Not long to wait now until everything is hunky-dory. Ed Miliband will no longer be Wallace, and will learn to eat a sandwich, Greta Thunberg will no longer be a doom-goblin and will make a (halfway, let’s not get carried away) intelligent remark, and the world will be bathed in golden light as the evil use of fossil fuels will be banished, to be replaced by the lovely, non-damaging, infinitely renewable electricity. No more pollution, no more planet-killing emissions. Now, do

I’ve just read a book called “the Last Titans: Churchill and de Gaulle”, by Richard Vinen. It’s a dual biography, as the title would suggest, and at the same time a story of the relationship between the two men, probably the most significant leaders of their countries during the twentieth century. The parallel biographies, and the way the two characters were driven together by the second world war, make fascinating reading. The two were not always hugely fond of each other, a