The milk of dreams

Blimey you can’t go away for three days and not come back to a new prime minister. Liz Thick will be the least lamented ‘leader’ we’ve ever had. She failed on the most basic test a politician faces: do your numbers. Not only did she fail with her ‘mini-budget’ where 2+2=7, but hadn’t even considered the number of her back benchers who might not support her tripe. She must have thought that all those Sunak supporting MPs (many more than she could muster) would immediately accept her diametrically opposed so-called ‘growth’ strategy. Anyway, it’s a relief we don’t have to watch her in slow-motion implode mode like we did with Theresa. An old joke: what lasts longer than a Conservative PM? Chewing gum. As it was I was in Venice when Liz did the decent thing, and clearly events in Blighty were resonating globally. In Mestre, where my hotel was, there was a festival of politics –La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) — taking place, and I briefly looked in on one event. Naturally I couldn’t understand a single word. Though that’s not quite true. The speaker, a left-wing politician, Stefano Bonaccini was giving a very robust and forceful speech in which I distinctly heard the word ‘Inglesi’ used a few times. The audience might have burst out laughing. I imagine Stefano at least was having a bit of fun.
 
I have to confess to having flown. Easyjet claim all their flights are carbon offset, so perhaps I could offset my guilt a little that way, but no, it won’t wash, even if I had at last caught up with the Biennale, this year called ‘The Milk of Dreams.’ Perhaps I should see some irony in that. Coming back, with my bird’s eye view I could see that between London and Manchester there are an enormous number of distribution sheds and warehouse parks, recognisable by their gleaming white roofs. So where’s all the solar panels? There’s a task for Starmer’s ‘Great British Energy’ company.
 
In Café Nero at Manchester station I sit at a table where someone’s left a copy of the Daily Mail. Five minutes later a polite middle class woman comes up and says ‘I left that there.’ She takes it and leaves it at another table to return to the counter to await her order. A young chap then sits at the newly blessed table. She comes and moves it again. If this is a way of reserving a table (as opposed to parking your bum there, then it’s a new one on me) then it’s not very clear. The only explanation I can think of is that the Daily Mail is such a disgusting rag nobody would want to sit anywhere near it. The headline story, as it happens, was about Johnson and Sunak being urged to form a ‘dream team’ to unite the party (if not the country). Such is the milk of dreams.