Digested week: Another PM bites the dust and it’s surprisingly moving | John Crace

Plus, World Cup fever, EU referendum 10th anniversary, feeling the heat in Westminster and cancer

Monday

Hard to believe, but in my 12 and a half years as the Guardian’s political sketch writer, I am about to embark on my seventh prime minister. There was a time when we Britons took the piss out of the Italians for their rapid turnover of prime ministers. Now the laugh is on us.

When I first started in the lobby in 2014 there had been only four prime ministers in the previous 23 years. We’ve now churned through four in four years. The lineup of former prime ministers at the Cenotaph parade on Remembrance Day gets longer and longer. In a decade or so there will only be a handful of people who can recognise Liz Truss.

Keir Starmer’s resignation was slightly different from the others. He wasn’t being forced out as a result of a lost election or by a strong opposition. His departure had nothing to do with the Tories and was triggered by Labour winning a byelection. There was also something quite bashful about his resignation speech. Normally broadcasters and other media are given a heads-up when the prime minister is due to speak, with the lectern brought out on to Downing Street half an hour before. This time, though we all knew it was coming, Keir dashed out moments after the lectern was in place. Almost as if he wanted to get the speech over and done with, with as few people watching as possible.

Like almost every resignation speech , Keir’s was surprisingly moving. There’s something about witnessing the passing of power, the moment when the politics becomes personal that touches me every time. Maybe it’s me that’s the softie. The one exception was Boris Johnson’s resignation speech. The one in which he accepted responsibility for nothing, blamed others for his departure, and told the country we would all regret it. Oddly, we haven’t.

You can’t help wondering just how long the country will give Andy Burnham. Voters have become increasingly unforgiving if promises aren’t delivered immediately. It feels only a matter of weeks before some broadcasters start shouting: “When are you going to resign, Mr Burnham?”

Tuesday

It had to happen. Of course it did. How could it not? Two weeks ago, I wrote of my disengagement with the World Cup . How I hadn’t been bothered to watch the opening few matches and would only reluctantly watch the first England game. Well, all that changed very rapidly. It wasn’t long before I was encouraging my wife to go to bed early so I could switch over to the second half of some game I had next to no interest in but about which I would care passionately by the time the final whistle was blown.

Obviously there’s still plenty to hate. Gianni Infantino’s infatuation with Donald Trump. The ticket prices. Not that I am personally affected. And, of course, the hydration breaks. They ruin the game. What momentum has been built up evaporates. It’s now a game of four quarters. All to flog advertising on TV. So far ITV is putting up a good show of opposition, refusing to go to ad breaks of its own. But I’d put money on ITV showing ads in four years’ time.

One of the big turning points in my World Cup fever – how could I not watch when I’ve followed every tournament since 1966? – came in the first 20 minutes of the second half in England’s game with Croatia . It was one of the best passages of play I have ever seen from an England side. Urgency and creativity in wave after wave. The Croatians knew what was coming but were powerless to stop it. Football at its most breathtaking and beautiful.

The Ghana game was something of a reality check . The same players that had been irresistible in the first game were now slow and hesitant. As if all belief had drained out of them. The pundits talked of patience. But the players and the manager took 80 minutes to see what was plain to me. That Ghana were happy to defend and a slow buildup was easy to block. Only in the last 10 minutes did they up the tempo and should have nicked a winner. Then what do I know? Sometimes I wonder if the more football I watch, the less I understand the game.

Wednesday

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the morning we all woke up to discover the politicians leading the campaign to leave the EU had never given a moment’s thought to how to implement Brexit and the impact it might have on the UK.

Nigel Farage and Michael Gove were unusually silent. Possibly hungover. Boris Johnson seemed to be looking for some kind of direction from David Cameron. Who resigned two hours later. But if only more of us had known it, there was a template for the future. One written by Daniel Hannan , a man whom many on the political right like to parade as one of their leading intellectuals. Something the rest of us have to take on trust as he never seems to display any synaptic activity when we get to hear him.

Anyway. Two days before the referendum, Desperate Dan gave his own prophecy on Reaction.life. “It’s 24 June 2025,” he began. “And Britain is marking its annual independence day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just invigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty, they improved our relations with our neighbours.”

