I will drag myself out of this politics pit someday soon, but there is just so much going on down here.

Two trains of thought this morning…

ONE: Are referendums bad for democracy (Jacob Rees-Mogg probably insists on referenda as the plural form, but we not having any of that around here)?

TWO: Is Jeremy Corbyn really ‘chicken’ for voting against an election?

Anyone in a hurry can take it that the answers are, in order, yes and no.

On the BBC Today programme just now, a member of the public was asked how he would vote in a general election. His answer was that he wouldn’t be voting as he voted in the EU referendum and Brexit hadn’t happened yet – so there was no point in voting in an election.

A snapshot view, but others will doubtless feel the same. If holding referendums puts people off voting in general elections, then it could be said that such one-off opinion polls are bad for democracy.

At present we are up to our knees in a post-referendum shit swamp. The trouble with referendums is that they address a complex question with a simple binary question: is this good or bad, right or wrong? Yes/no and that’s that, we’re done. Except of course we’re not. We’ve only started down a long road into the quagmire.

Governments often hold referendums for tactical reasons, as David Cameron did when he promised an advisory referendum on our membership of the EU. His plan was to settle the Europe issue for once and all, see off the ‘fruitcake’ politics of Nigel Farage, and stop the Tories arguing about Europe.

What a marvellous calculation that turned out to be.

Now democracy is a battered football, kicked from one end of the room to the other. The Brexiteers see one referendum as the only democracy that matters, while anyone pining for the boring old parliamentary democracy of debates and votes is shouted down.

So, yes, referendums are basically bad for the fuller version of democracy.

And another problem with referendums such as the one we held is that the vote was too close to count – and that created all the problems we now see. A small majority voted on a turnout of 72.2%; a swirling shitstorm blew up, and it’s blowing still.

And yet, boring old-style democracy has this week seen Boris Johnson face three defeats in his first battle as prime minister, including his call for a snap October election being rebuffed by Labour.

According to the right-wing newspapers this morning, Jeremy Corbyn is ‘chicken’ for turning down the chance to fight an election. The Sun even turns Corbyn into a chicken, while the Telegraph (aka Boris Johnson’s PR campaign) bellows that Corbyn is a ‘hypocrite’ for voting against an election.

An easy accusation to level, as the Labour leader has been chuntering on about an election for ages.

But Corbyn isn’t chicken – that’s just the line being brandished by the Johnson crew. The timing of the election is deeply political and both sides want a date that plays well.

Johnson wants an election before the Brexit deadline of October 31; Corbyn wants to concentrate on Brexit and wait until November. Johnson wants to make an election all about Brexit; Corbyn wants to hold off so that during a campaign he can say that Johnson failed to deliver Brexit.

Not wanting an election when Tantrum Johnson demands one isn’t chicken – it’s just political gamesmanship, as played by both sides.

But there are barbed ironies here. Johnson is fulminating because he can’t have an election he swears he doesn’t want; and Corbyn is adamant he doesn’t want the election he has always demanded (or not right now at least).

Still, Corbyn isn’t chicken, he’s just refusing to play the game under Johnson’s rules.

One final irony: Johnson suspending parliament could stymie his attempts to win a vote to have an election, as time could run out. Would serve him right though, as he set that anti-democratic timebomb ticking.

After yesterday’s high drama, it is easy to forget the House of Commons has only been televised for nearly 20 years.

Jacob Rees-Mogg probably regrets that interference with tradition, as he has been pilloried from all sides for lounging across the green benches like an elongated slug made sleepy by superiority.

His scornful posture has been seen by some as an example of manspreading, whereby males take up more than their allotted space; I think we should instead call this louche disrespect from the Leader of the House of Commons “toff-spreading”.

This is the man who on appointment sent his staff a dust-covered list of grammatical rules they had to obey. This list also contained the order: “CHECK your work.” To which we can now add our own instruction: “CHECK your posture you overentitled, overprivileged relic.”

