Ismail Mulla

At the weekend I went to Manchester Airport to pick up a loved one, who had been on a short trip abroad. Everything looked and felt normal. Aside from the traffic on the M62, which for once was mercifully light, that is.

The Westminster sideshow that we’re seeing play out is what you get when political advisers get too cute for their own good and when vacuous politicians allow themselves to be puppeteered by unelected spads.

The other day I was walking through the industrial estate on our doorstep and saw a sight that particularly warmed the heart. Beside the canal were a couple of young teenagers, probably no older than 14 with a fishing rod between them.

Politics has never been more volatile in this country’s modern history than it is now. The fact that we have had six Prime Ministers over the past ten years tells a story in itself. And if the King of the North gets his way we could end up with a seventh very soon.

Oftentimes when you meet people in public life, you come away from said meeting uninspired. Politicians that have had every ounce of personality coached out of them. Bland bureaucrats who are so hung up on giving the most risk-averse answer to questions from journalists. Supposed leaders who defer to pre-prepared statements.

Alan Milburn’s report on young people and work landed like a hand grenade last month, shocking politicians, educators and economists alike. The fact of the matter is that Britain is on a dangerous trajectory when it comes to unemployment.

The old cliche is that all political careers end in failure and that can’t certainly be said about Sir Keir Starmer’s time at the top of British politics. The Prime Minister, teary-eyed, announced he would be resigning as leader of the Labour party.

There’s something admirable about Ed Miliband. I know there will be many of our readers who won’t countenance anything positive about the Energy Secretary being said but I actually think there is a thing or two that some of Miliband’s Cabinet colleagues and would-be Cabinet members could learn from him.

Last week, the day after England’s victory over DR Congo in their first knockout match of the 2026 football World Cup, I had to visit the A&E at Pinderfields Hospital. We were only there for a few minutes, before being transferred to another department but the time that we spent there was illuminating.

Sometimes the red mist descends and in a fit of anger people do something that they invariably end up regretting. We’ve all been there. Wanting to lash out as a result of frustration. Even when we know the best course of action would be to let the sting of the situation dissipate and then react in a calm and rational manner.