That was just the start of Dan’s delusions. He went on to say farming and fishing would boom again. Cod would swim back into our coastal waters, desperate to be caught by British fishers. London would be the new Silicon Valley. The EU would wither, desperate to offer us whatever deal we wanted for the privilege of trading with us. And so on. Just about everything that Dan could get wrong, he did get wrong. So from now on, this day shall also be known as Daniel Hannan day.

Amazingly, this time last year, Dan did not get to write an opinion piece in the Telegraph or the Mail explaining that maybe he had been a little optimistic on the timings and that his fantasies would come true exactly a year later. I’ve just looked out the window. No fireworks. No celebrations. No EU coming to us on its knees. Remarkably, Dan continues to thrive. He’s even been given a place in the House of Lords. For services to making the country worse off than it was 10 years ago.

Thursday

In recognition of the heatwave, Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the Commons, has temporarily waived the rule obliging male members of the lobby to wear a jacket in the press gallery. A nice gesture. Though one that was not strictly necessary as the Commons chamber is the one place in Westminster where the air-conditioning works properly. The main benefit was that I didn’t have to bring my jacket in with me to put it on in the one place where the temperature was bearable. But even just travelling to work in a shirt was challenging. The inside of the 87 bus was at least five degrees warmer than outside. Everyone had sweat dripping down their backs and arms. Stepping into Whitehall almost came as a relief until I remembered it was 35 degrees.

The Guardian office in Westminster is almost as bad. It was last updated sometime in Pleistocene era and appears to have been reverse engineered. In the winter, the heating does not come on and if it’s raining, water pours through the ceiling on to Pippa Crerar’s desk. Needless to say, when we’re in the middle of a heatwave the room is a furnace and we’re reliant on fans to keep us alive. From time to time, one of us calls the facilities management team and a man – it is always a man – is sent to our office. He looks around for a while, stands on the desk to peer into the ceiling, and leaves without saying a word. Never to be seen or heard of again.

It’s all a bit 1976. I was 19 that summer and was working in London as an ice-cream salesman in Oxford Street. It was one of those machines that turns cartons of a milk-style product into a Mr Whippy. We were supposed to clean out the machine every morning as the milk went off overnight in the heat. But I often couldn’t be bothered and tourists often used to comment how tasty the ice-cream was when it was a day old. I only hope I didn’t give anyone food poisoning.

I also spent the summer taking rather too many drugs and was eventually fired when the boss did a spot check and found me semi-conscious, propped up against the machine. Frankly, I wonder what had taken him so long to notice. We parted on good terms. I was as relieved to see the back of me as he was.

Friday

Cancer does funny things to time. Both to the person who has it and the family of those with the illness. It feels as if I have lived every moment with Jill over the past 14 months. There have been moments when I have wished it was me who had cancer and not her. Not just out of some misplaced heroic altruism, but because it felt as if it would be easier to bear.

Living with and loving a person with cancer is to be given daily reminders of what it means to experience loss of control. It’s like being in a half world that is part of the real one yet also separate. Time bends. Some days almost slow to a standstill, when it feels like you are experiencing every moment and not necessarily for the better. Others, usually the good ones, seem to race past as you struggle to keep hold of them. Recovery also sometimes feels glacially slow. It is seven months since Jill’s operation and five months since she finished the last round of chemo but there are still times of the day when she feels rubbish.

We have been told it may take at least a year before she is properly her old self again. But there have been some upsides. Cancer has brought us closer together. We haven’t just done the hospital stuff together – I feel as if I know every inch of the Marsden in Sutton and Fulham – but we have got to have the important conversations that other couples might not get to have because they feel they have all the time in the world, so why spoil the moment? As a family, I’m including our children here, it feels as if we have said everything that needs to be said. Whatever happens, there will be no regrets. And things are looking up. Jill is a lot stronger than she was even a couple of months ago and bizarrely you do even get used to the two-month cycle of PET scans, MRIs and blood tests. As the oncologist recently said to us: ‘You must always bank the wins when they come along.” Because one day you may lose.

So with that in mind, we are planning to enjoy our summer. Jill recently realised she hadn’t spent a night away from home – apart from the time she was in hospital – for over a year. This will change. We are going to America to see our daughter. Jill is coming to Buxton for the night towards the end of July where I am doing an event in the opera house as part of the festival. We are planning on visiting friends. Life is restarting.

Digested week in pictures