Johnson for PM?

No question. These are different times, and we have to adapt. I had thought that Boris Johnson's recent antics must disqualify him from any serious involvement in a future leadership campaign. He mutters about polishing a turd, then goes along to Chequers, goes along with the deal, proposes a toast to Theresa May (whatever's going, he has to have a leading role). No, he says, he won't be resigning. Then David Davis resigns. Blimey - has he made a mistake? He sits at home, pondering, He should be at a Foreign Office function, receiving foreign guests. Doesn't tell them he's not coming, sits writing his resignation letter - but also gets his favourite photographer in to record what is, let's face it, a moment of Churchillian destiny. 

For vanity, inconsistency and bad planning that would be hard to beat. And yet, it seems that in the betting odds this little pantomime takes him from No. 4 in the running up to No.1. The fact that Jacob Rees-Mogg and donald Trump think he's excellent PM material only makes it worse.

So now it's serious. His Telegraph article makes apparently light-hearted comments about veiled Muslim women resembling postboxes and/or bankrobbers. Will he apologise? Certainly not, because he's put out a marker that he wants the racist vote, and he can't let them down. Will more Muslim women be insulted and abused as a result of this? Almost certainly. does he care about anything other than his own advancement? You decide.  

Magnetic Footage

It's a while since I watched a cricket match with any interest, but the highlights of the last day of this year;s first test against India were totally compulsive. It wasn't perfect cricket. Both sides made mistakes, and it could easily have gone the other way - but it's those tight margins which make it riveting. It's at moments like that that the star performers stand out - and I can't be the only person of my age of thereabouts for whom Ben Stokes is a reminder of Botham in his prime: all that hunger effort and determination.

Which brings us all back down to earth when see the footage of the night-club attack for which he must be facing a prison sentence - and yes, there's the same determination and hunger, the refusal to be diverted into wiser, safer alternatives. It's a highly combustible material is male aggression, with huge potential both ways.   

Travels in Trumpland

Seeing advance clips of Ed Balls in a wrestling costume wasn't that enticing. we've seen him prat about before, and it's not an edifying sight. Press reports indicated that Yvette Cooper (who must be wearily familiar with this territory by now) had suggested that there might be red lines which he should be careful bot to cross, and maybe this was one of them...So I wasn't inclined to watch Travels in Trumpland.  

But I was wrong. It's terrific. the silly stuff in thw wrestlibng outfit was actually part of a very intelligent analysis of the parallels between Trump's approach to PR and the atmosphere generated in a wrestling arena - and Ball's expert guide, himself a thoughtful Trump suippurter, agreed totally on the closeness of the similarities. it's not surprising that Balls has all kinds of reservation about Trump, but he doesn't try to thrust these down the throats aoof the very varied and fascinating Trump voters with whom he comes into contact. To my surprise, he has something to Grayson Perry's talent for simply getting on with people, talking to them and listening to what comes back, which make for much more interesting viewing. You watch this series of documentaries, and you end up wiser. It really is as good as that.   

Government Breakdown

We are in serious trouble. We've always half apologised for the ancient traditions on which Westminster relies - it's just history, not really harmful, a little bit of tradition...But one of those got shredded this week, with the revelation that a Tory whip was systematically trying to persuade MPs to break their pairing agreements. Never mind what you said, never mind about future trust, just ditch the deal and that way we win tonight's vote. Short-term cynicism rules, and stuff any notion of a national interest.

Add to that Dominic Cummings' chirpy refusal to attend a select committee's invitation to explain his consistent deceit over the nature of the Brexit campaign, and you have to ask who's in charge of the asylum. Are there rules? Are there consequences if they're broken? Does anything matter, or is it just hanging on to as much power as you can, for as long as you can, before the wheels fall off and somebody else takes over? I read a brilliant book a few years back called "the Blunders of our Governments", analysing the short-term nature of decisions by governments (of both main parties). Nothing's been learnt. We're heading in the opposite direction, at increasing speed.  

