I don't know how I missed the concept of "enviro-crime" until this week when I became a petty enviro-criminal myself. Franz Kafka, you never dreamed that garden hedges could get people into trouble, did you?

So. David Hare is taking a pop at New Labour, Charlotte Higgins reports in today's Guardian. There's gratitude for you. Philistines they may have been, by and large, but they have poured a lot extra money into the arts since 1997, currently running at £18m a year for the National Theatre alone.

Here's a trick question: part I. When Brits on their summer holiday across (occasionally 35,000 feet above) sunny southern Europe get drunk, hospitalised and possibly jailed, whose fault is it?

When I was a history student in the sixties some lecturer assured us that all the European empires of the modern era were crumbling fast with the exception of the two which had expanded across land, not sea: Russia and the United States.

As regular reader(s) may well have spotted I love quarrelling with the Daily Mail, many of whose vices I have been enjoying first thing in the morning for decades.

The new edition of Private Eye reports a sharp exchange last month between MPs and Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, which I hadn't read anywhere at the time. It concerns the leak which triggered the historic run on the Northern Rock bank by anxious depositors.

Julie Burchill and George Monbiot were taking bites out of each other on the radio this morning I know, I know, but it's August and the BBC has space to fill like the rest of us. We need to give the Miliband will o' the wisp a break.

Tucked away in Michael Gove's IPPR speech on relationships yesterday was a passage which would have made me think of Polly Toynbee and David Walker's terrific tirade against the self-absorbed stupidity of the super-rich had I read it at that stage of the day. Alas, I tend to read the Guardian's G2 section on the way home in the evening, but you can still find it here. It's called Meet the rich.

I always found Alexander Solzhenitsyn a puzzle and sometimes very unsettling. He was a communist who became an ex-communist and attacked the system with relentless courage, a writer with exotic religious and political views, a hero to some very unattractive elements in the west, especially the United States, despite his frequent reproaches for our many collective failures.

Having just finished reading Orlando Figes's sweeping, magnificent work of Russian cultural history, Natasha's Dance, I can only wish I'd read it sooner. Though Figes has surprisingly little to say about Solzhenitsyn himself - just three indexed references in the Penguin edition - he provides context and makes sense of him.

Russian history, it transpires, is full of such people - not just Tolstoy whom everyone knows about - artists and intellectuals committed to trying to make sense of Russia's autocratic history, its people and its place in the world. Is it part of Europe, essentially Asiatic - as the pro-Slavs insisted - or something unique to itself which links both traditions, cultural and political, but remains different?

I see from the morning papers that London's memorial to the dead of the 7/7 2005 attacks on the capital's transport network is going to consist of 52 steel columns. Each is 10 feet high, uniquely different and representing one of the victims of that day's murderous mayhem. Hmm.

Did I just hear David Miliband tell Radio 2's Jeremy Vine and an irate caller from Chippenham that "we're all in the shit together"? Alas, no, candour does not stretch that far in politics except in dire circumstances like May 1940 when it was the burden of Churchill's stirring wartime speeches. What the foreign secretary actually said was that Labour politicians are "all in the ship together" - sink or swim.

Here's an opportunity for ambitious politicians who want to become - or even to remain - prime minister. What are you lot going to do about rising energy prices in the wake of British Gas's shameless 35% price hike yesterday? It will hit everyone hard - especially the poorest consumers.

Well, David Miliband has unsheathed his typewriter and written an article for the Guardian, urging Labour to embark upon a "radical new phase" if it is to see off the Tory challenge. He talks about the future without once typing the word "Brown".

I was getting a filling redone the other day when Dentist Ralph said: "I'm putting some peppermint-flavoured cotton wool in your mouth. We used to give it only to children, but now we give it to adults too."

In the predictable tsunami of "Brown must go" commentary after Labour's defeat in Glasgow the funniest line I read was in the Observer. "There is no backbone: they are quite weak as individuals. They're bloody cowards," said one senior MP as he urged cabinet ministers to do their "duty" and force Brown out.

