THERE is only so long you can put up with being held in a half-nelson by Brexit and Trump, that sweaty double act with the bad breath and worse manners. Thank the star-pricked night then for Doctor Who (BBC1, Sunday).

Having work to do and being the owner of a family hatchback rather than a Tardis, I couldn’t be in two places at once this morning and have only just managed to swivel into the blogging chair.

It wouldn’t be true to call me a diehard Who nut, although this family sci-fi show has my loyalty. It would be true to say that I have watched since the first episode went out in 1964 – a date more distant than the beginnings of time to the students I teach on a Monday morning (18; how can they only be 18 and when did antiquity grab me by the ankles or perhaps the knees?).

A predictable Who-ha greeted the news that Jodie Whittaker would be the new Doctor. Some Daily Mail types grumble-grouched about the effacing of a male role model; some predicted that a bit of gender fluidity in the role presaged the end of time and all that.

Thankfully, Whittaker briskly brushed off such doubts and doubters with a lively, funny and very Yorkshire performance. The West Yorkshire-born actress was part of the deal for new writer Chris Chibnall, who brought Jodie with him. The pair earlier worked on Broadchurch.

Jodie Whittaker quickly addressed the gender switch. When someone remarked that she was a woman, she said: “Am I? Does it suit me?” And that’s all that needed to be said, although she did have a coda: “Oh yeah, I remember. Half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman.”

She spent most of a busy first episode wearing Peter Capaldi’s tattered cast-offs, before being kitted out in her own clothes.

Not everyone will be happy, and the tone was a little uneven, and there were an awful lot of assistants, and that was confusing. But the effects were sweepingly cinematic and, best of all, the Doctor being a woman was in a sense no big deal. The wandering spirit of the time-troubled nomad survives.

The best compliment to pay Jodie Whittaker is that in the end she just seemed like the Doctor. Fans will always have their favourites. I thought Capaldi was great and liked Tom Baker back in the dusty folds of time. Christopher Eccleston was a brilliantly jarring choice, but he wasn’t happy in the role.

Whittaker borrows a few stray atoms from David Tennant’s performance; not a bad move, as Tennant is many fans’ favourite. Mostly she was herself; mostly she just got on with it.

The story was the usual splendid nonsense, with duelling high cranes and a monster who went all dental on his victims and decorated his face with their extracted teeth.

By the end, the Doctor and her companions were left dangling in space, looking for the Tardis. The BBC reports that 8.2 million viewers tuned in, a healthy figure for a fiftysomething show. Steven Moffat was a clever, witty writer who conjured up the darkness for Doctor Who. But he also took the show down of maze of complications, and sometimes the cleverness got in the way.

Anyway, winter approaches, there is far too much on television, and now Doctor Who adds another note to the must-watch list.

IT looks like Trump will get his judge.

The unedifying spectacle of a man accused of sexual assault being defended by a president accused of the same sins has hogged the news this past week.

While the truth of what happened cannot be proved either way, it is hard to see why a respected but otherwise unremarkable professor would risk upending her life unless she truly knew that she had been assaulted in her student days.

There was nothing in all this for Christine Blasey Ford except her belief that Judge Brett Kavanaugh was an unsuitable man to be a judge.

That unsuitability was broadcast when accuser and accused stood before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Blasey Ford was a credible witness, calm and psychologically precise in what she had to say, even though that testimony caused her distress.

Then Kavanaugh stepped up and gave a perfect display of why he lacked the balance necessary in a judge. He ranted and raved, cried, accused the Clintons of having a hand in doing him down, dragged his 10-year-old daughter’s prayers into the argument, spoke with the sneer of entitlement, and generally behaved like a man you whose judgement you wouldn’t trust in recommending the best way to put on your shoes.

Away from the bitterness, away from the protesters being arrested – go Amy Schumer, with your raised fist and your justifiable anger – and away the internecine corridors of US politics, there is a horrible contradiction here.

Why this appointment matters to Trump is that it would give him two right-wing judges in the Supreme Court. This would tilt America’s highest court in favour of conservatives – a long-lasting tilt of the legal pinball machine, as the appointments are for life.

But here’s the nasty thing. The court has the final say on divisive issues such as abortion and gun control. Right-wing Americans tend to be against both. Stop to think about that for a horrified moment: the right in the US cares desperately that babies are born, and yet cares not a bloodied jot if those babies grow up and are then shot.