Popular on social media today is the meme reproduced/swiped above. This shows a graph of the Tories’ falling majority drawn along Rees-Mogg’s legs. It is, I hope you agree, a work of small genius.

Sometimes the benefits of televising the Commons can be seen in the big moments; sometimes it lies in the small things. Yesterday we had both.

The big drama was prime minister Boris Johnson losing a Brexit vote as politicians opposed to a no-deal departure took control of Parliament to prevent this outcome.

Johnson’s performance was surprisingly poor and seemed to support the adage about being careful what you scheme, plot and connive for. Imagine spending so many years lusting after the job of prime minister, then discovering that you’re rubbish at it. So rotten indeed that your opponent rises to the occasion and wipes the floor with you (Jeremy Corbyn was having a good day).

The chaos continues; 21 Tory rebels have been suspended from their party; an election might or might not happen soon; and so bloody on and on.

Rather than dwell on these details, it is interesting to recognise how accustomed we are to the inside of the Commons. Often all we see are the unoccupied green benches, with the valiant few hanging around to listen to speeches addressed to an empty House. But when high drama is due, those MPs come streaming in like theatregoers on a first night.

Yesterday the small details were telling. Incidentally, I will spare the pictorial proof of Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith picking his nose and then eating what he had harvested. It would be nice to think that image would sink the man at last.

Here, instead, are other telling images. If you’ve been wondering what might bring joy to Theresa May, the magic potion lay in watching her successor cock things up. This snap of Mrs Maybe laughing next to former chancellor Ken Clarke (one of the rebels) is a delight.

Clarke appears in another clip, this time from Newsnight, where he was asked by Emily Maitlis if he still recognised his party. He replied: “No. It’s been taken over by a rather knock-about character”, adding that Boris Johnson’s cabinet was the “most right-wing cabinet any Conservative Party’s ever produced”.

Clarke shared the Newsnight sofa with another Tory rebel, Sir Nicholas Soames – grandson of Johnson’s great hero, Winston Churchill.

The still here shows Clarke and Soames giggling like aged schoolboys while a Tory suit tries to put a gloss on the mess made by Johnson.

Incidentally, we already knew that Boris Johnson was bad boyfriend material. This morning Tory rebel Rory Stewart reveals that he was dumped by text, saying that was how he learned he’d had the whip removed.

Incidentally times two, the televising of the Commons began on November 21, 1989 with the State Opening of Parliament. On the Parliament website it is reported that the debate went on for a long time before permission was granted ­– “As far back as 1923 the BBC’s first General Manager, John Reith, sought to broadcast the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament, but permission was refused.”

It’s fair to say it’s been a good and important opening of previously shut doors. And the snapshot images of lounging toffs and Brexit nosepickers have, in their way, enriched national life.

Standing in Downing Street last night, Boris Johnson was the reverse Jehovah’s Witness. Instead of knocking on your door, he spoilt your peace by stepping outside his door to deliver a new commandment from his Book of Brexit (“Thou shalt just bloody well do what I tell you”).

No one much likes having their bell bothered by the Witnesses, who receive divine credits for knocking on doors (thanks, Google); Boris Johnson deserves no credit for his backwards door-stepping gig.

Prime ministers do like grandstanding moments that are rarely grand. Theresa May was always dragging her weary whinge bones on to that podium to mumble nothing of much account. Now Johnson is at it, too.

Last night’s turn was a poor effort. Normally, Johnson gives the impression of enjoying the political stand-up routine; normally, he knocks out a few ‘jokes’ (other evaluations of their humour content are available), then bumble-bounces off with a cheery mock-Churchillian wave.

Last night the heckles of protesters in Downing Street put him off his stride. The mask slipped, and that character known as Boris slipped a little too, revealing the man behind the chummy waxwork.

We should all know by now that ‘Boris’ is a creation, a stage character, part comedian, part charming chancer – a put-up job to disguise the ruthless creature beneath.

