This just in: nice guys don’t always finish last. What a gracious speech by Mark Carney on winning the Canadian election. His victory begs so many questions, including why did we ever let him go back to Canada after his stint as Bank of England governor? And how do you become a citizen of Canada? Asking for a friend.

Granted, there was a teeny bit of triumphalism when he said that Donald Trump was “trying to break us so that America can own us – that will never happen”, but he was remarkably restrained for someone whose country had been threatened with annexation.

He could have flat-out thanked the US President for winning the election for the Liberal Party, but Carney’s a smart guy. He knows social media and Trump don’t “do” humour.

With exquisite timing, victory in Canada arrived on the eve of Trump’s 100th day in office. The administration marked the occasion by picking a fight with Amazon over tariffs – interesting – while the media did its bit by churning out endless material. Podcasts, documentaries, 60-second takes, essays, special programmes. Never in the field of journalistic endeavour have so many asked themselves, “What the hell just happened?”

But then it’s a rum do, the 100-day marker. Associated with FDR and the New Deal, it’s often unnecessary when judging an administration’s worth. No one had to wait 100 days before concluding that Starmer was a duff Prime Minister. The election results, that lukewarm, best of a bad job victory, told us that.

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