Nicaragua

Add up the trouble spots, and things are bleak. Yemen, Syria, Iran, Israel/Occupied Territories, Zimbabwe, Turkey - let alone the varied horrors of Trump and Brexit. But for me there's a further heartbreak, occasioned by my daughter's links with Nicaragua. Way back in the last century she opted to write about Nicaragua as an A level History topic, and she's been absorbed in it ever since. she's been there numerous times, read about it, written about it, worked there - and now she's watching helplessly as it tears itself apart.

Yet again it's the students who are at the centre of it - young people demonstrating for their freedom and their future, in the face of repression by police, army and various gangs of government-sponsored militia. And against them is Ortega, the current dictator and autocrat - but also the charismatic Sandinista leader who forty years ago was on the other side, doing what they're doing. He's got used to power, his ditched his ideals for deals - some of them really sordid - and he doesn't plan to budge an inch.  community leaders and the church are trying to broker some kind of peace, but it's really hard to see how this might have a happy ending, and external powers who might have intervened in the past are far too busy elsewhere.   

Shake It All About

"You put your right leg in, you take your right leg out..." so the Boris Johnson hokey cokey continues, as arbitrary as ever. First he's proposing a toast to Theresa May, celebrating the chequers deal that they all agree on. and no, he won't be resigning. but hang on a minute. David Davis is resigning. (Only because he's Brexit minister, and he can't conscientiously implement this. He's not criticising May, or objecting to the agreement).  So suddenly Johnson looks as if he's missed and opportunity, so he discovers a deep conscientious objection  - "can't sing this song with conviction"  and resigns.

And what a palaver he makes of it. He simply fails to turn up at a Foreign Office functions he's supposed to be chairing - no explanation, no apology. He's sat at home composing his letter of resignation in splendid isolation - unless you count the pet photographer who's been invited to record this Churchillian occasion. You couldn't make it up.

It's an entirely predictable climax to the erratic, vain procession which has been Johnon's career over the last three years. What makes it chilling is that apparently this immediately takes him to the favourite position in the betting about who succeeds May. OK, so Trump and Rees-Mogg both think Johnson is Prime Minister material. Who else could possible agree with them? which MPs seriously look forward to the prospect of sitting in the House of commons with this charlatan as their leader?     

Reporting Trump's First Year

The New York Times, way back at the start of 2017, makes this brave decision that they'll let a TV documentary crew film what goes on inside their offices, as they work out how to respond to the tsunami of news coverage that's implicit in the Trump presidency. In four one-hour episodes we get the fruit of that - a wonderful, lively portrait of intelligent professionals at work, getting the stories but also working out just exactly how the rules have changed. and then there's the impact of Google, and loss of revenue, the need for the paper to reorganise - the only way they can hire the extra investigative reporters they need is to cut down on the editorial staff they used to need when digital was a dream. Lots of people on opposite sides of the fence, both being totally rational. And then there's the buzz of Twitter, to which many reporters are openly addicted. They're smart, they're fast, they're popular - but it isn't always the cleverest way for the paper to be seen...Lots of tough decisions there. It's a wonderful series. Maybe the most chilling moment is watching a Trump rally, where he's directing the crowd's attention to the lying scum of the press - tantamount to urging on a lynch mob. We see the reporters, familiar faces by now, nervously packing up their gear, because this might be the moment when they get attacked. Dangerous times.      

Putin's Kleptocracy

No, not a title that leaps into your mind. I only found it by chance, in the obituary columns, where they were paying tribute to the painstaking work of its author, Karen Dawisha. An Ohio professor of political philosophy, she's mad it her job to track the roots and history of Putin's rise to power. the results are devastating. Not brilliantly readable, to be honest, and certainly not lively, but careful and detailed. she makes a convincing case that Putin has always been about his own power and aggrandisement - and that early on he was very much at risk of prosecution, until he got to the point where he could use his power to make that decreasingly likely. the concern for Russia's status and dignity is all carefully calculated, as is the promotion of friends and former colleagues into a network designed to secure control and wealth in their hands. It's very hard to see how this might change. Four hundred and forty pages, endless notes and footnotes, a monumanet to courage, intelligence and hard work.     