The mask coming untethered should remind us of the unstable character of this man who slipped into Downing Street when no one was paying attention.

Before that speech last night, the political editors and the TV presenters chattered excitedly about how an election was about to be announced. In the event, Johnson said nothing much, piffle-waffling for a few thankfully brief moments.

The meat in this thin sandwich was back me or face a snap election on October 14. “I don’t want an election, you don’t want an election,” Johnson waffled-piffled. Oh, how do you know what I want? It’s irksome to be told what you want by Johnson. What I desire is for him to fall headline into a stagnant vat of his own Latin jokes and never be seen again; sadly, we don’t always get what we want.

Although less assured than usual, last night’s stand-up routine was another bout of autocratic bossiness – do what I say or else.

And the way Johnson threatens rebel Tory MPs threatening to join Labour to stop a no-deal is a disgrace ­­– and towering hypocrisy, even for him. He rebelled against his predecessor all the time, joining Jeremy Corbyn to vote down her Brexit bill (and Corbyn is another lifelong rebel who doesn’t tolerate rebellion from others).

Looking back now, you wonder if the rejection of May’s soft Brexit bill was a victory at all. That long-negotiated deal allowed for our gradual and managed exit from the EU. All that Johnson’s no-deal, no-parachute jump over the cliff guarantees is instant and then lasting chaos.

The Tories should not get away with calling an election before the Brexit deadline of October 31 – and Labour should be wary of voting for such a snap election.

No one listens to Tony Blair nowadays, but he is right to warn as he did yesterday that such an election would be an elephant trap for Labour, with the split opposition vote delivering a likely Tory victory.

No one much likes Blair now, but he’s right on this, and he did win three elections in a row.

Jeremy Corbyn says he wants an election; well, he has to say that, doesn’t he, as he’s been banging on about having one for ages. But it’s hard not to worry that the 2017 campaign might be as good as it gets for Corbyn.

PS…

Are any more cute pets being transported into Downing Street today to distract the media, or was that a one-trick puppy? Once that dog gets to know its new owner, chances are it’ll scoot back to the rescue centre.

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

A hard rain falls as we set off to visit this city’s two cathedrals. As the old Irish Liverpudlian song puts it, “If you want a cathedral, we’ve got one to spare…”

They squat on opposing hills, and the one going spare is probably a matter of taste. We begin with Liverpool Cathedral, sitting square and high on St James’s Mount.

Perhaps it accounts as an odd thing for two atheists to do, but we visited four cathedrals or minsters during our holiday at home (Beverley, Halifax and Liverpool times two). Those without belief can still be lifted by a good church.

Liverpool’s two cathedrals are modern. Liverpool Cathedral, which we enter dripping, took threequarters of a century to build and was completed in 1978. This Church of England cathedral was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who knocked off the red telephone box (there is one inside the cathedral). Other commissions included Battersea Power Station and the Cambridge University Library.

This is, as they will proudly tell you, the largest such building in the UK, and the fifth largest in the world. The size is undeniable, but puzzling: why in the 20^th century was such an enormous building deemed to be a good idea?

Liverpool Cathedral is hugely impressive, with its red-brick vaults, yet it is also quite gloomy and has architectural oddities, such as a beautiful stained-glass window blocked by a bridge. A clever modern addition tucks the café on a high shelf beneath another stained-glass window.

That hard rain is still falling as we leave to see how the opposing team compares. Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral is known by the locals as Paddy’s Wigwam, thanks to its distinctive shape, with a prominent central tower and a surrounding low roof that slopes in a tent-like manner. The truncated conical tower is topped by a crown of thorns rising into the (grey and damp) sky.

This cathedral could have been as massive as its opposite number. In sense it is, but only underground. The original plan in the 1930s had been for a traditional cathedral. The architect was Sir Edwin Lutyens, who died while the crypt was being completed.

