Here is the good news. Ten reasons to be cheerful after the election

Matt Ridley in The Times produced a terrific list of ten reasons to not be completely glum after the election. Here is my attempt. Let’s see if I can get as high as ten reasons to be cheerful.

1) The Trump state visit is off. He won’t come while there is any possibility of demonstrations and the Tories wouldn’t risk it anyway with the public in this mood. That means no state visit for Trump, ever. Hooray! This is something that can bring the country together, that gives us a focal point of unity. We won’t ever have to watch the great orange-tanned buffoon playing golf with Prince Andrew, or dancing with the Queen at Annabels, or whatever horrors were planned by the terrified staff at the American Embassy in London.

2) The SNP got hammered, losing half a million votes and 21 seats. Scotland will remain part of the UK for at least the next four years. Hurrah!

3) Help me out here. I’m running out of reasons.

4) The recently released remastered edition of The Beatles Sergeant Pepper is as good as the reviews say.

5) Almost time for a holiday.

6) Two party politics is back, which annoys the Lib Dems.

7) People who demand a “soft Brexit” are going to have to explain what exactly it is to the public. This will be entertaining. It may then be rejected anyway by the EU, or any of the 27, while young Labour voters experience the next phase of political development, the betrayal phase, when Labour sticks to its promise to end free movement and everyone grasps that Corbyn, McDonnell and Milne were anti-EU all along. See page 28 of the Labour manifesto stating that free movement will end.

8) Labour moderates – excited by what just happened – now have to move sharply to the left to get in with the new leadership. Forget worrying about democratic norms and a functioning economy. A Corbynite reading list – including Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (1935) by Sidney and Beatrice Webb; John Pilger; Marcus Brigstock; Jeremy Hardy and the sayings of Chairman Paul Mason – is available from the leader’s office.

9) We love nothing more than entertaining the world with a good old British comic farce. The Tory party is mining the tradition of Wodehouse and Fawlty Towers. Enjoy.

10) Er…