Forget about the cliches of choice, earthquakes, Richter scales, the killer fact about the Glasgow East byelection is the turnout. At a healthy 42%, voters were taking the trouble to send a message to Downing St.

Take no notice of Colin Myler's warning outside the high court today that press freedom is being strangled by stealth in this country as a result of pro-privacy rulings by judges in cases like the one Max Mosley won today. Correction: don't take much notice when it comes from the editor of the News of the World when he's just had a caning.

The sound of the Conservatives cosying up to the Ulster Unionist party again has a reassuring Groundhog Day feel to it.

I was picking up a rental car at Canton, Ohio airport in the American rustbelt four winters ago and noticed that the energetic young man who was doing the paperwork spoke perfect but accented English. "Where are you from?" I asked, as people routinely do without offence in the United States.

Good news then from Belgrade today. Radovan Karadzic, wartime leader of the murderous Bosnian Serb republic, will be heading for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after all - having cocked a snook at the international community for 13 years.

James Purnell has been out today promoting another stage - or is it another attempt? - of radical welfare reform, just when the economy is taking a dip and jobs may become scarcer. Drug users on benefit will be an early target for tougher attention, families with children a priority for more support.

Here's an interesting counterfactual about the Iraq war which I thought to share with you. It is is buried away inside a long review of the recent Cherie Blair, Lord Levy and John Prescott autobiographies, written for the London Review of Books by John Lanchester, novelist and winner of this year's EM Forster prize from the Americans. A friend sent it to me, a kindly thought very probably, not merely educational because I had also reviewed the same three books for the Times Literary Supplement.

It will be interesting to see whether Jacqui Smith can generate some positive publicity out of her long-delayed police green paper today. She's had a rough time lately, some of it her own fault, not least the confusion over the plan - later denied - to make young wannabe hardmen, kids caught with knives, watch knife victims being stitched together again in A&E.

During a typical Nick Clegg speech, good-humoured and mild-mannered, to the Commons press gallery yesterday the Lib Dem leader let rip against David Cameron's call for an end to "moral neutrality" on matters of right and wrong.

Lady Thatcher is being lined up for a state funeral, so the Mail on Sunday revealed at the weekend.

The skies are grey over Glasgow East today and Scotland's morning papers do not provide a much cheerier prospect for Gordon Brown's hopes of saving next week's byelection.

Thirty-four per cent. Not a bad turnout in the circumstances for David Davis's self-inflicted byelection in Haltemprice and Howden. I'm pleased for him that it wasn't a complete shambles. That wouldn't have done anyone any good.

Steady on there. Gordon Brown's Heathcliff comparison in his New Statesman interview is a terrific joke, one many people have made down the years. But that's all it was. How do I know? Because we have guests in the house and I caught one of them watching GMTV this morning.

I do not feel especially indebted to today's Times for drawing the world's attention to an alleged storm in a House of Lords teacup. "Storm over Tory peer's 'nigger in woodpile' remark", it screams over five columns. Don't you ever get weary of phoney rows like this?

The second worst thing I heard about Barack Obama during my short family trip to the United States is that the senator has yet to show convincingly that he has a sense of humour, always a useful weapon in a statesman's armoury. The worst thing I heard about John McCain is that the senator is not just bad-tempered but vindictive. "He could be another Nixon," predicts an old friend who knows his campaign team well.

"The strength of this town is the foreigners." Which town? London. Who says? Marco Niada, an Italian correspondent long resident here. He has just written a book to coincide with his return home and delivered a promotion speech which I listened to at the ambassador's residence the other evening.

I know what you're going to say: " I told you so." I can hear the cry from here. Wendy Alexander forced to resign as Labour's leader in Scotland over the donations row, and a very tricky byelection in Glasgow East caused by David Marshall's ill health. Happy anniversary, Gordon!

Anyone who can make John Humphrys shut up on Radio 4's Today programme can't be all bad and Harriet Harman, who managed it again this morning, isn't. I always like to say that, whether or not you agree with her, she's brave.

Is it right to strip Robert Mugabe of his knighthood for what the Foreign Office calls his "abuse of human rights" and abject disregard of democracy? He's guilty as charged, but I can't help thinking it's rather a feeble and inappropriate response, always assuming most of us knew the old scoundrel had been given a K in the first place.

