Week 286: Thunderclap

Very late this week, but hey, I never promised an SLA on these weeknotes. Starmer quit as prime minister – or, more accurately, announced his intention to do so – having apparently realised several months later than the rest of the country that he wasn’t going to make it anywhere near the next election. I know there’s no great talent pool in the parliamentary Labour party to draw from, but I still I don’t feel great about the fact that the next PM-designate is just being shooed in based on a kind of media blitz, or that he’s now beholden to an electorate in a reactionary constituency. In the early hours of Wednesday we were woken by a biblical thunderstorm, and both sat bolt upright when a deafening thunderclap hit close by, setting off car alarms. I later found out exactly how close it hit: a house about 400 m away, where it destroyed their TV and burnt a toilet roll. Despite this, both building and occupants were unharmed. It was horribly hot all week. On Tuesday, I closed the…