Debt bomb

Sir Ian McKellen’s visits to Downing Street were supposedly to discuss gay rights. To study the Prime Minister’s conference speech at Bournemouth, though, suggests another possibility: that our foremost Shakespearian actor has been giving Tony Blair some voice training. The trembling, impassioned delivery, the pregnant pauses: while most retired prime ministers these days are assured of a lucrative second career addressing annual corporate beanfeasts in glitzy convention halls across America, Tony Blair’s talents will earn him a place, too, on the provincial theatre circuit.