Ruth Wishart shares reaction to Inside Our Autistic Minds

Step forward Springwatch star Chris Packham’s two-part documentary on the mental torment of autistic folk.

It’s a subject to which he can easily relate, being on that spectrum himself, which affords him a pretty unique insight into the minds of those similarly afflicted.

The first episode featured two adults who had fought their way through this in very different ways.

Flo, who had spent all her life masking her true identity in an effort to conform to “normal” behaviour, and who desperately wanted her loving mum to understand how she was when being herself.

And then Murray, whose dad is broadcasting legend Ken Bruce, and who is unable to speak and communicates through spelling out his thoughts.

Both were encouraged to make films – Murray picking an autistic voice as his own, and Flo speaking a self penned script to her mum.

Both illustrated hugely intelligent minds, constantly assailed by a barrage of sensory information with which most of the rest of us don’t have to deal.

Utterly compelling viewing. Catch it if you can and don’t forget the box of tissues.

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The budget will have been and gone by the time you read this, and the Chancellor will have tried to find the odd rabbit to release from his hat after ferreting down the back of the government sofa for some extra cash.

Like so many Commons set-pieces, this event has really had its day, most especially in an election year when all pretence of balancing the books has to be abandoned in favour of aiding and abetting the electoral chances of the incumbent government.

They don’t fare much better on the other side of the pond, where the last couple of years of a four-year term essentially become a prolonged campaign.

The idea that the monstrous Trump could serve another term as president – perhaps via a spell in the pokey – merely demonstrates the power of demagoguery to cast a spell on some of the masses.

Worse still is the fact that they appear to be on course for a contest between two elderly white men who, in any light, are well pas their sell by date. The Republicans seem too feart of Trump to challenge his lies, whilst the Democrats appear too reluctant to challenge a sitting president who is one of their own.

Or put another way, a match-up between one guy who has every chance of dying in office and another who is to healthy eating which I am to hang gliding. Time to change the guard.