The current Labour government grows ever more farcical. Despite its promise to ‘tread lightly’ on people’s lives, we’ve seen war declared on farmers, private schools, pubs, humour at work and even allotment owners. This week came the news that drivers over the age of 70 must take compulsory driving tests, with a mandatory ban if they fail – presumably so that, when younger relatives start ushering them towards the ‘assisted dying’ clinic, they won’t be able to make a quick getaway. Starmer, on winning the election, promised the ‘sunlight of hope’, yet things have rarely felt gloomier. Rachel Reeves may have wept for the nation in parliament last month, but its miseries are so often of her devising.

You can’t help wondering what The Thick of It would make of it all. In Armando Iannucci’s

See Full Page