Peter Rhodes on black holes, party aides and “disgusting” views

I referred recently to Foreign Secretary David Lammy fishing the carp lake at Chevening with the US vice-president J D Vance; it later turned out he didn't have an Environment Agency rod licence. To his credit, Lammy fessed up quickly. He has now been let off with a warning, presumably under the old legal principle of being guilty until proven famous. Joe Average, on the other hand, would expect to be fined about £300 and have his fishing equipment confiscated for such an offence,

I'm reminded of the Attorney General Lord Hermer who declared in June that it is not only “wrong” but also “disgusting” to claim that the UK has two-tier justice. So if you are in any way offended by David Lammy's treatment under the law, best keep it to yourself.

The intriguing question is how, when surrounded by flunkies specifically appointed to avoid heffalump traps, any government minister could make such a blunder. I suspect the answer is that while the average bright young Labour Party aide is fully up to speed on fiscal drag and options for Ukraine, they know damn-all about fishing because it's a working-class pursuit and the Labour Party no longer gets the working class, does it?

The small boats are no longer so small. Indeed some are now big enough to carry 100 migrants across the Channel. To misquote the famous line from Jaws, we are gonna need a bigger boat-name. How about “landing craft”?

Here's a jolly tale from Scotland where a high-school teacher Torgi Squire asked on TikTok why the washout summer weather always improved when it was time for the kids to go back to school. What fascinated his US followers was the fact that Squire is a black man who speaks with a Scottish accent. The issue has gone viral and black people with a Caledonian brogue have become both fashionable and popular.

Long may it last. The only snag, of course, is that when large numbers of Scots converse, the chatter tends to turn to a moan about one subject. Aye, Scotland's bonnie all right. But the bloody neighbours. . .