Nick

[Ryanair @Ryanair]

quick adventure

[Royal Mail @RoyalMail]

Moving home?

Remember to redirect your mail ✉️ https://t.co/DgDFRfZ1Hk

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Trump’s efforts to refurbish the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Monument is a bit like his war with Iran.
Starts by claiming it will be a huge improvement, ends with it being worse than before. The End

[Jon Sopel @jonsopel]

So you come back from your high stakes summit with President Xi and you’ve been discussing world trade, tariffs, Taiwan, war in Iran, the battle for rare earth minerals, and what’s the first thing you post about on Truth Social? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Well, well, well Andy B. There’s always a tweet. I look forward to you calling an election when you replace Starmer.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

My monologue on today’s The Times at One
with ANDREW NEIL @TimesRadio

As the Starmer soap opera continues to consume Westminster, it’s not clear who’s running the country. 

Ministers would have us believe THEY are. We’re just getting on with the job, they insist, though in truth much of their time is spent hatching the next twists and turns in the soap opera saga. 

It can’t be said their attention is fully on the day job. 

Perhaps the civil service is getting on with it, I hear you say. And maybe it is. But much of Whitehall still spends a lot of time — 2/3 days a week — working from home. So it’s hard to tell. 

Even though the government constantly reminds us that we’re in the midst of two major wars, I’m told that some days there is tumbleweed blowing through even the Ministry of Defence. 

Well, if the missiles start incoming, given the MoD has failed to provide us with any kind of missile defence, it’s probably safer in Worthing than Whitehall. 

So cue much commentator hand-wringing about the country being rudderless because of the self-indulgence of politicians and the media, more concerned with who’s up and who’s down than the governance of the nation. 

I’m not so sure it’s such a bad thing. We live in an age in which governments try to do far too much — and do most of it badly. Today we had a King’s Speech awash with yet more government activity, most of it quotidien, some of it downright banal. 

I remember not long ago, in the aftermath of an election, Belgium’s multiple parties took even longer than usual to rearrange the deckchairs and form a new government. For around 300 days or so, there was effectively no government. The economy boomed. 

I fear we will have no such respite. Neither from the government, whose modus operandi of incrementalism is as strong as ever, judging from the King’s Speech, despite Starmer saying incrementalism just didn’t cut it only two days ago. 

And neither from the Starmer soap opera which might well run longer than the Mousetrap. 

Wes Streeting got to see the PM this morning. More a drive by than a meeting, lasting less than 16 minutes, not long enough to finish a cup of Downing Street’s undrinkable coffee. 

We don’t yet know what was said — though clearly not a lot — for there’s meant to be an unofficial ceasefire in soap opera hostilities on the day of the King’s Speech. We’ll see if it holds better than Donald Trump’s in the Gulf. 

The ball is certainly in the Health Secretary’s court. Either Streeting musters his courage and mounts a leadership challenge. Or he bottles it. Neither is an easy option for him. 

If he challenges, he’ll need to be sure he has the required 81 MPs to back his bid. He’s a Blairite in an increasingly Tribunite PLP. So he can’t take that for granted. 

If he does trigger a contest it will likely be a three-way fight — Starmer, Streeting and Ed Miliband. Yes Ed Miliband. An early contest leaves Andy Burnham stuck without a seat in the Commons and Angela Rayner with her HMRC issues unresolved. So Miliband would likely be the Left champion. 

He’s also likely to win. The energy secretary may still be regarded as something of a joke by voters after his last disastrous foray as Labour leader. But Labour activists love him. 

Nope, I don’t know why either. But then the gulf between Labour opinion and the country’s opinion is one of the party’s systemic problems.  

If Streeting bottles it then Starmer stumbles on, a lame duck leading the walking wounded — and the timetable for his departure switches dramatically in Andy Burnham’s favour. 

He will aim to be back in the House of Commons in time for the Labour conference late September, conveniently in his old Liverpool stomping ground. What better venue for the King of the North to go for it. 

Of course a lot can go wrong for everybody between then and now. Nothing is certain — not Streeting running, not Starmer surviving, not Burnham winning a by-election.  So this soap is set to run and run.

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

I haven’t forgotten about the Epstein files and neither should you.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Ukraine is victim of an unprovoked invasion by a barbaric totalitarian killing machine. And the VP of the USA says he’s proud not to be helping it. Immoral, callous charlatan. Let’s hope we never hear of him again after 2028.

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

It’s the middle of the night and Trump is ranting about Pope Leo again. Someone put him to bed he’s senile!

[Jon Sopel @jonsopel]

The talks must be going really well with this new, more moderate Iran leadership who are desperate to do a deal (according to Trump)

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Indeed. It does seem to be real. Very, very scary.

[Rishi Sunak @RishiSunak]

WEMBLEY HERE WE COME!

[Dad to the Bone @Dad_2_The_Bone]

Babe. Can we get this

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Another close run race in North Korea.

[Jon Sopel @jonsopel]

Sorry you can’t have it both ways. If you’ve destroyed the Iranian military and they are now a paper tiger, why does the US need so much assistance to keep the Strait open?

[Nick @Nick16397]

@thejarv Oh thank goodness for that! 😅

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

MAGA is collapsing in real time.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

More important it illustrates the fatal conceit of the Left — that you can control inflation by government fiat.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

A case study of contemporary British government at its worst.
You cripple the nightlife economy with higher taxes, costs plus more rules, regulations and compliance demands.
Then you propose a Minister for Nightlife to revive the nightlife economy.