Why stop with the Little Red Book?

YOU know how it is when you see a news report and think, that's never going to happen, is it? This comes from the Daily Telegraph's digest of the Autumn Statement: "Motorists could see their insurance premiums fall by up to £50 a year after George Osborne unveiled plans to axe cash claims for minor whiplash injuries." Not a cat in hell's chance, eh?

I REFERRED some time ago to Lucy Worsley's endearing speech defect (she has pwoblems with her Ws). A reader promptly shopped me to Ms Worsley, sending her a cutting of the item. Thankfully, the BBC presenter and national treasure was amused. Today she is also said to be smiling at the working title for her next BBC series: The Romanovs – Russia's Royal Rulers. It bet it is riveting.

AFTER John McDonnell waved Mao's Little Red Book, causing such amusement in the Commons, Labour Party minions reportedly rushed around the press gallery explaining to hacks that "obviously John was just joking." Well, obviously. The only alternative to it being a joke was that the shadow chancellor of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition thinks that the worst of all the communist mass murderers has something useful to tell the British Parliament.

IF the blood-drenched Little Red Book is now a source of merriment, why stop there? Several political books could be brandished. For example, on a crowded island like ours, the perfect case for relaxing the Green Belt will be found among the chapters devoted to lebensraum (living space) in Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf. For added comic effect, try reading extracts in a silly German accent. What could possibly go wrong?

THE Red Book affair will haunt McDonnell for years to come. The moral? In politics, as in journalism, there is nothing more precious than a frank and honest friend who will cast an eye over your latest ramblings and say either yea or nay. McDonnell should have run his Mao stunt past his colleague Liam Byrne for the yea/nay verdict. Byrne, former chief secretary to the Treasury, famously left a humorous note in his office after Labour's 2010 defeat: "Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck! Liam." Byrne never deserved the torrent of Tory propaganda unleashed by those few words, but whoever said politics was fair? Given the opportunity, I bet Byrne would have advised McDonnell to keep his Little Red Book in his little tweed pocket.

DECEMBER hasn't even started but I am already haunted by what I'm sure will be my enduring image of Christmas 2015. At the end of Wendy and Peter Pan, the RSC's yuletide show at Stratford, the theatre erupted with applause from an audience aged six to 80. For kid's it's a slapstick comedy but for us grown-ups it's a moving tale of a family trying to deal with the death of a beloved son. Directly across the auditorium from me, a blind boy didn't clap but waved his little white stick in appreciation. Over to you, Mr Dickens.

I HAVE just erased the browsing history from my laptop. It offered me the choice of scrapping everything from one hour ago, two hours, one week, one month or "from the beginning of time." I have owned several computers but this is the first one with a sense of humour.