Spike

When they're fresh, male Wool Carder Bees seem almost like perpetual motion machines, and catching them even momentarily still is a bit of a feat. A couple of weeks into their season though, they're either more tired, or possibly they've fulfilled the compulsion to mate often enough by now that they're a bit less driven, and they spend much more time resting and feeding. Today this one, whom I'm going to call Spike after his awesome bottom furniture, was relatively easy to track around the black horehound, and gave me some nice photo opportunities.

 I have to admit, I was feeling pretty old and tired myself today, after staying up most of the night to watch the General Election results come in. I'd probably have pulled a complete all-nighter, for the first time since the election of 1997, if I hadn't had to go to Stratford this morning to have blood tests taken. So I waited just long enough to be sure that Rees-Mogg had been chucked out, and then slept for a few hours. In terms of making it safe (and legal) for me to drive this was undoubtedly the right thing to do, but I doubt it was enough to improve my blood results, and in the short term it made me feel worse than if I'd stayed up the whole night. With hindsight I wish I'd just moved the phlebotomy appointment; then I could have stayed up with a clear conscience, and enjoyed the sight of the appalling Liz Truss being sacked by her former constituents.

There's been a lot of talk today about Labour's landslide victory being broad but shallow, but I think that misses two points. Firstly, they targeted their campaigning resources very specifically at the seats they thought were winnable with the right amount of effort, which on balance was absolutely the right strategy, though it led to a couple of potential Cabinet Ministers losing seats where their victory had been taken too much for granted, And secondly, a large part of the electorate voted tactically to remove their incumbent Tory MPs, meaning that many natural Labour voters went LibDem this time if the polls suggested that the LD candidate had the better chance of winning. As a former card-carrying LibDem myself, I'm delighted that this strategy is sending about six dozen LibDem MPs to Westminster - even though Starmer's majority is so high that he won't need to do deals to get his legislation through, I hope that the size of the LibDem cohort will make it easier for them to be heard nationally on environmental questions, and - dare I say it? - possibly even on our future relationship with the EU.

R: C3, D2.