After 14 years of Tory rule, the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer thought he had seen it all. Westminster would surely tick along nicely once Keir Starmer’s party took over. How wrong he was ...

Much of our political culture is fundamentally incompetent.

We recently took in a beautiful British shorthair called Honey who was sold for £400 in a car park. Her new owner quickly found that she was a) pregnant and b) epileptic. She gave birth to 10 kittens, of which 8 survived. When they'd all been sold, her new owner decided she didn't want her anymore because of her (untreated!) seizures. And so she came to us. We took her to the vets and ordered some phenobarbital, which we've used with great success on two other epileptic cats. However, before it came in, poor Honey had a severe seizure and then two more in the space of a day. Our fosterer took her to the emergency vet, where she had to be kept in on an IV to get her phenobarbital level up quickly to stop the seizures. She's recovering beautifully, but her treatment has completely emptied our bank account, and we had quite a few operations planned that we still need to do: - Lemon, an old lady found on the street needs a full dental and a scan to find out why she's so wheezy - Thomasina, another golden oldie stray, needs a full dental now she's stable on her thyroid meds - Lenny, who spent 2 years wobbling on the streets, needs his neuter and jabs - Sabrina, who survived the panleukopenia that killed her kittens, needs her spay and jabs - Kirby, a sweet grey wobbler, needs his neuter and jabs - Boots, a handsome orange boy who recently spent his 14th birthday outside as his owners didn't want him anymore, needs a fair bit of treatment, plus a birthday party! If you can help with any of this, we would hugely appreciate it. I'm taking some of my jewellery to be sold at the weekend but I don't think it's worth very much unfortunately. I'm really glad we could help stop Honey's constant scary, debilitating seizures, so I know we did the right thing. It's just that the others have been waiting so patiently for their treatment so they can find wonderful new homes, and I don't want to let them down. Thank you. Love Holly and the moggies x

Now Featuring Russian Bribes and MAGA-Grade Madness In the UK Spin-Off Nobody Asked For

It’s not hard to see how so many came to worry about the issue. But the data isn’t there