That is a cruel and unreasonable divide. And one the gun-toting opponents of abortion and gun control will continue to ignore.

AMERICAN politics is horribly divided; and so is ours, as uncovered by the endless rows over Brexit.

Here is one finger-smudged snippet from this morning’s newspapers. Unilever has scrapped plans to move its headquarters from London to Holland, “after investors revolt”, as the headline in the Financial Times puts it.

Over at the Daily Express – or the Brexit Beano – this news is greeted with the ridiculous headline: “VICTORY FOR BREXIT BRITAIN.”

Er, no. Whether Unilever chose to stay or go wasn’t connected to Brexit. So that can’t be a victory for Brexit Britain or, indeed, a defeat for non-Brexit Britain. But it is, I suppose, a victory for Brexit bollocks, of which we seem to have a plentiful supply.

YOU wouldn’t often confuse Mrs Maybe with a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. And perhaps you still won’t after she started her conference speech with a stiff Abba shuffle.

You wouldn’t often dust off the word ‘sashay’ to describe the prime minister’s generally awkward movements. But that little dazzler has been lifted from the glitter pile by some this morning in praise of her Dancing Queen routine.

Before scoring Theresa May’s performance, let’s consider the insular idiosyncrasies of the party conference speech. The party faithful loved her routine in Birmingham, but it’s surely odd when a woman shaking her stiff joints to an old Abba tune earns a standing ovation.

As a bit of political theatre, it was pretty good in that it conveyed confidence, yet it was still odd, and oddly embarrassing. Her words were more confident than is often the case, but they weren’t saying much. Also, it was hard not to detect the strange self-confidence of someone who isn’t as good at her job as she seems to think. And a hint, surely, of the dullest person in the room telling herself: “I’m a right laugh, me.”

The newspapers mostly enjoyed the show, with the Daily Mail choosing the headline: “MAMA MAY-A” and praising a “bravura speech that savaged Corbyn and put Boris in his place – and promised an end to austerity”.

All that from a jerky shuffle and a dull speech.

The Telegraph, not often a friend to the prancing one, goes with: “Dancing to a new beat: May declares an end to austerity.”

The Mirror, never a friend to the Tories, prefers “Strictly shambolic” and “ZERO CREDIBILITY.”

Even if you don’t like Theresa May, it’s fair to say that she had a good day. Better at least that the true shambles of last year; better for sure than the speech before that, when she dismissed Remain voters as “citizens of nowhere”.

But this ending austerity business sounds highly suspicious. Once the “excitement” dies down – that’s if anyone other than Tory MPs desperate for good news felt the tingle ­– we should all make sure to read the small print.

Austerity was imposed unnecessarily, and the effects are only now being fully felt. Mrs Maybe embraced this experiment in fiscal cruelty. Then she added the economic illiteracy of a hard Brexit into the mix. Now, with a shuffle of her feet, she announces the end of austerity. Just like that, as Tommy Cooper used to say.

It was as if Brexit didn’t exist, as if the financial penalty clauses of leaving the EU were only a few loose Euros, rather than untold billions of the pounds no longer in your pocket.

Mrs Maybe showed some other old moves too. She revived her commitment to people who feel “left behind” – a noble pledge made when she took office, and one ignobly ignored ever since.

She has form with saying words that sound fine, if from the dull end of the drawer, but turn out to mean nothing much.

Will her fine words lead to the scrapping of the dreadful and calamitous universal credit? Unlikely. Will her tin-earned “thanking” of people for all their hard work over austerity win her new friends? Unlikely – and wasn’t that the oddest note, a flat-footed thank-you as if we’d all been helping with the village fete, not suffering years of cuts.

A better than expected speech, but that’s not saying much.

Mrs Maybe has announced plans for a Festival of Brexit Britain to showcase “what makes our country great today”.

Here are a few suggestions for the most gruesome village fete ever.

Pin the Blame on Nigel Farage. Feel free to have as many goes as you like and do use all available pins.

Guess the weight of the big Brexit lie and estimate the number of fibs in the old sweet jar. The old school bus will also be revived to parade that nostalgic whopper about £350m for the health service.

And guess the weight of Boris Johnson. Be warned that he may off-load his ego for the afternoon. That egomaniacal encumbrance sure weighs a lot, so adjust your calculations accordingly.