Rock Star for a Day

It's been a busy month for poetry performances, with two open-air gigs in the last fortnight, and a third today, at the Tenbury Music Festival. This looked like a bit of a gamble, with spoken word performance (and that means light, accessible performance) trying to nose its way into a programme dominated by music. Fine in principle, but what if the main stage is occupied by an amplified band, at the same time as the minor tent across the same field features a would be poet? Yup, they mainly get drowned out, which is what happened a lot of the time. but we had a loyal huddle of listeners - get close enough, and you do get to hear what's going on - who seemed to enjoy the poems and/or admire our persistence. As I'm reading my Gareth Southgate poem, I can see this guy down below, nodding and smiling. He turns out to be the compere of the whole event. "Great poem", he says afterwards, "but it's wasted here." Thanks a bunch, I think, but it wasn't me that scheduled it. but he goes on. "Would you do it on the main stage?" So twenty minutes later i'm tottering up the steps to the main stage, waiting for an enthusiastic gang of local rockers to complete their explosive finale, so that I can deliver my Southgate eulogy to the assembled masses. Not sure if it's exactly what they were waiting for, but I enjoyed it. 

Football Heaven

And the heatwave goes on, apparently for ever. My second poetry outdoor gig of the week involves reading my Jo Cox poem at the Great Get Together picnic, on Much Wenlock Church Green on Sunday afternoon. It lasts from 2.00 till 5.00, but I reckon if I produce lunch early I can just sneak in the first half of the England v. Panama game before I go - 1.00 pm - 1.45. Oh boy. As good a forty-five minute stretch of football as I've seen any England team produce - so many different kinds of good, of thought, of skill. A five-nil lead at half-time - I don't ever remember that. OK, so Panama weren't great, and they moaned about the two (perfectly clear) penalties which were awarded against them, delaying the taking of the kick, in a way which might have worried you in previous years. Not Harry Kane. Bides his time, and when the ref is ready, blasts it into the top left corner of the net. Twice. But there's also Jesse Lingard's sweet goal, all flowing movement and sudden power. Not to mention the hilariously clever rehearsed free-kick routine which produced Stones' second goal. we might win the World cup and we probably won't, but we've already had more pleasure than we could reasonably expect. Thanks, guys.   .   

Summer Solstice

As Hannibal Smith used to say on "The A Team" (a kids' Tv programme, way back), "I love it when a plan comes together." Back in January, Katherine Swift and I started to plan a programme of poetry and music, to be performed in her garden, celebrating the summer solstice. It was to mark the nine hundredth anniversary of Morville Church, and featured the harpist David Watkins - who I'sd guess is a friend of hers, but also very eminent and skilful. I was coordinating the poems, arranged in four seasonal sections, with the help of five other members of Border Poets. That's a lot of work, collating choices, typing out copies, producing scripts and making arrangements, but I quite like that stuff - as well as hating it when the proper precautions haven't been taken. This time it worked perfectly, with the bonus of good summer weather. We didn't get paid, but we did get a marvellous free lunch, set on tables in a small garden, with robins flitting by to help themselves from whichever bits of the feast they fancied. Very definitely a good day.    

Bloody BT

I guess I've just been lucky. It doesn't feel like it now, but as it happens I've had very few computer crises, compared with others I know. But today it's my turn, and it feels like the end of the world. for no apparent reason, a little box pops up on my e-mail, asking me to put my password in. I do, it takes in my answer, and then pops up again,  again and again. And if I try to ignore it, it won't let me send e-mails, or see the new ones that have arrived.

