson would also be getting a filleting, then something is wrong here. Shouldn’t interviews with all the leaders have been confirmed first? So far only Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon have had the privilege (Sturgeon was lacerated too).

Corbyn and Sturgeon deserve credit for putting their heads in the lion’s mouth; and Johnson deserves condemnation if he doesn’t place his head in the same unfriendly location.

The man settles into the office chair in his untidy study, thinking of a boy sitting on a wall, heels scuffing the bricks. He needs to push words around again but sitting on a wall sounds good.

Thoughts, the man has a head full, rolling like chipped marbles. Many collide, hence the chips. Some concern the grind of life, although as a foolish optimist usually he looks the other way, hoping for sunshine.

The man glances at Facebook and sees a post from a former colleague. This praises Boris Johnson for his wit in saying: “Jeremy Corbyn used to be indecisive but now he’s not so sure.”

Good old Boris, the former colleague says. Well, that’s not original, the man snaps to himself – Bastard Boris has swiped that from somewhere. Google suggests Tommy Cooper. This irritates the man as he really likes Tommy Cooper. After the conjuring bumbler died, a documentary about Cooper reduced the man to a desperate puddle. Tears of laughter and something else.

Many thoughts concern the horrible election now taking place. Some people the man knows are actively political and campaign for the Labour Party. The man admires their commitment but couldn’t hack it himself. He shares many of those beliefs; it’s just, you know, politics.

The man finds comfort in being appalled by Boris Johnson and his litany of lies. All the ‘decent’ Tories have left, leaving only those shameless enough to swear allegiance to the awful Johnson. Half of them don’t like or trust Johnson, but they’ve bet the house on his untucked shirt.

Consider that thin manifesto grasped in his fat fist; a bit of nothing, no details, just get the bollocks done and elect the big Etonian bollock, as this election is about Boris Johnson’s ego more than it is anything else, even Brexit.

The man takes a deep breath and apologises for saying bollocks again. That’s the trouble with politics right now: it just makes everyone cross and shouty. And makes you want to say bollocks a lot; although to be fair, the man says bollocks a lot anyway.

Has this country always been like this under the surface or were we calmer once? The man thinks a calm country sounds nice.

He seeks solace on Twitter and discovers a tweet from Sarah Murphy. “Welcome to my eco chamber,” Sarah’s bio says. It’s a popular gathering place as Sarah has nearly 17,000 followers, many thousands more than the man.

Sarah’s tweet says: “None of the parties is perfect or pure. Far from it. BUT… the Tory party has taken the piss out of this country for 9 years. They lie to us about Brexit every single day. They are truly dangerous and will ruin and divide this country. To vote for them is to be complicit. Don’t.”

The man thinks, oh yeah! Yet he worries every time Jeremy Corbyn starts banging on about the ‘establishment’. Labour’s manifesto is fat with ideas, unlike Boris Johnson’s thin offering. That’s good, then again but. “Then again but”, is the sort of thing the man thinks when he isn’t saying bollocks too much.

When Corbyn rails against “the bankers, the billionaires and the establishment”, isn’t he just indulging in what you might call reverse populism – a left-wing answer to a Nigel Farage rant? And isn’t Corbyn so invested in bashing the establishment (whatever that might be) that he doesn’t have time to offer a bright, optimistic vision of a Labour Britain? He always seems happier moaning or shouting about the Tories than he does in being truly inspirational.

The man tells himself not to mention Corbyn’s Brexit fence-sitting again, and all that nonsense about being neutral in any future vote, as he’s gone on about that before. Now he finds he’s gone on about it once more.

Then again but the man sees Johnson conjuring nurses out of a hat and building non-existent hospitals, and blithely promising any old shit to get this thing done (this thing being getting himself elected). And he thinks than again but.

The man settling into the office chair in the untidy study starts typing. He tells himself to stay away from politics. Then again but…

There has been a pile of politics around here lately. As I type these words, my feet rest on a stack of discarded grumbles and cast-offs. As a diversion, let me tell you about how I have started wearing my wife’s clothes.

This is not the confession it may appear to be, more of a small domestic incident.