In a further attempt to fiddle the figures, or his figure at least, Johnson will lead a jog through a wheat field in a childish bid to get one over on Mrs Maybe, who once said that was the naughtiest thing she’d ever done.

Oh, such modesty, Theresa. You seem to have forgotten all your anti-achievements during those long dull years in the Home Office, including laying the ground for the Windrush scandal – that’s worth a tick in the ‘bad’ column.

The Mansion of Horrors with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Your host will be dressed as the poshest Count Dracula you’ve ever seen. He will lurch out from dark corners to spin tall tales about Europe (just like any other day, then).

Please note, Jeremy Hunt will not be called ‘Count’ at all due to a tendency for his name to be confused with a swear-word that is still socially unacceptable – as is Hunt himself.

To address sins in a past life, Mr Hunt will be manning the first aid tent. He will not be repeating his silly conference speech about the EU being worse than Soviet Russia, as the local philosophical society has told him to read a few history books before he opens his mouth again.

David Davis has volunteered to run the Brexit Roundabout.  This will spin very slowly and may well grind to a halt.

Dr Liam Fox – and please don’t forget that ‘Dr’ or he’ll have one of his strops – will run the barbecue. He got a good deal on chlorinated chicken and hormone-riddled burgers from a dodgy mate in the US. “So much better for you than that free-range organic stuff,” he assures us, while making sure not to eat a mouthful himself.

No strawberries, sadly: they’ve all gone rotten in the field after Mrs Maybe cancelled the foreign fruit-pickers.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson will take care of the rifle range. He will not tolerate anyone attempting to make a point by shooting themselves in the head, or indeed the foot.

Be aware, though, that Gavin does tend to get a bit carried away. There is also a danger that he might start a village coup with those rifles while droning on about how he’s a Yorkshireman who tells it straight.

As for the drones, Mrs Maybe has banned those from the event. She doesn’t want anyone getting an overall view of the Brexit beano/fiasco, as there is a danger of the awful truth being spotted, and none of us want that revealed.

Any Remainers who wander into the fete will be corralled into a corner to receive an airborne delivery of rotten fruit (there’s a lot of it about, thanks to those departed fruit pickers).

The Tombola stall will have the very attractive prize of a month’s supply of tinned food to see you through the first days of Brexit.

Michael Gove the environment secretary will be on car-parking duties, and his wife, Sarah, had kindly volunteered to write a load of suitably solipsistic words for the local newspaper.

Anyone sharing Tweets showing photographs of zombies turning up for Mrs Maybe’s Festival of Brexit will be given a stern, and indeed very boring, talking to by the woman herself. “I know a lot about zombies,” Mrs Maybe said. And you must admit, she does look awfully pale.

A list comparing me to David Beckham doesn’t have so many ticks in the Cole column.

Only one of us has been the England captain; only one of us has played for Manchester United; only one of us earned $250 million kicking a ball around in Los Angeles; only one of us is married to a too-thin former pop star turned millionaire designer of expensive clothes; only one of us craves the public adulation that comes with a knighthood.

Oh, and only one of us is covered in expensively-got tattoos; only one of us used to be super-talented at sport; only one of us is famed for his good looks.

That’s a lot of ticks in the Beckham column. But here’s one big tick in the Cole column, and it has nothing to do with sport. An ageing squash bumbler (every game lost this week) can hardly hope to compare himself to a rather less ageing ex-football star.

And, yes, the big tick in the Cole column is that I pay my speeding fines.

Only one of us was driving a borrowed Bentley through central London at 59mph in a 40mph zone. Only one of us can afford to employ an expensive solicitor nicknamed “Mr Loophole” who specialises in getting the rich and famous off speeding fines.

The other one of us was, last time around, caught when joining a dual carriageway in the centre of Leeds, where a misunderstanding took place between me and the road signs. The limit was 40mph and I was doing around 47mph in the family hatch-back.

Hands-up stupid of me, but surely not as bad as nearly 60mph in a borrowed Bentley. One more year to go before those points are wiped clean. In nearly 40 years of driving, I’ve had three tickets and attended one naughty driver class.

I’m not always in accord with headlines in The Sun. But this morning’s “BEND THE LAW LIKE BECKHAM” sticks a pin through it. Beckham got off because Mr Loophole, aka solicitor Nick Freeman, argued that the ticket had arrived one day outside the 14-day limit.