I go onto My BT, where they're very keen on chats. Chats are exchanges with people at the other end of the line, but written on the screen, not on a phone line (cutting out any exasperation over failing to understand Indian/Pakistani accents). So far so rational, but the three guys I chat with each assure me that they will definitely solve my problem. but they don't. After a total of two hours spent getting nowhere, the last one admits defeat, and passes me on to an engineer - at least, human interchange over a phone line. After ten minutes, he tells me he can;'t solve the problem, and the only solution is for BT to send me a new password and pin number, which must be by post, and will take seven days. Just brilliant. suddenly the plusnet ad campaign makes perfect sense, and i realise why Bt is bottom of the league so far as responding to complaints is concerned.    

Gareth Southgate

So, the England football lads are off to the World Cup, and for once it doesn't feel like an immediate humiliation. It's partly the dire record of the past, which has helped discourage the sillier predictions of the media. It's partly the performances of the team which have - admittedly against some fairly ordinary opposition - produced good results and moments of decent football, accurate passing at pace, along the ground, sometimes resulting in goals.

But a lot of this is down to Gareth Southgate who, in the hardest job in the english-speaking world, seems not to have put a foot wrong. He's set down a way of playing within which his players seemed comfortable. He's taken some tough selection deicsiions, always backing quality against reputation, and often youth against experience. And he's created a sane, communal atmosphere in which the players seems happy and the media have so far failed to wreck. (But give them time, give them time...) So far then, really hopeful, and such a refreshing change from the nonsense of previous years. We might even bear to watch while England are still in with a chance.    

A Very English Scandal

You're never quite sure what they'll do. Even though there's considerable talents involved (Russell T.Davies writing, Stephen Frears directing) big names can still produce turkeys. But not this time. A Very English Scandal has been a total treat.

At first sight, I wasn't sure. Jaunty music, chirpy camerawork, as though the whole thing were a spiffing wheeze, when it's also a dark parable about the corruption of class and power. I needn't have worried. Those aspects were fully, intelligently explored, but with a tone of laughs on the way, and some terrific acting - Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Alex Jennings. All three were given clever things to do and say, so it was always entertaining, but for those of us who remember that time, it was also chillingly recognisable - yes, that's exactly how Thorpe spoke and behaved, that tempting mixture of charm and arrogance. and the level of deceit and self deceit - about homosexuality, and power, and morality - was almost incredible.

Except that - thanks to the cussedness of Tom Mangold, a nosey reporter who didn't accept the Director General's advice that his documentary should be ditched, we have the conclusive evidence of his film, buried at the time because of the surprise acquittal - virtually demanded by the judge - which got Thorpe off and added to the further humiliation of Norman Scott. some things have got better. 

The House of Mirth

So you're just out of hospital, not in massive pain but not moving around much either. What do you need? Books to read, and plenty of them. I've got a ton of books, some of which have sat on my shelves for longer than I'd like to think, so maybe this is a good opportunity to see what I've been missing...

Oh boy. The House of Mirth is just fabulous. It's a detailed, lively portrait of a society, light years away from ours but totally convincing. And it's utterly readable. I'd had a suspicion that we might be in Henry James territory here, very wordy and careful, but a taking longer than you really want to spend. Not a bit of it. It's witty, clear, direct, and a pleasure to read. I zipped through it in no time.

Above all, it's a portrait of a woman. Lily Bart is not ideal. She's selfish and short-sighted, and in some respects deserves what she gets. But we follow her though her changes of mood and attitude, and each time they seem convincing - of course, that's how she would feel, would think, would act. and so as the spiral downwards steepens, we understand it and suffer with her, while savouring the intelligence at work. Just brilliant. 

The End of the Road

When I got called in for my knee op on Wednesday (earlier than expected) I was delighted, but worried that I might still be in hospital on the Saturday, and thus miss the Premier rugby final in the afternoon and the European Cup final in the evening. i needn't have worried. I was released, to go back home to the safe luxury of BT sport and wall-to-wall finals.