It’s Saturday morning and I need to leave for work in an hour. We haven’t been to Morrisons yet and I am pacing around downstairs, ready to go. Jeans, jumper, jacket, shoes on, car keys in hand. My wife is still upstairs, mumbling to herself about not having had a lie-in (that’s a guess, sometimes you just know) while wondering what to wear.

After searching around for something suitable, she shouts from our attic bedroom and her words come bowling downstairs like little boulders.

“Julian – are you wearing my jeans?”

In 30-plus years of marriage, I have never been asked this one before. But it turns out I am. As the owner of four pairs of Levi’s jeans, three faded and one less so, I spotted this pair in the ironing basket and took them for mine. This turns out not to be so.

My wife likes to have one pair of men’s Levi’s on the go, as she thinks they look better than those intended for women. For a comfortable fit, she buys the same size as mine.

“The women’s ones don’t look like proper Levi’s,” she tells me as I arrive upstairs.

“I’ll take them off,” I say, obliging as you like.

“Urgh!” says my wife.

I tell her I’ve only worn her jeans for a short while. This is approximate to the truth, as I’d worn them the day before while interviewing someone.

Still, I keep that to myself, remove my wife’s jeans, and dig out a faded pair that belong to me. Thinking about it as we swap jeans, the buttons on the fly had seemed a little stiff, the denim being newer than on even my ‘best’ pair of Levi’s.

My wife tells me that the men’s jeans are a nicer fit, although the top at the back does sag a little.

“Mine are quite loose at the back,” I say, all thanks to my skinny arse.

“Yes, but yours are tighter at the front,” my wife says.

Ah, I think, must be all that craft beer.

We don’t have too many clothing clashes. If my wife stuck to dresses, we wouldn’t have any. But she doesn’t, so sometimes it’s Levi’s at the double. Recently we both put on gold-coloured jumpers. That’s usually a no-no, but neither of us could be bothered to change, and we were doing nothing more social than nipping to the local bar.

Shoes sometimes run to a theme as well. We both wear Doc Martens, although mine are brown to her black. Our back-in-the-nest daughter also favours Docs so sometimes we walk out in triplicate. But I never make the jeans mistake with our daughter. I wouldn’t get one leg in those jeans.

Living with a vegetarian and a vegan…

Baked potatoes for tea, crisping in the oven. A big bowl of coleslaw made. Our daughter (the vegan) arrives home before her mother (the veggie). She tries the coleslaw, made with her in mind, nothing dairy.

“This is nice,” she says. “What’s in it?”

Oh, all vegan, just white cabbage, carrots, oil, lemon juice and Dijon mustard, oh and…

She savours the flavour…

…and honey…

“Honey!” she says with more emphasis than had been expected. “That’s not very vegan.”

She goes back into the kitchen to make a honey-free coleslaw.

What things a meat-eating, honey-loving man must remember.

Acronyms are tricky beasts (AATB). Sometimes their meaning is obvious, sometimes so familiar the attendant phrase evaporates, as with the BBC.

Other collections of letters are not so easy to spot, and here is one: CCHQ. That acronym stands for Conservative Campaign Headquarters, useful to know last night when the Tories rebranded their Twitter account as factcheckUK@CCHQPress, accompanied by a big blue tick.

In a cynical little exercise, the Tories pretended to be an independent fact-checking service running an eye over everything Jeremy Corbyn said during the leaders’ debate on ITV (more of which, accompanied by much sighing, in a moment).

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, went on the airwaves this morning to defend this act of trickery, saying no one had been fooled. Well, I say he did, but not on my airwaves as two wearisome syllables in, I switched to BBC Radio 3. God but that man is annoying.

The thing is, if people weren’t fooled, why bother with such a stunt? The aim clearly was to fool people and muddy the paddling pool of politics by copying the form and appearance of a genuine fact-checking service.

I’d like to think that pulling such a low trick would put people off the Tories; but if they’re not repelled by the sight of Boris Johnson regurgitating lies like an over-stuffed penguin, then perhaps they won’t care about this digital duplicity.