After the war, amid shortages and more desperate needs, the work was suspended. Lutyens’ crypt lies beneath the modernist cathedral and the remains are vaulted and vast, hinting at how huge would have been the finished church. Well worth three quid for this surprising visiting below the surface.

The church above ground was commissioned in 1960 in a competition won by the modernist architect Frederick Gibberd, who had earlier been planner for the new town of Harlow in Essex.

Gibberd’s design is simple and beautiful, with circular seating so that all worshippers are close to the central pulpit. Lovely smaller chapels line the outer circle, each lit with different shades of stained glass. The conical tower is filled with stained glass, throwing coloured light into the building, or at night beaming the same light out across the city.

It’s all a matter of taste, but to my impartial eyes, the Catholics kick architectural ass in Liverpool.

It wasn’t all churches…

Don’t get carried away with the idea that we did only churchy things in Liverpool. We visited the Keith Haring exhibition at the Tate (fabulous), went on an open-topped bus tour where the guide picked up a guitar and sang Beatles songs (and sang them well). This tour stopped off at Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields and glimpsed down Paul McCartney’s old street, where tourists thronged outside his old house; an odd sight, but you can’t escape the Beatles in Liverpool.

We also visited the maritime museum with its properly unsettling slavery museum, and the Museum of Liverpool, which had the moving (but temporary) exhibition Double Fantasy, about John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

There are many fine quayside buildings in Liverpool, with the most famous being known as the Three Graces: the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building. The Liver Bird building was the first major building in Britain to be built using reinforced concrete.

We also slept in an old prison (or tried to, as the church next door tolled all night long) and visited two great pubs in Dale Street to fulfil my need for holiday beer. One was a modern bar, the Dead Crafty Beer Company, the other a perfect beery pub, the Ship & Mitre, where we quietly played Scrabble among the chatting locals.

There was no pen or paper, so we played without scoring, although I’m pretty sure I lost as usual.

We loved Liverpool and will be back.

Being outraged by Boris Johnson is easy. Especially when he blithely announces he is closing Parliament for five weeks.

My social media bubble is filled with outrage about this move from Johnson (none of that matey ‘Boris’ nonsense around here, thank you).

Outside of my circle, others feel differently, with one columnist today seeing nothing sinister about shutting Parliament, as all prime ministers do this to some extent. True up to a point – but not for five weeks, and not for such nakedly political reasons.

Johnson denies any political motive, adding he simply wants a break before a Queen’s Speech announcing his “very exciting agenda” (and if you believe that agenda might include posh-boy spiv work, pre-election bribes, sly sweeteners and soft-soap mendacity, you are not alone).

He has, you may have noticed, been carrying on as if he’d just been voted in on a massive majority, rather than smuggled through the back door thanks to the blessing of some 80,000 Tory members.

As long ago as the dim mists of last Sunday, when the Observer reported that Johnson was about to shut down Parliament, a government lies-person said this story was nonsense. Two days later, it turned out to be true.

You might not have been much impressed by Theresa May, as her dull dutifulness inspired no confidence. But you have to say one thing for her: Mrs Maybe sat and listened as her Brexit plan was kicked from one end of the Commons to the other. Boris Johnson lacks the courage or patience for such behaviour, so he shuts down Parliament and muffles debate. He isn’t man enough to have the argument; and that makes him less of a man than Theresa May.

Being outraged by Boris Johnson is easy. Especially when he diverts democracy and shuts down Parliament. Johnson says those opposed to Brexit are making a no-deal outcome more likely. Hang on a flickering minute there, Mr Johnson: you made a no-deal more likely by opposing Theresa May’s deal at every turn, accidentally aided and abetted by Jeremy Corbyn (where would we be now if the Labour leader had consistently opposed Brexit, rather than swinging this way and that?)

