With his war in Iran and siding with Russia, it’s hard to think of someone who has done more to make the world a safer place

It might have been more, shall we say, diplomatic if Donald Trump had taken some deep breaths after finding out he had been overlooked for the Nobel peace prize for the second year running before virtually declaring war on Norway. But maybe we should just be grateful he refrained from rubbishing the South African human rights activist Navi Pillay, who picked up the award, and shelved his plans to livestream the execution of the Norwegian prize committee. There again, you can understand his frustration. It’s hard to think of someone who has done more to make the world a safer place. Where would we be had not The Donald started a war with Iran which he shows no sign of knowing how to finish and which has forced up the price of global energy? And it was so good to see him intervening so positively in Russia’s war with Ukraine by appearing to side with the aggressor. These are just the things everyone is looking for in a Nobel peace laureate. The president is also put out that no one has noticed he has personally ended eight global conflicts; though it would be helpful if he could let us know which ones. Are they ones he has personally started – Trump appears disappointed that Argentina hasn’t invaded the Falklands again – or ones that only he knows about. During a press conference at Chequers in 2025, he claimed to have brought about a lasting peace between Albania and Azerbaijan. Maybe there are other wars going on we just don’t know about. Perhaps Australia and New Zealand have been bombing each other for years with neither side noticing. And perhaps the border between France and Italy has been a no-go zone ever since the fight between Zinedine Zidane and Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final. Still, Trump looks a cert to retain Gianni Infantino’s Fifa peace prize – if only because it seems likely to be scrapped, making him the only winner.

How dare the channel reveal more racism and bigotry within Reform just as he was planning a press conference?

Sometimes the world can be very unfair. As though life is just one cruel joke. How else to make sense of everything? For when the history books come to be written, Nigel Farage will go down as one of the century’s unluckiest politicians.

Poor Nige. All he has ever wanted is a better Britain. A country united in a shared vision where everyone gets along with one another. Where people of all faiths and none look out for each other. Where men and women of all colours are treated as equals. Where Nige can teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

One good poll has convinced the Tory leader she is invincible. She was back in her happy place with a scattergun PMQs

Little things please little minds. And minds don’t come much smaller than some of those in Westminster. If a researcher had come up with a study that showed one element two points higher in value than countless other experiments, it would almost certainly be marked down either as an outlier or “within the margin of error”. At the very least, no conclusions would be drawn until many other experiments had been conducted which had produced similar results. Serious scientific journals would just laugh at you if you asked them to publish your findings.

And yet. In one – just one out of many – recent opinion poll, the Tories have increased their ratings by a couple of points and are now for the first time in years in second place, ahead of Reform. And all of a sudden, Kemi Badenoch is insisting this is incontrovertible proof that the Tories are back in business. All the sins of its 14 years in government have been wiped clean. All hail to Kemi, the new chief. She is the chosen one. And the Conservatives are a government-in-waiting.

For the first time in his life, Wes is enjoying keeping secrets – though he did admit he isn’t ‘keen on fighting a war’

When Andy Burnham announced his first cabinet in July, few would have had Wes Streeting marked down as a likely defence secretary. Not even Wes. And no one is more bullish about Wes’s life chances than Wes. It just didn’t seem a natural fit. Defence secretaries tend to be more the unsmiling types who operate in the shadows. Politicians like John Healey, with the pallor of someone who has spent too long in underground bunkers with military chief of staffs. People who slide in and out of rooms without making a fuss.

Wes has always been someone who likes to be noticed. Enjoys the theatre of Westminster. The first to arrive at a party and the last to leave. A natural gossip. “Psst – you’ll never guess what Zelenskyy just said to Trump.”

Burnham was lying, Farage told a press conference on Monday. This was clearly just another plot to undermine him

Let’s face it. The very idea that Russia may have tried to interfere with the Brexit referendum is clearly absurd. I mean, what could a hostile state hope to gain from sowing division between the UK and the EU? We all know that Vladimir Putin has nothing but the best interests of European democracies at heart. That’s why he invaded Ukraine. To help it become a bit more democratic. The sort of democracy which is so highly prized that 99% of its citizens vote for its leader. If only others could be more like Russia.

If anything, Putin would have wanted the UK to remain within the EU and it was only his impartiality that prevented him from saying so. Besides which, why would the Russians want to get involved in anything so politically insignificant as the partial break-up of an organisation it considers an enemy. It just makes no sense. And it’s not as if Russia has any track record of clandestine foreign engagement. Next people will be suggesting Russia paid Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, at least £30,000 to make helpful speeches in the European parliament and recruit other MEPs.

The Tory leader is now too big for the party to allow her to fail, so everything she does is acclaimed a work of genius

Where’s AI slop when you need it? It could all have been so much simpler. Just ask ChatGPT to write me a leader’s speech in the style of Kemi Badenoch. Make it an hour and 10 minutes long, so plenty of room for padding. Go heavy on the slogans, cliches and the obligatory crap politician jokes. Ones we’ve all heard many times before. Not least at this conference.

Make the usual digs at Labour and put the boot in to Reform. The main aim of the speech is to try to reposition a party that is tanking in third place on 20% in the polls as the main opposition to the government.

‘It’s a Britannia Shield’ announcement proves no one does farcical improv better than the Conservative leader

Just another day in Crapland. It’s amazing what you can get used to. You can’t say the Tories haven’t put a lot of thought into their party conference. It takes some programming skill to make every day even more dismal than the last. You come expecting very little and get even less.

Schopenhauer would be in dreamland. The very act of being has never felt so inconsequential. Yet there’s something very comforting about this. You leave the Birmingham theme park attraction feeling better about yourself than when you arrived. Who knew abject failure could be so much fun? You find yourself congratulating some members on being able to dress themselves. A curious hybrid of an endangered species and care in the community?