Evening light

A very last minute decision to end the day at the Quays with that staple of the modern British diet, Pizza.

I have been trying to ignore Trump, Brexit and the Tory leadership campaign these past weeks.

But the news that Rory Stewart has been knocked out of this weird leadership race reminded me of the only time I have ever been telephoned by a government minister. They just do not do that sort of thing. But he did.

It was a few months after the Boxing Day 2015 floods, and Rory Stewart was Floods Minister. He wanted to know how Salford was getting on with spending the flood resilience money the government had made available ( I presume he was doing a general ring around, the sort of hands on thing ministers are supposed to leave to civil servants). He seemed on top of his brief, and we had an entirely reasonable and amicable conversation.