I'm afraid it's as crass and unworthy as Liz Truss's "jury's out" comment about Emmanuel Macron.

I can only apologise. (Due process was followed at all times.)

Think he tired of the limelight, moved to the country to keep bees.

I suppose the chief problem of both the 2010 or 2020 contests was that no-one really offered an honest or coherent critique of why we'd lost and kept on losing - unlike my first such experience, in Birmingham Town Hall in 1994 when Mr. Tony wiped the floor with everyone else.

Ha, no, I think it was @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social chairing for her sins. Yours sounds more entertaining! I remember nothing of what was said, but just how impatient David M looked with everyone else. Which tells its own story...

You are giving me PTSD flashbacks to that hustings we went to in 2010.

I remind my Mum of this when she asks me for help with her Netflix account.

No, just "no Grange Hill or Neighbours" for me.

I had a friend at school whose parents didn't let him watch ITV.

But please God, not Central Weekend Live, the precursor of social media in so many ways.

Is all this "celebrating what would've been the Queen's centenary" stuff on the BBC because they'd assumed she'd make 100, had lots of material ready, and are now determined to use it regardless? Un peu trop quand même, as someone's probably muttering in the vegetable patches of Highgrove.

The toxic people who don't think Shabana Mahmood doesn't belong in this country are white racists, not white liberals

But white liberals - like the mixed race, Asian or black liberals - have just as much right to disagree with Shabana Mahmood as they do with Theresa May or Nigel Farage or Zia Yusuf

Reminds me ever so slightly of this other great cultural export from the North East.

Looking forward to the Allo Allo gags that greet Hurricane Rene too. Good moaning...

Well said!

Too late to turn to Europe? How Keir Starmer’s Brexit reset ran out of road

Great if depressing read by @pmdfoster.bsky.social and colleagues. A litany of lost opportunities. www.ft.com/content/2007...

Nice @secondmentions.bsky.social by @elizabethalker.bsky.social on R3 just now: "the beleaguered siblings" for Hansel and Gretel.

Robbins concludes:

“As a human being, I’m desperately, desperately sad about it . . . I love that job, I love that institution, I was proud to serve this government and any government that might follow it.”

I almost considered watching Newsnight last night. Glad I opted for the Dench/Branagh version of Ibsen's Ghosts on the BBC4 archive instead.

If only Governor-General of Bermuda had been up for grabs at the time.

Spot on: "We should have extremely high expectations for the BBC and when you let these things go, they quickly become standard operating procedure."

I remember going to the Midland Hotel in the 80s for tea, before its Poirot-inspired renaissance. Strong Moz "Every Day Is Like Sunday" vibes, but remarkably transformed since then.

The UN Security Council urgently needs to change.

Speaking at a high-level event last week on UNSC reforms, Juan Manuel Santos laid out a vision for a more effective and representative Council.

Read the full speech on our website: theelders.org/news/un-secu...

This morning I’ve seen Olly Robbins’s appearance before the select committee described as ‘box office’, while a commentator flagged up another key political moment with the words ‘bring the popcorn’.

That’s one of our main problems right there.

Orgreave was a set-up by the Met, and Roger Windsor worked for MI5.

Why on Earth have they taken the University Challenge finalists down the Clapham Grand for the trophy presentation? (Shudders with PTSD.) The Highbury Garage would have been the classier choice.

"In Haringey, their deal with the Independent Socialist Alliance group, which entails giving way in three Tottenham wards to a slate that includes Socialist Workers Party members, might give some voters pause for thought."

Always worth reading. Cuts through the noise in both the Chamber and the social media echo chamber.

It's her raisin d'être.

What he should have said, clearly, from the outset.