For reasons I won’t trouble you with, I missed the events of Wednesday afternoon and evening in the House of Commons. Normally, that would be a cause for anxiety in a person as committed to service journalism/category 5 drama as myself. Like many in the immediate wake of the political upheavals of 2016, I found myself sinking into the dopamine-assisted rhythms of the new normal, where, on both sides of the Atlantic, you sometimes felt you’d missed an entire news cycle if you left a screen to make a cup of tea.
In 2022, I did a book tour that involved nightly stage events discussing the political turmoil of the past few years/minutes. Because this coincided with the prime ministership of one Liz Truss, there came a point every evening where I worried my information may not be entirely au courant, and had to ask the audience (who had their phones) whether or not she was still prime minister. And, as you’ll recall, one day she wasn’t.
