𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Ever since my son was born I’ve been waiting for the moment to show him the original Star Wars. Over dinner at the weekend I decided to risk him replacing me with Darth Vader as his primary role model. The film may date from 1977 but I’m sure I heard a gasp of awe during the magnificent opening sequence. It is such a quintessentially British movie. So many of the cast who performed in Hertfordshire’s Elstree Studios look like they were rounded up at the local pub and put in costume – and that’s what makes it marvellous. It really is as if 1970s Britain has been transposed into a galactic myth.

It’s not just the moustaches. The Death Star is portrayed not as a shining work of deadly, technical genius but as a creaking state-owned enterprise where the regimented male workforce endure drudgery while empire-building officers bicker.

The moment Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia bounds into the story with wit and heroism the adventure hurtles forward with a new velocity. This is how devotees of Margaret Thatcher remember her arrival in British politics. With Andy Burnham aglow with nostalgia for pre-Thatcher Britain and unashamed in his support for state control of industries, will Kemi Badenoch lead a Leia-like rebellion as Britain veers Left towards the orbit of Brussels?

With her party enjoying a three-point bounce which takes it to second place in this week’s YouGov poll, some may conclude the force is with her.

How in the world did it become socially acceptable to play videos on your phone at high volume on public transport? Is the disappearance of cheap headphones to blame – or do people assume fellow passengers also want to hear the cocktail of inanity and obscenity spewing from their speakers?

Here’s a way to fight back: When the noise pollution begins, start reading your book or newspaper article out loud. The phone-clutcher might take the hint – and could learn something.

People of every political tribe will feel the deepest sympathy for Andy Burnham as he navigates his first 100 days as Prime Minister while grieving the recent loss of his father. Barack Obama lost his grandmother, who had raised him alongside his mother, just two days before his historic election. No matter how great the political tumult politicians face, the greatest losses they experience are not at the ballot box but in their own family.

Shortly after my own mum passed away, a Labour MP who was nearing retirement told me how he continued to mourn his mother: “I think about her every day.”

As the late Queen Elizabeth put it so well: “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

At the age of 63, Quentin Tarantino, once the enfant terrible of indie cinema, is preparing to unleash a stage play, The Popinjay Cavalier, on London’s West End. The key difference between a film and a play is that once an actor nails a perfect performance they have to deliver it again night after night. That is real drama.

When in London, he may swing by Prime Minister’s Questions. Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch might welcome his help coming up with eviscerating one-liners. But they may have to tell the director, notorious for scenes of carnage in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, that the Speaker really isn’t happy when MPs swing the Mace at a rival’s head.