Beckham doesn’t deny he was caught because you can’t. Instead he paid someone to that he could wriggle out of the conviction.

And that sounds like one law for the rich in a borrowed Bentley and another for a broke man in a hatchback. One rule for a man estimated this month to be worth £340m (according to that respected financial publication Hello! Magazine). And another for the rest of us.

Mr Freeman said that Beckham was “very relieved with the verdict”. And there was me foolishly thinking that the law applied to all, rich and poor, to the famous and those known by few. Beckham avoided a conviction on a technicality, and that goes against the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law being what the rest of us must swallow.

Still, at least he hasn’t got his knighthood yet. According to reports 18 months ago, Beckham was “red flagged” by HM Revenue & Customs when his name was put forward for a knighthood in 2013, because he had “invested in a scheme that HMRC said amounted to tax avoidance” (Daily Telegraph, February 7, 2017).

Oh, well. Only one of us feels hard done by because he can’t call himself “Sir”.

LABOUR has left Liverpool, the Lib-Dems had theirs first in Brighton (possibly in a phone-box, no one is sure) and the Tories are gathering for theirs in Birmingham on Sunday, mops at the ready for all the Brexit blood.

These are great occasions for the party faithful, the red-eyed political editors and the roving commentators. Marooned happily at home, the rest of us might wonder at all that effort.

The Lib-Dems made few ripples in Brighton, apart from leader Vince Cable saying he would step down when Brexit was settled. That date is possibly as distant as 1984 was to George Orwell when he sat at his writing desk. Oh, and Vince tried a bit of verbal saltiness, then muffed the line that had been released to the media.

What he’d been trying to say was that years of economic pain were being “justified by the erotic spasm of leaving the European Union” but the key phrase was hijacked by a passing splutter.

Jeremy Corbyn enjoyed his party get-together in Liverpool. Last year in Brighton, Corbyn kept Brexit off the agenda, mainly because he didn’t want to get caught talking about it. This year he could hardly do the same, what with all those people wearing “Love Corbyn: Hate Brexit” T-shirts. Perhaps underneath his smart white shirt and red tie, the man himself was wearing one that said: “Love Labour: Love Brexit.”

Corbyn’s never liked the European Union but is surrounded by supporters who do. That meant he was forced into mentioning Brexit this year. And he did shove a stiletto through Mrs Maybe’s Chequers plan, a proposition already much pierced by almost everyone.

His final speech sounded good from the snatches on the BBC news. But that’s what Corbyn does: gives good speeches to the adoring followers in the aisles. His vaguely bumbling favourite uncle act is now slicker, but the party faithful still loved him.

His main answer to everything is to hope that the Tories with argue themselves into a general election. And that this time Labour will win. The details of what would happen after that are left mostly to John McDonnell, who has a better grasp of detail.

Now it’s the turn of the Tories, led by a woman who manages to be ineffective and stubborn in the same impatient sigh.

Last week Theresa May returned from being snubbed in Salzburg by the other EU leaders and gave an impromptu statement to the nation about how Britain wouldn’t be pushed around. That creaky bit of political theatre was aimed at the party faithful booking their tickets to Birmingham.

While Mrs Maybe was treated to more rudeness than might have been expected in Salzburg, it was all her own fault. She went armed with demands she knew the EU wouldn’t accept; and she knew because they’d been telling her that for two whole years.

Mrs Maybe grabbed the poisoned chalice of leading us out of Europe (even though she was a convinced Remainer). And she is making an unholy mess of an admittedly impossible job, harried by the usual suspect Europe-haters in her own party. Quite who that sniping lot will blame when and if we finally leave the EU is anyone’s guess.

But never mind, the government has just appointed a food supplies minister to get us through Brexit. How reassuring. Spam fritters all round.

Does anyone else have this curiosity from 1984 in their collection? Blue Rondo a la Turk were a punky salsa big band, before dropping the ‘a la Turk’ for this second album in a short-lived, two-album career.

The vinyl corridor doesn’t contain the earlier album, just this finale, although a search of YouTube unearths the earlier incarnation making the loud and joyous cacophony of Me & Mr Sanchez.

Bees Knees and Chickens Elbows boasts fantastic cover art, a great opening instrumental track, Samba No Pé and, well, some other tracks. Smoking Dynamite is the second-strongest song here, with suggestions of the earlier tarry chaos.

