Digested week

Leavers’ Brexit night bash sounds like a Question Time from hell

I won’t be looking out for the special 50p coin but there’s something else I’d like to spot …

Monday

A YouGov survey has found that 82% of Brits are in favour of reintroducing wild animal species that have been lost to the UK. Not unexpectedly, birds top the rankings, but there are some surprising inclusions further down. For example, 57% of the country would like an elk in their neighbourhood, and exactly half the population are in favour of moose. Lynxes and wolves clock in at the mid-40s, while bison get the vote of more than a third of those surveyed. Even the brown bear manages an impressive 30%. Now in theory I’m all for more biodiversity but I can’t help wondering if these people have given any thought to where the animals are supposed to go. Where are the vast prairies for bison to roam? Or are we just going to get in a few hundred and turn part of Yorkshire into an animal theme park? And I’m not sure too many farmers would be overjoyed at the reintroduction of lynxes and wolves to attack their livestock. Nor indeed might many people in towns. It’s one thing to have foxes rummaging through your rubbish, another to have something more dangerous in the neighbourhood. And I’m guessing not many people would actually want bears too close to their own front door. Someone else’s, fine. Their own, not so much. My own preference would be for starting small and working harder to protect existing species that are in danger of dying out. Ever since I joined the Tufty Club in the early 1960s, I’ve longed to see a red squirrel in the wild but have never done so. I’m determined to do so at least once before I die.

Tuesday

There was one MP who cut a particularly forlorn figure in the Commons as Dominic Raab announced the government’s decision to allow Huawei to build some of the UK’s 5G infrastructure. Even on a good day, Theresa May can look miserable, refusing to speak to – or even make eye contact with – anyone. Now she seemed utterly desperate. Because the deal the government was backing was essentially the same one she had been forced to put on hold last year as almost none of her MPs would back it. Some because they believed it would make a future trade deal with the US impossible; others because they thought the involvement of the Chinese tech firm would compromise national security. But with Boris Johnson having an 80-seat majority, most opposition inside the Conservative party has melted away. There are still a few outspoken MPs but almost certainly not enough to change government policy. So Boris will get all the credit for taking the tough decision – it will be years down the line, by which time he will probably be gone, before we know if it was a horrendous mistake – and May’s legacy will be further airbrushed out of history. It was painful to watch that realisation sink in as she loyally stood up to congratulate the prime minister. Part of her must be dying inside. One further irony was not lost on the few Labour MPs who bothered to turn up for the announcement. Had it been Labour signing off on the Huawei deal, Johnson and Raab would have been among the first to denounce it as a communist plot to sell out the UK to the Chinese state. To the winners, the spoils.

Wednesday

All the outrage about the Brexit 50p coin has rather passed me by. If I was going to take offence every time other people took delight in my own despair, I wouldn’t be a Spurs supporter. This season especially I seem to have spent far too much time listening to rival fans having an amazing time at my expense. Somehow, starting my own chant about how the other teams’ songs are missing an Oxford comma seems like too much of a doomed, futile gesture even for me. Like it or not, the UK leaving the EU is a historic event and marking the occasion with a new coin seems relatively harmless. After all, most of my financial transactions are contactless these days, so there’s a fair chance I will never get my mitts on one. And even if I do, I’m unlikely to be aware of it as I’ve never spent a moment examining my coins to see if there are any particular ones that have something written on them that might upset me. I am, though, rather more bemused by some of Boris Johnson’s other, more personal choices. Having gone on record about his desire to bring the country together, he has predictably yet again talked big and acted small. Check out the Conservative party’s website and you will find a whole range of triumphalist Brexit merchandise. Pride of place goes to a £12 tea towel featuring an image of Boris posing as Britannia (with the date in Latin, obvs) and the slogan “Got Brexit Done”. He might as well have been more honest – not something that comes easily to him, admittedly – and told half the country and the EU to sod off.

Thursday

Some stories just never seem to go away. This week it was reported that Neil Berriman, the son of Sandra Rivett, the nanny who was allegedly murdered by Lord Lucan in 1974, has found his mother’s killer. According to Berriman, who has spent £30,000 and the last four years following up this lead, Lucan, now 85 and in failing health, is living in the suburbs of an unnamed Australian city and has daily meditation classes with two friends. Much as I’d love this to be true – for those of us who were alive at the time, Lucan’s disappearance has been a recurring leitmotif for the last 45 years and it would be tremendously satisfying to finally know the whole truth – history rather suggests Berriman may have the wrong man. From the very first days after the murder, Lucan’s whereabouts have been a mystery. All we do know is that some of his posh friends helped him escape, but where he went no one knows. Or is saying. Some think he took a speedboat to France and then went awol, others that he took his own life. Since then there have been sightings in Goa, Madagascar, Australia and New Zealand, all of which proved to be duds. As one news reporter said when asked if he wasn’t embarrassed at repeatedly having failed to find Lucan, “absolutely not. I’ve spent a lot of time staying in expensive hotels in some great locations not finding him.” What more could anyone want? The day someone reports that Lucan is living in a small village outside Calais is the time when I take the sighting seriously.

Friday

I suspect I must be partially in denial that it’s Brexit day as I haven’t really given any thought about how I’m going to mark the occasion. We haven’t invited any friends to our house, nor have any friends invited us anywhere, so it rather looks as if we will be staying in on our own, watching the TV and having an early night. I certainly haven’t been invited to either of the two poshest and most lavish Brexit parties being thrown by Robin Birley, the half-brother of Zac Goldsmith, and Jon Moynihan, the venture capitalist behind Vote Leave, in central London. Though I will take a small pleasure in the angst of many senior Tories who will be wrestling with their consciences, wondering if they can sneak into either bash without being photographed. The official line from Downing Street is that no senior MPs should be seen enjoying themselves too much in the presence of the Brexit millionaire elite. The one party I have been invited to is the same one that the whole country has been invited to. The chance to go to Parliament Square for no music, no comedians and no fireworks is one I suspect many of us can pass up. The only entertainment on offer is speeches from Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Julia Hartley-Brewer. It sounds like the worst imaginable episode of Question Time. Still, if there’s one upside to Brexit it’s that hopefully we will be seeing a lot less of Farage. His final speech to the EU parliament was typically charmless: he couldn’t even say goodbye without insulting everyone. So now we’re in the new world order. The time has come for those who wanted Brexit to finally take responsibility for it. Let’s hope they can make a success of it.

Digested week, digested: Happy Brexmas, everyone.