It would be a big mistake to underestimate Corbyn

Thud. It’s my advance copy of Dorothy Byrne’s new book, Trust Me, I’m Not a Politician, landing on the doormat. I’ve known Dorothy, Channel 4’s head of news and current affairs, since we were in the newsroom together at Granada Television in Manchester almost 40 years ago. Then as now, she took no prisoners. I remember her curtailing her research conversation with a regional politician with the words: ‘No, I’m afraid I’m not inviting you to appear on tonight’s Granada Reports, councillor. You’re simply not coherent.’ Dorothy’s book reflects on the startling fact that more Britons believe in aliens than trust politicians, and asks what’s gone so badly wrong. Mariella Frostrup describes it as ‘blisteringly brilliant’ and Helen Joyce of the Economist writes: ‘I want to be exactly like her when I grow up.’ There. That’s your first Christmas stocking present sorted.

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Matthew Parris

What if Trump is just bonkers?

Novelist Jilly Cooper is still in the writers’ ring throwing punches with her forthcoming new one about football, titled, ahem, Tackle (her last one in 2016 was Mount; stop it, Jilly!); and halfway through a live television interview with Jeremy Corbyn when Judy and I returned to our television alma mater This Morning, I suddenly remembered an earlier Cooper confection: Rivals, set in the world of commercial TV. Cooper’s anti-hero, the womanising, rakish former showjumper-turned-Conservative minister Rupert Campbell-Black is being interviewed by the Dublin-born TV host Declan O’Hara, a sort of Parky/Wossy on acid. Irish republican O’Hara hates Campbell-Black’s right-wing politics. But he is increasingly beguiled by him as the interview progresses. ‘I like this man. Why am I trying to crucify him?’ he thinks. I had a similar epiphany. Well, sort of. Of course I despise Corbyn’s politics, which haven’t changed in half a century. But in the flesh, the man has charm.