Too much of what remains falls into that best forgotten 1980s groove of cool-jazzy-poppy-nothing-much.

That dancing dazzler of an opening track leads straight to Manifesto, an unremarkable burst of 1980s pop – a song that sets the mood for an album that hasn’t aged well.

Fans of the ‘a la Turk’ version of Chris Sullivan’s band still report feeling disappointed by this second (and last) album. To this listener, who can’t recall buying the album (and we have two copies in our collection) the excitement raised by the opening instrumental slowly fades away.

A little late in the day, real life having intervened, here is a wrap-up of Bodyguard (BBC1).

Jed Mercurio’s six-part thriller was an impressive runaway train of a drama – a fitting analogy, as the opening scenes on a train constituted the most thrilling television seen in ages.

An average of 10.4 million viewers watched this thriller, according to the BBC, so Mercurio must be doing something right. No one can deny that he delivers a story at unstoppable pace. The Line of Duty writer knows more about narrative propulsion than a party of thriller writers trapped in a falling lift.

His greatest achievement was to get so many people watching a TV drama in the old-fashioned way – as it went out, once a week in a retro-rush, instead of doing a binge. This was talked-about water-cooler television, even if you get your water from the cold tap in the kitchen.

The last drama to attract that many viewers was the finale of season two of Downton Abbey – a denouement that did without this Downton refusenik.

In case you’ve had you head in the fridge for six weeks, Bodyguard is a thriller starring Richard Madden as ex-soldier turned protection office David Budd. Or starring Richard Madden as his frown, for he does an awful lot of that.

Anyway, about last night.

The 75-minute finale was, strangely, the weakest episode yet. This was down to various faults, but mostly it was down to that extra 15 minutes. While the other episodes were tight and racy last night’s conclusion was oddly flabby, until rescued with a final rush of breathless brilliance.

The writing wobbled at times, especially when DS Louise Rayburn (Nina Toussaint-White) turned on Madden, having preciously been Budd’s buddy. Louise started shouting at Budd, a little unkind as he had a bomb strapped to him at the time. That bomb didn’t go off, but her acting did.

The denouement when it came was fine, even if the action had swerved between high drama and farce, like two cars colliding. And farce left some of its paint on drama’s front wing.

Like many thrillers that start out so well, Bodyguard didn’t quite live up to its opening promise, and threatened to underwhelm. It didn’t do that in the end, but it was a close-run thing.

Fortunately, Mercurio’s skill at wrongfooting his viewers survived until the end. Various theories that rattled the internet turned out to be wrong. Home Secretary Julia Montague really was dead – unless she wasn’t, as some conspiracy theorists think they spotted her at a window in one scene.

What about Budd’s wife’s new boyfriend? Mentioned often but never seen, he was trailed as a potential key to everything. Nope. And that dodgy baldie in glasses (and you should always keep your eye on those) who took Montague’s job – what was he up to?

And what about Commander Anne Sampson (Gina McKee): was she a flapping loose end, or had she been wearing a red herring suit all along?

Best twist of all led right back to the beginning. Suicide bomber Nadia wasn’t a mistreated wife under her husband’s cruel thumb, but a fully committed evil-genius bomb-maker and terrorist. Didn’t spot that one before it rolled through the interview room door.

Did those of us who loved Bodyguard get a touch carried away and were we a little short-changed by the last episode? Yes, but it was still a thrilling ride.

In the latest Brexit bulletin – and, yes, if only we could all shut up about it – Theresa May yesterday sleepwalked through a nightmare. She woke from her somnambulist Salzburg shuffle to find herself standing naked before a line of pointing EU leaders.

Her lack of clothes in Austria was symbolic rather than real, but she was still left shivering. Spitting feathers too, and where she got those feathers from is anyone’s guess.

The massed rejection of her Chequers plan has put the Brexiteers in a foul tizzy. They are especially narked by Emmanuel Macron, the French president. This is because he said: “Brexit is the choice of the British people…pushed by those who predicted easy solutions…Those people are liars.”

Transport secretary Chris Grayling stepped in to rebuff Macron and support Mrs Maybe. And if Failing Grayling is your ‘first responder’, you know you are deep in the smelly stuff.

