For decades I have bought the New Statesman only occasionally, always feeling rather like Charlie Brown does when Lucy puts the football in front of him. I loved it when I was a kid, but certainly since I was 25 it has always seemed utterly dull when I actually have it in front of me. But, I recently discovered, and love, the New Statesman podcast — Helen Lewis is clever, funny, well-informed and a bit gossipy, genuinely likes Stephen Bush (who is not funny, but is clever, well-informed and very gossipy), and knows how to run a conversation. So, I recently thought I’d kick the ball again and…. same as ever. Except, to my horror, the one lasting saving grace of the NS, the competition, was missing. (Nor was there a letter from Keith Flett whom, to my regret, I have never met despite once being the head of a department in which he was, reputedly, a PhD student).

Still…. CT can have a competition.* Occasional commenter, dob, send me a link to yesterday’s Marina Hyde which contains these marvelous descriptions of Johnson and Mogg:

Here comes voluminously overcoated Jacob Rees-Mogg, who still resembles an 11-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg sitting on Nanny’s shoulders for a nursery game called Disaster Capitalist’s Bluff.

And here comes the affectedly shambling figure of Boris Johnson – not so much a statesman as an Oxfam donation bag torn open by a fox – who could conceivably still end up prime minister of no-deal Britain.

One sentence descriptions, please, of politicians who are unsuited to office, in the style of Marina Hyde. (Johnson and JR-M are not off-limits)

* I’m hoping that Richard Osman hasn’t copyrighted the idea of a competition — if he has, that might explain its disappearance from the NS. If his lawyers approach us, I’ll take this down forthwith. (Oh, and, the prize is as valuable as the prize for winning I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue, so don’t get excited).