No net gains in useless U-turns

TEARS OF A CLOWN: Rachel Reeves has been a disaster as Chancellor

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PARALLELS are often drawn between sports and politics, but they only hold up to a point. A breaking point. Because politics is infinitely more ruthless than sport.

Example. I’ll aways remember the closing minutes of a school hockey match I was playing in. Our team was 8-0 up, and for the umpteenth time our main scorer found herself literally in front of an open goal, keeper and defenders sprawled helplessly in her wake.

She turned, met the goalie’s defeated, ashamed eyes, hesitated, and then whacked the ball into touch. “I just couldn’t do it,” she explained later in the dressing room. “I just couldn’t do it to her. We'd won. She’d had enough.”