If the Labour leader can’t make a minor slip in a speech without being accused of being anti-Israel, no wonder he’s retreated to Arsenal’s corporate box

Addressing the subject of Gaza on Tuesday, Sir Keir Starmer called for the “return of the sausages”, which was a surprise to those of us who didn’t know they were missing. Although, come to think of it, when was the last time you saw a big fat bulldog with a string of them in its mouth being chased down the high street by a butcher in a straw hat? And, when I was young in the 1970s, any drive to the West Country would see the car windscreen covered in splattered sausages, but these days its stays spotless. Make of that what you will.

I’m not thinking straight. I’ve got a virus that’s smothered my brain like psychedelic cement and I’m already a day late filing this. But at least I didn’t say “sausages” when I meant “hostages”. Starmer’s mistake was genuine though. When Boris Johnson talked, just once in June 2019, about his soon-forgotten passion for model buses, it was to game search algorithms away from those other buses, the ones he wrote massive Brexit lies on.

Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is on the streaming service Now TV, and his 2025 tour Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf begins at London’s Leicester Square theatre this December