Getting up incredibly early this morning I had a chance to take a look at the New Statesman, a weekly I've never really read. There were lots of interesting pieces in it, notably an article by Oliver Letwin that claimed the Conservatives were now the party 'of the poor', although I think he probably meant 'for the poor'. He has some striking statistics: the number of working-age adults living in poverty rose last year by 700,000 and has risen overall since 1997. Pity the voters of Glasgow East won't get the message.

Elsewhere in the magazine there was a piece about falling divorce rates in the US. Although the evidence is only derived from Miami-Dade County in Florida, there has been an 18% fall this year. Apparently in bad times, the costs of divorce force people to stay hitched. You can't really share out the negative equity. By contrast, in Manhattan there are more divorces than ever. One divorce lawyer has seen his case load rise by 20% this year. Why? A trader the author mentions was having to hide the fact that his income had fallen by US$12 million lest his wife have to adjust her spending habits and divorce him. Evidently some are better at disguise than others.

The New Statesman has a dress correspondent. Now that's a good idea. To my horror she doesn't like polo shirts on men, regarding them as a lazy choice of non-dress just above a tee-shirt. Actually whenever I see holiday snaps with me wearing one that is ten years old I don't think they look good either. Can't see what she's got against chinos though. Perhaps Standpoint should hire its own dress correspondent?

Apropos of nothing the arrest in London of the Batman star for ALLEGED assault caught my eye. I bet there were amusing scenes in the custody suite. Name: 'Mr Bat'. Address: 'Gotham City'............ did he send for Cat Woman?