The town that hanged a monkey thinking it was a French spy! So not surprising, perhaps, that it voted Conservative yesterday. At least they can’t blame it on Corbyn, I thought, but I see that some commentators are. Why can’t Starmer re-mobilise some of the enthusiasm among the young that Corbyn so strikingly stimulated? Couldn’t he have kept that, and combined it with his more forensic approach? Why is Corbyn still banished, on a lie? Well, I’ve left the Labour Party now, so it doesn’t feel such a personal loss. And I now have Vänsterpartiet and proportional representation here in Sweden.

Two films to recommend: Paterson – wonderful – and the TV series Succession (or is it Successor?), which we’re streaming, and hating, but can’t draw our eyes away from. I take it it’s a true picture of Murdoch’s and Trump’s corporate hells. All very depressing.

I’ve gone back to working on my next book, A Patriot’s History, but with lots of doubts about it. One problem I have is my deteriorating memory, which means I forget in chapter 9 what I wrote the week before in chapter 8. – And I still haven’t received a copy of my last book, Britain Before Brexit, posted from the UK more than a month ago, but delayed, I presume, by the aforesaid Brexit.

Anyhow, I hope you like the new cover of my Lion’s Share: A History of British Imperialism. It comes with a finger puppet. I thought I should try to widen the market.