The biggest nonsense about this Brexit deadline is the impression that everything will be done and dusted on October 31. Never mind how much Boris Johnson might blow and bluster, that square on the calendar will mark only the very beginnings of a long and tedious process likely to last for years or decades.

As so much doubletalk has surrounded Brexit, especially from Tory MPs and ministers, all praise to LBC broadcaster Eddie Mair for pillorying four ministers who previously said proroguing Parliament was a terrible idea but are now keeping silent.

Matt Hancock, Amber Rudd, Andrea Leadsom and Nicky Morgan declined to appear on his show to explain themselves. So Eddie played clips of each saying how appalling it would be to suspend Parliament.

Nice one, Eddie.

This ledge is offering only a part-time service as it is our two-week holiday (days out, more to eat and drink than usual, and Liverpool looming). Here are two snatches, the first about gardening; the second, more to custom, about Boris Johnson.

Fights with the rector…

Two long stints in the garden have been devoted to tackling a rampant old rose. We believe this to be a rambling rector – and not, as a friend misheard, a rambling rectum.

We inherited this thicket. It is delightful and dreadful; the delight lying in the froth of white blooms; the horror in the deadly thorns. It rambled all over, climbing to the top of a fir tree. A mild prune last year barely touched the unbridled rector. Now that rose is tamed; and half a ton of barbed greenery has been put in bags for the tip.

This has not been achieved without casualty. I was punctured in the forehead two or three times, scraped my scalp and had a wound in my forearm that bled again a day later when we were having lunch in Halifax. Yesterday a severed branch had revenge on my little toe through a sandal gap.

My wife’s arms look as if she has lost an argument with a roll of barbed wire; she too leaked a day or so later, leaving a spot of blood on a summer skirt.

As I am writing a new crime novel, a gruesome scenario suggests itself. Some of the inner branches were perhaps an inch thick. That would, my darker side observes, make for a horrible murder; and you could throw the weapon on the bonfire afterwards. Or is that all a bit too Midsomer Murders?

Boris Johnson’s porky pies…

Speaking at the Edinburgh television festival, Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4’s head of news and current affairs, warned last week that politicians including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are adopting Trump-like tactics by declining to subject themselves to journalistic scrutiny. She argued that such leaders were trying to ignore journalists – “And that means they are not being held to account.”

Neither Johnson not Corbyn are keen on the big interviews with, say, the BBC Today programme or Channel 4 news. Instead, they prefer soft social media outings, such as Johnson’s stage-managed meet-the-voters Facebook forums.

Johnson, having picked the lock to Number 10, seems unwilling to be interviewed at length, unlike his predecessors Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Instead he wishes to hog the headlines without being questioned.

Byrne suggested that broadcasters should call out politicians who lie, which was taken as a criticism of Johnson (largely because he is a proven liar, having even been sacked from a newspaper job for lying).

As we head for a probable no-deal Brexit on a raft made of lies, here is a small example of Johnson bending the truth. In Biarritz in France for the G7 summit, Johnson talked up trade deals with his equally truth-twisting pal Donald Trump. He gave as an example the US trade restrictions on pork pies, saying: “Melton Mowbray pork pies, which are sold in Thailand and in Iceland, are currently unable to enter the US market because of, I don’t know, some sort of food and drug administration restriction.”

I hoped you noticed that tell-tale “I don’t know”. The likely reason he doesn’t know is that he’s just made it up, hoofed out another lie or at best a partial truth. This is the bantering, Telegraph-typing side of our new prime minister, the journo who won’t talk to other journos.

This morning on the Today programme, Matthew O’Callaghan, chairman of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association, popped up to say the pies he represents were not sold in Thailand and Iceland. This led to an outbreak of porky pie jokes on Twitter. Pork pies is, as we all know, cockney rhyming slang for lies – a phrase often shortened to porkies.

All very pleasing when contemplating a prime minister more packed with lies than a pork pie is with meat.

