‘What’s Big Ange up to?’ was a question Sir Keir Starmer had to ask himself basically every day of his premiership. The fact that the bigger threat came from a totally different Mancunian doesn’t mean that tracking Ange’s manoeuvres was a bad idea. Inevitably, having helped defenestrate her former boss, she’s now angling to work out the next job she’s going to be sacked from. In aid of this, she’d taken to the airwaves, standing in for the cursed James O’Brien slot on LBC. 

This was Big Ange’s sunshine radio roadshow – it being her stated aim to be ‘really optimistic’, to shine a light on some ‘good news stories’ (for which read: policies she’d come up with). This was not an even-handed radio session. I’m surprised she didn’t start it with ‘Manchester calling, Manchester calling’ – Lord Haw-Haw meets Oasis. 

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Still, all credit to Ange, the sun was shining, England had won and anything was going to be better than seeing O’Brien’s signature pockmarked gurn of contempt on a Monday morning. 

As expected, Ange, giving Melvyn Bragg a run for his money, began with the weighty intellectual issues of the day. ‘We’ve had some really good weather, a bit good for a ginger from Manchester if I’m honest. I’m starting to wilt a little bit, my colleagues, they say Angie you look really miserable. It’s like, no, that’s Northerners once you get past 34........

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