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Middlemarch, which a Guardian poll of "experts" has named as the best novel ever, is overrated. I enjoyed reading it when I was seventeen. I probably re-read it in my twenties. Then I grew up. I became a bit more skeptical of the para-religious sentimentalism-on-stilts that defines George Eliot’s oeuvre, and this novel in particular. This is a pile of nonsense with a grain of truth in it Of course I was in love with Dorothea Brooke as a teenager. So high-minded, and considerate and so wisely accepting of her misfortunes, and rather pretty too. But nowadays she strikes me as a blue-stocking bore (I far prefer the feisty Gwendolyn from Daniel Deronda (partly thanks to Romola Garai’s portrayal of her). Let’s put it simply.

Strange things are happening with Dr. Sebastian Gorka. In a clip that circulated widely yesterday, the deputy assistant to the President was asked by Breitbart's Alex Marlow whether he thought right-wing terror is currently a threat in the US. Gorka brought up Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes – unprompted – claiming they had lauded Sharia law and said Muslim states were better than America. “I’m not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives... If you remove those individuals and you understand that they're not conservatives, what's left?” Judging by those comments, it seems that Gorka, as Trump’s senior director of counterterrorism, regards the two podcasters as domestic security threats.

Despite a career of nearly half a century in public life, Enoch Powell is generally remembered for one utterance only: the so-called "Rivers of Blood" speech he made in Birmingham on April 20, 1968, in which he voiced his opposition to the race relations legislation being taken through parliament by the then Labour government. Powell was the Conservative opposition’s defense spokesman. His speech threw the leader of his party, Edward Heath, into a profound panic, and he sacked Powell immediately, initiating decades of assertions that Powell was racially prejudiced. Powell always said – entirely honestly – that he never made a speech about race: just speeches about immigration policy and his profound disagreement with how it was usually managed.

The Trump administration has released a list of CEOs who will be accompanying the president to his meeting in China with Xi Jinping. Foremost among the delegation is Elon Musk, traveling in his capacity as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Another notable inclusion is Tim Cook, in what may be his swan song international trip as Apple CEO. All told, 17 executives will accompany President Trump to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Their companies represent sectors ranging from banking and investment to automobiles and AI. Their asks of Xi will likely range from market access (Coherent) and advertising (Meta) to component orders (Boeing) and soybean purchases (Cargill). On paper, President Trump should take business leaders with him to China.

This morning’s cabinet meeting was one for the ages. At 9.30 a.m., British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was greeted by his senior ministers, almost all of whom think the game is up. Ahead of entering Downing Street today, they will have seen the list of 80 Labour MPs – the magic number needed for a ballot – calling for him to go. Last night, we had junior aides jumping ship; this morning we have the first minister, Miatta Fahnbulleh. She has quit the government and called on Starmer to "do the right thing." When you have David Lammy, Yvette Cooper, John Healey and Shabana Mahmood all telling Downing Street that it is over, you know that the Prime Minister has lost the dressing room.