You call it a shitshow — I say it's unforgivable

It was the day after the night before: on Monday Keir Starmer looked as if he was on his last political legs, Anas Sarwar called for his resignation at lunchtime, and by evening the troops had rallied and the prime minister had survived until the Gorton and Denton byelection.

On Tuesday there was a hush around 100 Parliament St. 'It's been a quiet week!' said Lisa Nandy, introducing Owen, her communications adviser, 'in case I say something really fucking stupid, and I have to apologise to the nation.' She showed me around her office: a poster of Hamlet, a painting of a ginnel in Burnley, and Nathan Coley's illuminated text sculpture of George Bernard Shaw's line 'You create what you will.' On a model of Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth sat a football and a rugby ball — the football belonging to Bury FC, whose collapse helped prompt the Independent Football Regulator, one of Nandy's proudest achievements.

United Kingdom, London

keir starmer, anas sarwar, lisa nandy, parliament st, gorton by-election, denton by-election, bury fc, football regulator, trafalgar square, burnley