George Osborne was a naughty boy this afternoon. After Alistair Darling reported to MPs about the Poynter report into those two lost tax CDs, he asked the chancellor to name the man responsible for what he declared to be this "catalogue of systemic failures". "Don't worry; no one is listening," he jeered, before identifying the culprit as the man who had run the Treasury for 10 years and merged Customs unhappily with the Inland Revenue - Gordon Brown.

Quite by chance last night I stumbled on a cause which might give David Davis's re-election campaign a bit of a lift. Go for broke, David, he was advised. Promise to do your best as an MP to repeal all laws which oppress individual freedoms: hunting ban, public smoking ban, the forced wearing of motor bike helmets.

At the National Theatre last night the former chancellor, Nigel Lawson, excavated a long-forgotten term of abuse for our friends in the financial sector which strikes me as worth passing on in these troubled times.

How strange is the mind of a tyrant like Robert Mugabe that they sometimes feel the urgent need to uphold constitutional forms - the need for an election result - while simultaneously debauching the process. Roman emperors, nominally elected by the republic's ancient Senate, went to great pains to address form when often steeped in blood.

John Howell, the Oxfordshire county councillor who is the Tory candidate in next week's Henley byelection, seems to have an equable temperament that does not mind being overshadowed. This is probably just as well.

There is a startling headline on the front of today's Daily Mail, one I have never seen in over 30 years of regular morning reading (this may be why I have to take pills for high blood pressure). "Stop being so miserable!" it tells browbeaten readers like me.

As you may have seen from her appearance on BBC Newsnight and other media watering holes, Arianna Huffington, creator of the eponymous online news-and-comment paper, has been in London. I heard her talk last night in one of the Guardian's in-house Future of Journalism sessions.

Leftwing MP John McDonnell, the man who tried to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership, is furious with him. Why? Because he has allowed David Cameron to steal a green march and declare his opposition to a third runway at Heathrow - which McDonnell has also opposed as a local MP.

Ireland's "Mr No", Declan Ganley, was in London last night to take a round of fervent applause from the Eurosceptics and Europhobes. I went along to listen to him. Nice chap, sense of humour, smart too, I should think. But his political message was parochial and incoherent to the point of self-parody.

Laugh or cry? Take your pick. This morning's media harvest contains the news that pupils as young as 11 may soon be able to pick up morning-after pills at school-based healthy clinics, along with pregnancy testing kits and a check-up for the pox.

Patrick Wintour and I have just spent the day following Tony Blair round on a busy day in the life of the ex-prime minister. Its purpose was to let him explain what he's been doing since handing over to Gordon Brown last June 27. During the day we conducted our interview whenever he wasn't busy. It appears in today's Guardian.

That meant a session in the VIP suite at Heathrow Terminal 5, interrupted by a call from prime minister Olmert of Israel. Then a noisy session on the BA flight to Newcastle - delayed an hour. We had to follow him south to Sunderland in a four-car convoy where he was presenting the Tony Blair cup to primary school tennis teams - a venture sponsored by the Tony Blair sports foundation.

Patrick and I transcribed the tapes you are about to read in the Puma Sports Centre and also in the car which later took us all to Darlington station. There we had another 10 minutes - plus a banana each for lunch - in the first class waiting room before joining the King's Cross train south where we had another 20 minutes before dashing off to write up our stories.

Nothing remarkable, but most of it interesting. He didn't want to bigfoot the Brown anniversary and he shied away from all attempts to get him to talk about British domestic politics. He promised not to do a Thatcher and be a backseat driver and he has succeeded fairly well. In the past 12 months. We did our best to lure him into comment - and every time he drew back as soon as he spotted it - or an aide coughed a warning cough. This isn't the whole conversation, but a strong flavour of it. Here goes:

In the hour before David Davis made Gordon Brown's week by getting him off the front pages the prime minister had been busy at his No 10 press conference denying that he had won Wednesday night's vote by doing a deal with Ian Paisley's DUP.