Look, I swore to keep my fingers away from the ‘B’ on the laptop keyboard. Then Sir John Redwood slipped into the BBC Today programme with his supercilious drawl.

This is the prominent Brexiteer who was knighted by Theresa May (remember her, it’s been a while?) for his “political and public service”.

Redwood drawled out the one-size-fits-all-interviews answer: “It’s the will of the British people.”

While this is technically true, those words have been hung, drawn and quartered so many times, it’s a wonder there’s any life left in them at all.

A truer version of that dry incantation would be: “It was the will of just about enough of the British people on one day in June three years ago.”

You may recall that Nigel Farage, fearing the Remain vote would win, said that a 52/48 split wouldn’t be enough to confirm the result. When that slim margin was in his favour, he shoved those hasty words under a beer-sodden carpet somewhere.

You may recall that the referendum was technically an advisory vote to test the water.

You may recall that the whole thing was hastily cobbled together by David Cameron (remember him, it’s been an even longer while?) to see off Farage.

You may recall that no plan was made for losing because Cameron was certain he would win.

You may recall many still-running allegations about dodgy money from Arron Banks pouring into the Leave coffers.

Oh, you may recall many things or may wish to bang your head against the wall instead; either reaction is understandable.

Sadly, the Remain side has always been divided and weak. And now Boris Johnson, having picked the lock to Number 10, has gathered together a not-so-merry band of hard-right cronies, promising that we are hurtling towards a no-deal Brexit.

Politicians from all sides urge against this calamity, but now it’s become a badge of honour among the Redwood brigade, a politically macho act, rather than a dangerous and foolish one.

One hope lies in Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s offer of creating a time-limited national government to extend our departure date, allowing for a general election with Labour campaigning for a public vote on the terms of leaving.

This is a good idea and an unusually smart move from Corbyn, even if he seems to have trouble leading his own party, never mind a government of national unity.

A couple of weeks ago, the Labour grandee turned author Alan Johnson said in a Q&A in the Observer: “The simple problem we’ve got is that Jeremy Corbyn is not a leader. He’s never going to be a leader, never wanted to be a leader, is totally uncomfortable in the role as leader. And on Europe he’s a total disaster.”

There was more. “Jeremy is not just pious and sanctimonious, he’s useless at leading, which is why he has people around him who do his shoelaces up…”

Now these remarks will be dismissed by Corbyn fans, who are never happier than when laying into a discredited member of their own clan. But they rang a true note.

Anyway, whatever happens, it can’t have been the will of the people to spend three exhausting years with everyone being nasty towards each other. Perhaps the true will of the British people is to live in a parliamentary democracy where matters of importance are debated by those we elect. Rather than holding hasty referendums without a thought to what might happen.

This blog was amended after being published to remove a nickname incorrectly applied to Sir John Redwood

Photo: PA

Greta Thunberg is sailing across the Atlantic in a carbon-neutral yacht powered only by the wind and sun – and gales of huffing from a few old fossils on Twitter.

The 16-year-old environmental campaigner should inspire admiration in all of us, even if we find her message hard to swallow. We should feel a little bit of awe that one teenager from Sweden should have such impact, even if we dislike some of her inconvenient truths.

Many of the right seem happy to be hurl hate at Thunberg as she heads for climate conferences in New York and Chile on a no-frills voyage.

The reason they dislike her so is that Thunberg represents everything they disparage. Before following this line of argument, let’s consider an old clip of Nigel Farage having a crafty fag. The Brexit agitator is shown puffing away through his trademark smirk while saying: “I think the doctors have got it wrong about smoking.”

Ahem, no; they’re right and you are wrong, matey; but feel free to creosote your lungs if you wish.

That sort of stubborn refusal to believe the undeniable truth is also typical of those who deny our climate is changing due to man’s activities. They spout whatever nonsense comes to mind and ignore the mounting evidence.

Don’t blame them in a sense, but we’ll come to that in a moment. First let’s expose the nastiness of adults who should know better. Two tweets today bob along in this unpleasant undercurrent.