Whatever you think of Macron, and he does seem to be the sort of vaguely sinister smoothie you wouldn’t want to swallow for breakfast, he is telling the truth here. Undiplomatic, for sure. But many of those who voted for Brexit were flogged a lie; the Brexit brigands told us it would be a piece of cake, topped off with over-the-rainbow icing. A doddle, nothing to it.

Instead we are caught with a losing hand in a slow-motion game of poker. Theresa May keeps dropping her cards. She goes in with her poker face, that familiar nervous twitch, and they all spot her game straight away.

The pro-Brexit papers are furious about the Salzburg stitch-up, with the Sun choosing to represent Mrs Maybe’s humiliation with an old gangster movie pun: “EU DIRTY RATS.”

That one seems to be straining at the stitches, but there you go.

The thing is – and what a lot of ‘things’ there have been, an endless conga-dancing line of ‘things’ – we did get ourselves into this mess. And we have six months to drag ourselves out of the self-made mire.

But you can hand one accolade to Theresa May’s Chequers deal: it’s a brilliantly unifying solution as almost everybody on all sides is united in hating it.

The details of her solution are now besides the point; something to do with “facilitated customs arrangements” and a “common rulebook” – words to send most people into a terminal doze, but enough for that Brexit tap-dancing duo of David Davis and Boris Johnson to resign.

That’s your lot. No more words today. How many more Brexit words can there be? To choose another games metaphor, this is turning into the slowest, crappest game of Scrabble ever.

“No one took charge” – that is the rail regulator’s view of the timetable travel chaos that left thousands of passengers stranded. So I’d like to talk umbrellas with the man who was supposed to be in charge.

This year already, the East Coast line has been renationalised for the second time in ten years; delays have been caused by strikes and engineering works; and the summer rolled in miserably as those timetables caused massed cancellations across the North and for commuters into London.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has not taken the blame for any of this; he is always failing to do that. Instead, he talks up private ownership, saying in a garbled way that “privatisation has delivered huge benefits of [sic] passengers on Britain’s railways – doubling passenger journeys and bringing in billions of private investment”.

Here now is my umbrella parallel. In a wet country people buy umbrellas; in a particularly downpouring year, they buy even more umbrellas. This does not suggest that ownership of the umbrella industry is a huge success for private industry: it suggests that people buy umbrellas when it rains.

More people travelling on the trains can be for many reasons, not least that driving anywhere is torture. Maybe where they work lacks parking; or perhaps they work in London where driving is discouraged. Or maybe they commute by train because there is no other reasonable choice.

None of this indicates that privatisation is responsible for that rise in passenger journeys; people take the train because they have little alternative. Umbrellas and rain.

Hymning rising passenger numbers as a success of privatisation is therefore specious logic. Especially when the Virgin/Stagecoach operation has withdrawn early from the East Coast line, leaving the taxpayer to step in again.

And here’s another thing, how much does privatisation cost the taxpayer in supporting private industry, and then taking over when running a line proves to be too much?

Much the same happens with privately run prisons. Birmingham prison was run by G4S until recently, when the government took over declaring it had fallen into a “state of crisis”.

Isn’t this often the way? Private industry creams off the state until everything goes wrong.

But back to Mr Grayling. The concluding part of his statement said: “But it is clear that the structure we inherited is no longer fit to meet today’s challenges and cope with increasing customer demand.”

You will look long and hard at that sentence before you find Mr Grayling admitting that he is “no longer fit to meet today’s challenges”. No, instead he blames “the structure we inherited”.

In his interim report in the timetable failures, Stephen Glaister, chairman of the Office or Road and Rail, singled out for criticism train operators Govia, Northern and Northern Rail, Network Rail – and the Department of Transport (you know, the one run by Mr Not My Fault Grayling).

Mr Grayling has announced a review of the railways, although it is not reported whether he has announced a review of himself.

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald reversed into the sidings mumbling about rocketing fares, failing franchises and timetable chaos. Then he said: “The railways need a Labour government which will deliver public ownership of rail.”

Ah, yes. That one. It is one of the confusions of life that you can feel privatisation isn’t the answer – but neither is taking everything back into public hands. I honestly don’t know how to untangle that one. Would the state running the railways be an improvement or an endless drain on money and a distraction from other jobs a government ought to concentrate on, such as tackling poverty and building social housing and keeping the NHS afloat?

It is easy to suspect that Labour wouldn’t take the railways into public ownership so much as come up with a different sort of public/private hybrid.

Best advice is to buy an umbrella and walk.