So many times I've sat down for such events, and it's actually been an anti-climax. Last week's cup Final, for instance, was dire. But that was Jose Mourinho, so often grumpy and defensive, as his team serve up yet another so-so performance. But this is the ebullient Jurgen Klopp, lively, energetic, promising "pressing from another planet". and for twenty minutes it was, Real Madrid in increasing disarray as Liverpool tore round them, got the ball of them, threatened to score a goal.  

Too good to last, alas. Mo Salah off and a wonder goal from Bale, but the difference between the two teams was two goals - and two massive blunders from the Liverpool goalkeeper Karius. He apologises afterwards on social media, because that's what you do, but where is there he can go? Will be play again for Liverpool? Will anyone else want to sign him? Will his name ever come up, without someone saying - "Oh yes, Kiev in May 2018." There is nowhere to hide. 

Manchester Hate

It's a year on from the Manchester bombing, so there'll be some looking back, to see what's happened since. If it's all as good as tonight's documentary, we'll be fine. Most of it was really heartening, with the community determined to hold together, heal the wounds, insist on a multi-cultural community which would not be torn apart by fanatics. The efforts of the police and the imams, often working together (to their own surprise) were heart-warming.

The downside was the gangs of feral kids, some of them 10 or 12, who feel they now have the licence to shout at, spit at and attack anyone who might possibly be Muslim. The problem is taken seriously, and again the police are working their socks off to try to tackle it, but when they get the kids into custody centuries of resentment kick in. "What's your name?" No comment. "Why did you kick her?" No comment. "How do you think she feels?" No comment. it's a pointless, mindless ritual which says "Don't bother. You're not dealing with anything rational here. I just hate them, and I'm not going to change." Huge problem. But a good programme.   

The Split

Oh boy. I've always been a fan of the playwright Abi Morgan - loved Sex Trafficking, though less keen on The Hour (which pinched its central situation from the film Broadcast News, without sustaining its power). But The Split is a real treat. A bit glossy, sure, and unashamedly feminist - big family drama, with Mum and three daughters, right? But it's so intelligent, and the fact that they're almost all divorce lawyers gives the scope for all kinds of exploration into middle-aged marriage/fidelity/honesty/cowardice/boredom. Beautifully done and acted, with tonight's climax a dinner party scene where lone rebel Nina decides this is the right moment to tall the rest of the family where they're going wrong - in detail,. and one at a time. They can all see it coming, knows she's had too much to drink, try to talk her out of it - but no. She wants this scene, so here it comes. Just wonderful. 

Only Connect

It's not a new contrast, but it's still apotent one. On the front page of todays Guardian are two photographs. On the left, a smiling, immaculately groomed Ivanka Trump is opening the new US embassy in Jersualem. On the right, a couple of grubby, desperate Palestinians are carrying yet another victim of Israeli gunfire. Not a new story, but all the more depressing because it's unlikely that the american president makes the connection between the two. Indeed, he's offered himself as a broker, should the two sides wish to get together for a peace deal. He doesn't get it. There is no will among the Israelis in power to make any kind of concession to the people whose land they have stolen. Why should anything in this lousy situation improve? I don't like to be despondent, and I remember the tenacious optimism of Edward Said, but right at the moment chinks of light are hard to find.     

Wenlock Poetry Festival

Two years ago, I had an amazing three days as poet in Residence at the Wenlock Poetry Festival. There hasn't been one since, and a lot of us have missed it, so this year's one-day event was very definitely the next best thing. As usual, the WPF inspires small numbers of saints into huge amounts of work to contrive memorable events. Liz Lefroy has always been the presiding spirit of the busk, intelligent, witty and welcoming, tactfully steering huge numbers of performers through a series of five minute slots. This one went on for three hours, had little tastes of music in between, and featured a mouth-watering succession of performers, all of whom kept to time. Just amazing. Plus, it was at Priory Hall, next to the Church Green, with all doors open on a gorgeous summer afternoon. Carol Ann Duffy's gorgeous, corny line about "Wenlock is the perfect place for poetry" has never been more true.