Terrible tweet number one: Arron Banks, chum to Farage and mysterious funder of Brexit. Banks tweeted: “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August…”

Oh, lovely. A rich old climate denier seemingly wishing a horrible accident on a 16-year-old girl. If that man had a soul it would shrivel for shame.

Terrible tweet number two: The right-wing broadcaster and general pest Julie Harley-Brewer weighed in with: “Hi Greta, I’ve just booked some long haul flights for my family to enjoy some winter sun on the beach this Christmas. Level of guilt being felt: 0%”

The only necessary response to that came from John Crace, Parliamentary sketch writer on the Guardian: “Level of twatishness: 100%”.

The writer Matt Haig, a splendid Twitter warrior with 323,000 followers (including me), can always be depended on to speak the truth – and the right-wing warriors hate him, too.

Often his tweets concern mental health, based on his own near suicide 20 years ago. His response to Banks was: “An unbelievable tweet. What a sad shrivel-hearted bully this man is. Greta troubles exactly the right people.”

Haig also pointed out in another tweet that we should never overlook young people and should remember that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was aged 18; and Mozart composed a symphony at the age of eight.

Flinging sour spite at a remarkable 16-year-old says much more about the abusers than it does about Greta Thunberg. Yet it is still possible to feel uncomfortable about her message; even if that too says more about you than it does about Greta.

A pious article in the Guardian last week hymned people who were taking the train for their holidays. Fine if you are heading to France, say, but more difficult if you wish to travel further. Our three-week holiday to Australia two years ago would have been impossible without a long-haul flight. Will such trips be banned or totally frowned on in the future?

The thing is, most of us tend to take a pick-and-mix approach to green matters. I cycle when possible but have a car for longer journeys; I fly only occasionally (but would fly more if funds permitted).

So, yes, listening to Greta Thunberg is uncomfortable if you’re from the carbon-frittering generation. But not half so uncomfortable as listening to what Will Hutton in the Observer last Sunday called “the rancid old order” – the Trump/Farage/Johnson brigade with their climate denying and their arrogant no-deals.

The no-deal Brexiteers, Hutton argues, have no true force behind them; same with Trump, too. “They are the losers, on the wrong side of history. Better people will enter politics…”

Better people such as Greta Thunberg, perhaps. Bon voyage, Greta.

I just need to shake my head. That’s better. Trump, Brexit and Johnson – that unholy trinity of attention grabbers – are dislodged for the moment.

It’s hard not to be drawn there when sitting on this ledge. But today I swear off that gloomy triptych. Instead my eye is drawn to beef, the ‘hottest’ vegan over 50 and a tweeting fridge.

Goldsmiths College, part of the University of London, is banning beef from the start of the new term. The college hopes this will help it become carbon-neutral by 2025. Taking beef off the campus menu has been suggested by the new warden, Professor Frances Corner – and not, as reported in some tabloid circles, by “snowflake students”.

Farmers are not impressed, arguing the ban is “overly simplistic” as British beef is produced to a high standard and has a greenhouse gas footprint two-and-half times smaller than the global average.

My time at Goldsmiths College was so long ago I’m not sure anyone had even thought of carbon footprints. My own footprint in that institution disappeared long ago.

I don’t remember eating beef on campus in the latter part of the 1970s. For a few weeks I lived off frozen chicken pies, a restrictive diet that eventually gave way to proper cooking of chops, fish, vegetables. Supplies were bought from the local Tesco on a Saturday afternoon, as the store was shut on Sunday.

Stores that shut on a Sunday were as common then as vegans were rare; nowadays everything is always open – and every third person is turning vegan, and popping out on a Sunday for supplies of tofu.

This very morning, my old newspaper reports that Louise Hird, who is 52 and lives in Selby, has been voted the UK’s “hottest vegan over 50” in a competition run by Peta, the animal rights charity.

