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12 hours ago
4
Monday
On a day like this, I think back to my heart attack last year. The doctors, nurses and hospital porters who treated me in St George’s. My 24 hours in A&E, wired up to various monitors, while staff tried to find me a bed. The two days on an overflow ward. The surgeon and his cardio team who had finished their list early and were well within their rights to knock off for the day or take it easy for the rest of their shift, but instead chose to treat me several days sooner than expected. Just because they could. To make a stranger’s life immeasurably better. To save my life. The hospital may have been stretched to breaking point but its staff could not have done more for me. Staff that had come to work in the UK from dozens of countries.
On a day like this, I also think of the staff at the care home where my mother spent the last seven years of her life before she died in March this year. The men and women who did their best to ease the confusion her Alzheimer’s caused her, who bathed her and helped her go to the toilet. Almost a second family to her. They, too, had come to this country from all over the world to do the job that few others wanted to do. So to have spent part of the morning listening to Keir Starmer denigrate the role that immigrants have played in this country was a depressing experience. It was his language, more than the measures in the white paper, that stuck in the throat. The echoes of Enoch Powell’s “strangers in their own country” in his “island of strangers”. We are told that the similarities were accidental. In which case, the communications team at No 10 is tone deaf.
Then Starmer said immigration had done incalculable damage to the country; that he was putting an end to this “squalid chapter in this country’s history”. Maybe Starmer has been blessed. Maybe he has never needed to use the NHS’s emergency services. Never needed to put an elderly relative in a care home. Never eaten out, even? But I can say with confidence that I might not have been here now but for this “squalid chapter”. I am, and always will be, profoundly grateful for what those people did for me. I can still remember their faces, long after they have probably forgotten mine. There may be a grownup conversation to be had about immigration. But this wasn’t it.
Tuesday
To think that we Brits were outraged Starmer helped himself to several free suits and some Arsenal tickets and that Rachel Reeves wangled some Sabrina Carpenter freebies. Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, trousered a £195,000 bonus after being in the job for only three months and with raw sewage still being pumped into our rivers. You’d have thought a £195,000 pay cut would have been more in order.
But maybe, rather than berating the UK boss class for its inability to keep its nose out of the trough, we ought to have been appalled by their lack of ambition, as this week we have learned that Donald Trump is preparing to help himself to a $400m Boeing 747 nicknamed “the flying palace” donated by the Qatari royal family. By all accounts, the plane – kitted out with a grand staircase, designer bathrooms and private bedroom suites – makes Agent Orange’s Mar-a-Lago look tasteful and understated. But The Donald is thrilled with his freebie and has announced that he plans to use the aircraft as a replacement to Air Force One for the duration of his presidency before taking it into private use in January 2029 as part of his Library Foundation. There is no confusion in Trump’s mind: this wasn’t a gift to the office of the president, it was a personal freebie.
You can’t help wondering what else he might annex for his library without any books – Trump has never been a big reader. Maybe the presidential car, The Beast, might also find its way to Florida. Along with the contents of the Oval Office. Understandably, Democrats and some Republicans are feeling a little queasy about all this, wondering if a freebie from a country with a far from unblemished record of funding terrorist organisations is the right look for the US. But The Donald is unrepentant, boasting on social media about how great he is at securing freebies from world leaders.
Wednesday
The latest favourability ratings of the royal family have just been published by the polling company YouGov. Out in front is Prince William on 75%, closely followed by Catherine on 72%. I guess that’s a reward for being next in line to the throne and not saying very much about anything. We Brits generally prefer our royals to be largely decorative: seen but not heard. Personally speaking, I can’t remember a single thing the couple has done over the last six months. Next is Princess Anne on 69%. She has always polled well, mainly because she keeps her complaints to herself. The king is on 61%. Why he lags behind the others is a mystery. Perhaps there are still some royalists who can’t forgive him for marrying Camilla, who polls at 46%.
But it’s down the bottom of the list where the real interest lies. Harry and Meghan are on 27% and 20% respectively. That’s what you get for moving to California and constantly complaining that the other royals don’t give you enough money or return your calls. I actually have a soft spot for Harry. I know he’s annoying, entitled and riddled with contradictions but I can’t help feeling the real problem is that he is an emotional mess. He needs to find a decent therapist; someone who will confront him with home truths.
Then we come to Andrew on 5% – up 1% since the last poll. This is staggering. One can only ask: why so many? Clearly there must be some people who clock up all Andrew’s bad news headlines – his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations of child sexual abuse, the dodgy company with whom he hangs out, the helicopter rides to play golf and the general air of self-importance and lack of interest in the people of the United Kingdom – and think: “That’s my type of guy. That’s exactly what I want from a member of the royal family. He’s the man to make Britain great again.” So keep up the good work, Andy. You must be doing something right.
Thursday
It’s a strange time to be a Spurs supporter. My friend Matthew, who sits next to me at White Hart Lane, is all about the glory. He has blanked out the pain of the league season and has eyes only on winning the Europa League Cup next Wednesday. All will be forgiven if we lift the cup. The season will be crowned with glory: 21 May, the greatest night in the club’s history since we won the Uefa cup 41 long years ago. Matthew has booked himself on to a coach to Bilbao, happy to make the 20-hour journey both ways.
As for me? Well, I don’t quite see it that way. Maybe it’s because I’m 15 years older than Matthew, and 15 years more jaded. There was no way I was ever going to go by coach, and the cost of flights and hotels have been jacked up to extortionate levels. Mediocre hotels are charging up to £1,000 for one night. Even then, I still might have found a way to go if the team had fulfilled its part of the bargain with the fans.
But the fact remains that for a large part of the season, they have been terrible. It’s not the losing I mind. It’s the attitude. In many games, they have appeared clueless. Almost to the point of not caring. Sunday’s match against Crystal Palace was a case in point. Palace also have a big final coming up and little to play for in the league. But they played with pride. We just seemed happy to have avoided relegation. So I will be watching the final on the TV at home. And if we win, I can guarantee I will be kicking myself for not going. Which reminds me … it’s time to renew my season ticket.
Friday
Throughout the year, I have been doing events around the country, talking about the psychodrama of the past 10 years or so in politics. From the Scottish referendum to the Brexit vote. The craziness of the Theresa May and Boris Johnson years. Covid and Partygate. The surreal 49 days of Liz Truss, the only politician I’ve ever seen who tried to leave a room via a first-floor window. The unbearable lightness of Rishi Sunak. And now Keir Starmer. I wrote three days after last year’s election that the grownups were back in Westminster. Not sure I got that one entirely right.
It’s been lovely playing to full houses, but some of the most touching moments have come after the show, when I get to talk to people who have stayed behind. The people who ask about my mental health and want to share their experiences. The woman who read an article I had written about the breathing workshop with the remarkable Alan Dolan. She had been inspired to sign up for a session and has gone on to train as a breathing teacher.
But pride of place goes to the man who wrote to tell me he had got chatting to a woman during the interval because he felt they must have a lot in common if they had both come to the show. The long and short of it is they are now a couple. My next dates are at the Hay festival on 26 May and at the Komedia in Brighton on 22 June. Come along, you are guaranteed some laughs. And you might even find your soulmate.
