Did you know the UK government had a Flickr account? A fast-moving succession of unexplained photographs create an impression that things involving Tory politicians are happening, at a very high level, and at some speed, but offer no explanation of what they mean. It is perfect – the taxpayer-funded, vanity-engineered photo-diary of a group of globe-trotting lightweights, hopelessly out of their depth, the subject of international ridicule and domestic contempt, making the sort of shapes and faces they imagine appear significant. Arrive in conference room holding document. Wear face mask at railway station. Gesture towards thing. Don helmet near scaffolding. Laugh with peasant. Concerned expression. Hi-vis jacket. Hat.
I’m filing this column 36 hours early. I have been able to snap up a holiday abandoned last week by a politician keen to be seen as taking Ukraine seriously, in a PR move already known as the Reverse Raab. (Indeed, it is rumoured that some politicians who weren’t actually on holiday quickly arranged one so they could be seen to return from it.) By the time you read these words they will be five days old and anything could have happened. Madness. Madness. War.
