Monday

I first went to the opera in London’s Holland Park in the early 90s. Back then it was a rather low-key affair: though the singers and the orchestra were under cover, large sections of the audience weren’t and I once got very wet during a performance of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville as the rain tipped down. That really was a labour of love. Now Opera Holland Park is a far bigger operation with an awning over the entire 1,000-seater auditorium and some of the best portable toilets in the country, but it has none of the formality of some opera festivals and hasn’t lost its sense of community. A recent performance was a charity fundraiser for the victims of the Grenfell fire: the tower is about a mile from Holland Park and one of those who died worked for the opera company. It also stages performances of consistently high quality – the Traviata I saw this year was heartbreakingly good – and is great value. For less than the price of a ticket to watch the Rolling Stones on a giant video screen from the bleachers at Twickenham you can get close to some of the world’s finest young singers.

Tuesday

By their friends shall ye know them. Labour used its opposition day debate to table a motion of no confidence in Chris Grayling. None of his cabinet colleagues turned up to keep the transport secretary company on the frontbench. Nor were the backbenches that well populated. The debate began with 10 Tory MPs – including Grayling’s long-suffering parliamentary private secretary who didn’t have a choice – in the chamber. Two left immediately after hurriedly realising they had subsequent invitations, and several of the others used the occasion to pointedly ask for the trains in their own constituencies to start running on time. Huw Merriman’s best argument in support of Grayling was that the Tory party didn’t have anyone who could do the job any better so we were better off sticking with him. The nadir came when, with 40 minutes still to run in the proceedings, there were no Tories left to speak up for the transport secretary and the floor was left to opposition MPs to catalogue Failing Grayling’s failings. Come the vote, a few MPs even got stuck in the lifts. Grayling can’t even get the Westminster transport system to run properly.

Wednesday

Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, has said teachers should resort to old school punishments, such as getting pupils to write lines and pick up litter, in an effort to crack down on bad behaviour. As someone who is old enough to have been on the wrong end of many of these sorts of punishments, I’m not convinced of their deterrent effect. In sixth form, I was unlucky enough to be busted for taking LSD. Unlucky, because while I was minding my own business watching the walls change shape, the friend with whom I had taken it had rushed off down the street to tell a vicar that he had seen God. It wasn’t long before we were both handed over to the school authorities. The normal punishment for taking drugs was expulsion, but the school had never come across pupils taking acid before, so we were treated more like psychiatric cases than criminals. Our punishment was to stay behind for an extra day at the end of term and write out John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Thursday

For her appearance at a press gallery lunch, Emily Thornberry was greeted by a room decorated with England flags. The shadow foreign secretary took the dig at her “white van man” remarks in good humour, but still didn’t do much to prove that she had the common touch. Asked if she could name the last time she had visited the north, she looked puzzled. Was that the north north, north of Watford or north of Islington? Whichever it was, she’d have to get her special adviser to find out. She did redeem herself a little by suggesting that Royal Mail should rethink its ban on postal workers flying England flags from their vans, but promptly blew her credibility by saying there should be a bank holiday “if any of the home nations made it to the World Cup final”. She didn’t appear to realise that the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish almost always make a point of deliberately not qualifying for the finals so they can watch from the sidelines and take pleasure in England getting knocked out at the earliest opportunity. Thornberry compounded her ignorance of the World Cup by declaring that it took place every five years. Sometimes politicians are better off saying nothing.

Friday

After Greg Hands announced his resignation as junior international trade minister so he could vote in the interests of his Chelsea and Fulham constituency against the government’s Heathrow expansion plans on Monday, all eyes are on the foreign secretary. Boris Johnson famously once said he would defend the constituents of Uxbridge and Ruislip by lying down in front of bulldozers but nobody is expecting him to do the honourable thing. At a press conference with the secretary general of Nato, Theresa May confirmed Boris would unavoidably be detained somewhere else doing his bit to promote global Britain and was gutted to miss the chance to go back on his word. Apparently Monday was the only free day in his diary for promoting global Britain. The prime minister didn’t say where Boris would be but she will have to give the details at the lobby briefing on Monday. This gives her a big headache, as every media outlet will want to get a photo of the foreign secretary at the moment he is missing the 10pm vote. Something the government will be desperate to avoid. So Boris is going to have to choose a country where the British media have no stringers, that is at least eight hours away by plane and refuses to issue visas in a hurry. This rather narrows the field. Boris: promoting global Britain in North Korea. The Brexit dividend of which we all dreamed.

Digested week, digested: The rebels who forgot to rebel



England players visit the Hermitage Museum near St Petersburg, Russia: ‘As you can see the French lined up in a 4-3-2-1 formation with Napoleon playing just ahead of the back four.’ Photograph: Eddie Keogh for FA/Rex/Shutterstock

Melania Trump: ‘There’s no hidden message. I really don’t give a toss.’ Photograph: Francisco Navas