Genuine surprises in politics are rare. Tory MPs were genuinely surprised today when David Davis's resignation as an MP was flashed up on TV screens.

A political friend of mine in government has a grudge against the environmental movement. "When we screw things up they're all over us. But when we're doing something they ought to support they're nowhere to be seen," he protests.

So Gordon Brown scraped home on 42 days' pre-charge detention tonight after all that fuss and with a bit of help from Ian Paisley's block of Democratic Unionist MPs. 315 votes to 306, around 37 Labour rebels - yes, the DUP seems to have made the difference.

This morning I was looking at a newspaper photo of one of those fresh-faced young British soldiers killed in Afghanistan this week by a Taliban bomb when I heard the voice of a clergyman on the Today programme quoting the grim climactic lines from Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est.

A well-meaning letter-writer to the Times this week suggested that it would save a lot of time, effort and anguish if MPs had all their expenses and office allowances taken away and were given a single salary, plus free travel, to do their job.

There was an excellent story in one of the papers the other week about Oliver Reed's attitude towards getting the attention he felt he was paying for. Having waited a long time in a restaurant in France without getting the staff's attention the actor said:"I'll show you how to get service in this place."

It's always good to get outside one's own comfort zone, especially if that zone is anchored in the Palace of Westminster. Last night I ventured as far as the Guardian's main office in Clerkenwell, all of three miles away, and heard two remarkable men.

The overnight papers have been full of the historic resonance of Barack Obama's victory in the contest for the Democratic nomination for the American presidency - though being the first black nominee for the White House is precisely how the senator does not wish to be defined. Like Tiger Woods, he's trying to get that race stuff behind him.

You know my take on politicians: by and large they are as noble, venal, energetic or idle as the rest of us; that's why they are representatives. Daft as the rest of us too. After PM's question time today we had a spot of daft.

It's one of life's treats to read the newspapers the morning after a controversial decision has been taken of which much of Fleet St disapproves, and has a vested interest to prop up its disapproval. It's a familiar tale.

Drink, drugs, petty crime, the not-so-petty kind that include violence to the person, including murder, the papers seem to be routinely full of them.

So. Steve Hilton is moving to California. It shouldn't be front page news, though it was on a slow news day in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph. Steve who? I thought you might ask that.

Gordon Brown may feel a bit friendless over his plan to introduce 42-day pre-charge detention, which he again sought to justify in today's Times. But this morning's interview with Philip Bobbitt on Radio 4 suggests that the prime minister still has one ally.

On top of all their other grief over pay and allowances MPs today find themselves being persecuted by the Economist magazine over their generous pensions. Much as I regret having to agree with the self-important Economist it seems to have got hold of a point. Pay attention at the back there. Your pension, if you have one, may be the most valuable thing you own.

So, the Labour party is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy with the prospect that burly debt enforcers may force their way into No 10 and carry off the Brown family's TV set as Gordon and other members of the national executive are held responsible for all those borrowed millions.

I woke in my B&B in rural Powys this morning to find polite, but critical messages in my email box, accusing me of all sorts of unrural failings. Why? Because I had stayed on at the Hay Festival in order to cover George Monbiot's attempt to make a citizen's arrest against ex-Bush official, John Bolton. (You can see pictures of Bolton evading Monbiot here.)

Listening at the Hay festival to a couple of historians mull over lessons to be drawn from the revolutions of 1789 and 1848 I heard one of them invoke the phrase "the lyrical illusion". I'm not sure whether David Andress or Mike Rapport used it, nor the source they were quoting. But it made me flinch and think of Barack Obama.

I was thinking about rural post office closures in my B&B here in very wet Powys this morning. I thought about them in London on Saturday morning when I went to post a couple of letters. It is not a happy story, but how justified are we to complain about the loss of services we use with ever-decreasing frequency?

Friends report seeing David Miliband here at the very wet Hay Festival. He was spotted in the audience for Gene Robinson, the openly-Christian American bishop, and for ex-President Jimmy Carter, at 83, twice his age, who apparently told him he was too young to be foreign secretary. Thanks Jimmy.