When Dwight D. Eisenhower had to decide whether to launch the D-Day armada he kept a close eye on the weather. Pick the wrong moment and the entire cause of winning the war would have been set back and the lives of 135,000 soldiers imperilled.

The supreme allied commander, head of a fractious coalition riven by egos and infighting (you see where I’m going here), had plenty of expert advice, as is made clear in David Haig’s play Pressure. The British meteorologist, James Stagg, warned that the original date for D-Day, 5 June 1944, would be storm-ridden, but saw a window of opportunity the next day. The American meteorologist Irving P. Krick was more gung-ho and urged Eisenhower not to postpone. Ultimately, the decision was Eisenhower’s alone. Walter Bedell Smith, his chief of staff, wrote later: ‘I never realised before the loneliness and isolation of a commander at a time when such a momentous decision has to be taken.’

Burnham and Powell want to bring back stupid

Does Lucy Powell really think ‘knight’ is an obscure word?

It’s amazing how far Burnham has got by not being Keir Starmer

I thought about all this as I watched the brief flicker of uncertainty in the eyes of Andy Burnham when Laura Kuenssberg asked him whether he was prepared to rule out a general election before 2029. Burnham’s aides are adamant, consistent and emphatic: ‘It is A.B.’s settled view,’ one says, that there will be no early election. But Burnham’s hesitation was that of a man calculating the trade-off between survival now and long-term freedom of manoeuvre.

There was a look, a pause,........

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