Louise certainly looks pleasant in her photograph, and good luck to her. It seems an odd contest, but as a non-hot meat-eater aged over 60, it’s probably not my place to comment.

Peta is good at stunts that are either brilliantly effective or bloody annoying, depending on what you put on your plate.

As for beef, I like a good burger occasionally – you know, a posh, over-priced street-food burger for discerning fools, rather than a cheap fast-food one. Slow-cooked brisket is a favourite Sunday meal, although not often cooked as I share the kitchen with a veggie wife and a vegan daughter.

Will I change my diet to accommodate fears about the carbon footprint of beef? It seems unlikely as meat or fish only appear on my plate perhaps twice a week as it is.

And now to that tweeting fridge. At the time of writing, this story tops the most-viewed chart on the Guardian website. A 15-year-old in the US, known only by her Twitter handle of ‘Dorothy’, was barred from using her phone after an argument with her mother.

The teen is a fan of the singer Ariana Grande and was worried the ban would cut her tally of followers (the reasons are arcane unless you are a top-tweeting teen).

Dorothy circumvented the ban by tweeting from her family’s smart fridge after her phone was confiscated.

This shows great resourcefulness; it also illustrates just how much life has changed since I briefly haunted the beef-eating campus of Goldsmiths College in the 1970s.

Back then if someone had said that one day a girl would work out how to send a tweet from the family fridge, you would have scratched your head. As I am right now while contemplating that science and technology could work so hard to such a pointless end.

Yes, I am a fan, but our fridge can stay away from Twitter. That bit of white goods has enough on its hands chilling all those vegetables we buy.

I slept quite well last night, safe in my bed knowing that Boris Johnson has sorted out crime just like that, as the great Tommy Cooper used to say.

Two weeks or so into the job, and he is solving all our problems with a studied wave of his arm. Police, prisons, the NHS, education, rail transport in the north and all that time-wasting stuff about Brexit – all solved in a shake and with a Trump-style thumbs-up gesture.

As a part-time insomniac, I should be pleased with our new prime minister. He’s not giving me anything to worry about at night at all. Except that, well, it’s a miracle I wasn’t awake at 3am as often happens, my mind full of silly stuff.

Such as, well, having a rampant liar and chancer for prime minister who seems to be running away with the political agenda by promising any old shit with any old money (old money in disguise, new money that’s not been printed yet, funny currency from the forest of magic money trees that grew overnight, as if in a fairy story).

At least I can draw comfort from knowing that Boris Johnson must be awake at night, too. It can’t be possible to sleep with all that spinning going on.

Today’s edition of The Times leads off with Johnson saying: “Criminals must get the sentence they deserve.” Which is all very well – but when we will get the prime minister we deserve, instead of one hand-picked by a minuscule rump of crusty old Tories?

Johnson is falling back on the usual Tory headline-grabbing stuff and guff about crime, longer sentences, 10,000 more prison places and greater powers of stop-and-search.

Asked about proof that any of this would work, he bumbled out some line about “We’re not interested in what some left-wing criminologist thinks” – a quip more suited to his old Telegraph column than the mouth of a prime minister.

We already lock up more people than just about any other western nation. This is nothing more than early electioneering by a prime minister on the make. That’s what they all do, of course. Johnson is just even more shameless than the usual prime minister.

It’s amazing anyone swallows a slippery word. But readers of the Sun are convinced, at least according to the way the tabloid has branded an entirely unscientific readers’ poll.

This poll indicates a “massive Boris Bounce” effect for the Conservatives, according to the Johnson-friendly publication. The Sun says Johnson has wrestled back support from the Brexit party, with more than 30% of 850 readers surveyed saying they would now vote Tory in any forthcoming election – up from 13% in June.

Not sure that counts as “massive”, but the Sun is happy with its meaningless poll.

As for me, I am sure to find something or other to worry about in the early hours.