Fact-checking services by newspapers and broadcasters do an important job. The Washington Post runs everything Donald Trump says against a factual ruler, and last month concluded that Trump had made 13,435 false or misleading claims over 993 days.

Everything nowadays is clouded in such a toxic fog. No one can spot the facts in this moral murk. So they chose the ‘fact’ that most appeals to them.

As the Tories’ tawdry tomfoolery gained plenty of attention, it will probably be considered a hit by whoever dreamed it up (presumably it was Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s political adviser and spinner of dark arts).

As to the debate itself, a confession: I didn’t watch the whole thing, lacking the moral courage for such endurance. Three minutes of edited highlights were more than enough.

One takeaway from this Johnson v Corbyn bout was the reaction of the studio audience to what both men said. Corbyn’s baffling position on Brexit raised a laugh; as did Johnson’s claim to be a dedicated follower of the truth.

Both leaders deserved that mockery: Corbyn because his position on Brexit is more frayed than an ancient pair of jeans; and Johnson because everyone knows he can’t open his mouth without a lie falling out.

In football terms, hardly my mother tongue, this was a goalless draw. The usual suspect newspapers today declared Johnson as the winner, but they’d say that if he stood there in his over-sized Union Jack Y-fronts singing “God Save Brexit”.

Everyone knows that “Getting Brexit Done” is another of those lies (Brexit won’t be done for years). Along with the one about needing this election because Parliament stopped Brexit. It didn’t and MPs were becoming more favourable to Johnson’s deal, merely asking for a sensible amount of time to scan the small print.

Do these debates change people’s minds? Mine can’t be changed when it comes to Boris Johnson (too impossibly awful and duplicitous). As for Jeremy Corbyn (genuinely passionate about the NHS, but hopeless on Brexit and a touch sanctimonious), it’s still a case of wait and see.

Last night I did consider setting up my own politician-checking account called TwatCheck, but sadly there just isn’t the time.

Jennifer Arcuri is the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Pile a Crock of Shit on Boris’s Head.

In case you’re not up to speed, the US businesswoman was friends with Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London. What sort of friend? She isn’t saying but we can fill in the gaps; mainly because she left those gaps on full view.

During their friendship, Johnson spoke four times at events to promote Arcuri’s tech business interests; her businesses were also paid £126,000 of public money; and she accompanied Johnson on three overseas trade missions, despite, as the Observer puts it “not qualifying as a delegate” (qualifying as a bit on the side doesn’t count).

All very cosy and generous, but now Johnson won’t speak to her and Arcuri is on her scorned woman tour. Her first revenge gig was an interview with ITV at the weekend.

The takeaway line from the interview was spoken directly to Boris Johnson: “I’ve kept your secrets and I’ve been your friend. And I don’t understand why you’ve blocked me and ignored me as if I was some fleeting one-night stand or some girl that you picked up as a bar because I wasn’t ­– and you know that.”

Arcuri also suggested, quite plausibly, that Johnson was concerned about conflict of interest. On becoming Mayor in 2008, he signed a code of conduct about such things; tricky when you live by a code of misconduct.

We don’t know how reliable Arcuri is as a witness; but we do know that Johnson is a famously unreliable witness.

Worth bearing in mind now that he is in wooing mood again, offering blandishments and bribes. He brings us flowers and promises us hospitals. Exact numbers are uncertain, but facts are so boring in the heat of a fling: 40 or four, what’s the difference, honey-bunch?

He promises us 20,000 new police officers – just the same number as his party scattered to the winds of austerity, but close that door, who’s counting?

The writers of newspaper headlines, those occasional compositors of lies, splurge out more unsweet swill. They clamour that Jeremy Corbyn will wreck the economy with a £1.2 trillion spending plan, a meaningless figure pulled from a pocket in Johnson’s crumpled suit jacket (watch you don’t whip out the condoms by mistake).

Arcuri has been swept aside, just another skeleton shoved back in the closet. And we should pay attention to her fate; we should remember her as Johnson swings through a forest of money trees. The cash is falling like leaves; suddenly he’s noticed the tattered struggles of the NHS (if only someone had told him).

