PETER RHODES: Why it's the wrong decision not to contest murdered Jo Cox's seat

THERE was one moment when it struck me that the referendum campaign was about a month too long. It came when the Guardian, having explored every other possible angle, produced the feature headlined: "How is your pet voting in the EU referendum?"

THANKS for your sightings of Brits doing strange things in pyjamas (mowing the lawn, queuing in shops, etc). A reader says he hasn't seen any jim-jam malfunctions but reports a sign outside a restaurant in Dudley: "Diners must wear socks."

STRANGELY, socklessness does not offend me in the same way as 24/7 pyjamas. Smart linen trousers worn with boat shoes and no socks but a length of lean, suntanned ankle has always struck me as rather elegant. And for women, too.

OUR changing language. On the Herald Scotland website, one reader defines Baroness Warsi who suddenly switched from Leave to Remain as "an opportunistic windsniffer." Love it.

PINCH me, someone. Did I really hear the main party leaders announcing there would be no contested by-election to find a successor to Jo Cox? Apparently so. Here is a woman who exemplified the role of a constituency MP. She won her place in Parliament after a noble career with Oxfam, after pounding the streets of West Yorkshire, pressing the flesh and persuading sceptical Northerners that she was their champion. Jo Cox fought a fair fight and won. She was a creation of the ballot box. And now, in tribute to her, the next MP for Batley & Spen will simply be parachuted in by the Labour Party with the Conservatives and Lib-Dems refusing to contest it. What a revolting betrayal of the system Jo Cox championed. This is touchy-feely gesture politics gone mad. The parties should get a grip, appoint their candidates and fight a normal by-election. And guess what? The people would deliver Jo Cox's Labour successor a thumping victory, fair and square. Why do so many politicians find it so hard to trust the people?

I WAS mooching around a mediaeval church a dew days ago, attracted by the ancient wall paintings. What colourful places England's dour little parish churches used to be. I came across a table covered with little prayer notes written by parishioners. My eye fell on one from Alice, aged nine: "Dear God, please wish my Nanny Jean a good time in heaven." Sometimes, even we atheists get lumpy throats.

AS a diesel driver who thought he was saving the planet, I now find myself responsible for a share of an alleged 40,000 pollution-related deaths each year. But hang on. While I am driving with the lightest of feet in order to save fuel, it is reported that the National Grid has a new idea to help our overstretched electricity supply. NHS hospitals are being encouraged to run their generators, which lie dormant most of the year, in order to reduce demand on the grid. So while I drive around feeling guilty, the NHS pumps out tons of diesel exhaust next to hospital wards. Some mistake, surely?

METEOROLOGICAL curiosities of our age. Why is it that when the heavens open and torrential rain is unleashed upon the people of Carlisle and Cumbria, everyone is sad and sympathetic yet everybody hoots with laughter when the same thing happens at Glastonbury?

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