Boris on Official Secrets review…
“One man’s treacherous betrayer of confidences and irresponsible leaker is another man’s whistleblower.”
Sir Bernard Ingham’s not a fan of Dominic Cummings:
“If he was so brilliant why were things a mess before he left? His stupidity in revealing himself as a vindictive narcissist is monumental.”
Economist Julian Jessop says:
“Interest payments on central government debt jumped to £8.7 billion in June, largely due to the impact of rising inflation on the cost of index-linked gilts. The pick-up in inflation partly reflects the strength of the economic recovery and this could still be positive for the public finances overall. Nevertheless, rising interest rates are one of the downsides of higher inflation – and another reason for the Bank of England to end its policy of quantitative easing.”
Makaziwe Mandela tells Trevor Phillips…
“I would say all of it is actually the responsibility of the ANC. The ANC seems to have forgotten why it came into power. It came into power mainly because it wanted to improve the conditions and lives of black people who had been impoverished and their dignity taken away by the apartheid regime. Political freedom was never enough, my father knew it, they knew it and we cannot leave the economy that supported apartheid to be intact because there is no way therefore to address the iniquities of the past and address the conditions of the poor. If you look at the conditions of the poor in South Africa, who are mainly black, it has not improved. It is still the same, it has not improved. Simple things like providing adequate housing, water, clean surfaces, has been something that this government has failed actually our people in terms of delivering. So what is happening right now is squarely in their hands.”
Biden on Cuba’s anti-government protests:
“Communism is a failed system, a universally failed system, and I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute.”
Steve Barclay’s reaction to the football fan who stuck a lit flare up his own backside:
He was “an exceptional individual“.