Think of Jennifer Arcuri in these heated moments. If he wins, Johnson will treat us all like one-night stands. He’ll shut the door. He’ll refuse to take our calls. He’ll swear he never said those things; sweet nothings will just become nothings.

Tonight, Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have their first televised TV debate. Johnson has more to lose than Corbyn: he’s comfortably ahead in the polls and he swung an election while still in his honeymoon period (why did Corbyn agree to that instead of leaving Johnson to wriggle on that hook he’d made for himself?)

Corbyn has many disadvantages, not least having one foot in the past. The charge of antisemitism may be a put-up job on one level, but he has never managed to dampen that fire; much as he has never made up his mind about Brexit.

Still, Corbyn has one advantage. You know that he believes in what he says. Whereas Johnson is merely saying whatever needs to be said to be elected.

There’s no guarantee he’ll still love us in the morning. Just ask Jennifer.

I’ve been reading about Margaret Thatcher, so you don’t have to. Of all the politicians in my lifetime, Thatcher stirred the most astringent antipathy.

In my early days as a columnist, the Conservative prime minister was rechristened Mrs Hacksaw, and that’s how she remained in print and in memory. A rasp made flesh, complete with condescending voice, candyfloss for hair, and dreadful policies whose effects linger still.

One obvious example is the sale of council houses: nice if you were sitting in one and could buy it for a Tory-sponsored song; not so good for those who followed.

Thatcher showed no interest in building new council homes to replace those she flogged off as a sweetener to voters she hoped to turn Tory. A similar approach held sway with following governments and that, children, is how you end up with a housing crisis.

Thatcher was the strongest political influence in my life and those of many others. If you were liberal or left leaning, you knew where you stood: usually in front of the TV, swearing. God, how we hated that woman.

The problem, looking back, is sometimes you can hate your opponent more than you love the one you supposed to be with. That habit lingers still: just because hating Boris Johnson is easy, it doesn’t follow that loving Jeremy Corbyn is a starry-eyed synch.

I’m going to swerve that one for now, and instead look at something Thatcher was skilled in: arguing her case. She loved a TV debate and was happy, indecently eager perhaps, to take part in heavyweight TV interviews or debates.

This is something that emerges in Steve Richards’ book The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to May. I asked my wife to buy me this as a birthday present, and that shows what a weirdo I must be. Still, it’s an illuminating read, clear-eyed and surprisingly entertaining.

Having been through Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and James Callaghan, I am now stuck in the middle with Thatcher. And Richards recalls how much Maggie Mayhem loved a TV argument, especially in the early days.

“From the time when she became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975 to her election as prime Minister in 1979, Thatcher never shied way from formidable TV interrogators, both in the UK and the US,” Richards reminds us.

She loved popping over the Atlantic to appear on Firing Line, an hour-long interview with the right-wing radical William Buckley. He shared many of her convictions, Richards tells us, but still gave her a hard time.

How different this seems to the leaders of our parties today. Boris Johnson prefers social media puff pieces, tame ‘interviews’ in which an unseen softie inquisitor allows him to tell as many lies as he likes. Where is the hard-headed political journalist to point out those lies? Nowhere to be see, because Johnson avoids big interviews, knowing that he will be tripped up. Much as he is evidently uncomfortable with ordinary voters, especially those in the north, as they have no manners and insult him.

That’s not good enough for a man who wants to be prime minister, but why bother when you have assorted dirty tricks up the sleeve of your ill-fitting suit? Why bother when unnamed Downing Street sources slop out nonsense for the next day’s headline trough?

Jeremy Corbyn is no friend to the hard interviewer either. He’d rather have nothing to do with the mainstream media, but that’s not possible in his job. Instead he does brief interviews, usually on sufferance and sounding tetchy. He also treats journalists and their questions with thin-skinned impatience, typical responses being, “I’ve been asked that question three times already” or even (honestly) “don’t you know it’s rude to shout?”

Those head-to-head leaders’ debates are all very well. But what we need are in-depth interviews with heavy-weight inquisitors. Whatever you think of the dreadful woman, Thatcher would have been up for it.