ANALYSIS: Long hot summer leaves the Tories and Labour feeling the heat
4 min read
The temperature is rising again at Westminster - and both the Conservatives and Labour are feeling the heat.
Summer recess is a quiet time for news, with hacks who have yet to depart for foreign climes scrabbling around desperately for things to write about.
Traditionally, this should be an opportunity for the parties shape the agenda by sending out timeless stories to grateful political journalists.
With no MPs around to get in the way, it should also be a chance for Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to unwind a little bit in preparation for what promises to be a tumultuous autumn.
But both leaders are currently being buffeted by events and seem powerless to seize the narrative.
Take the Prime Minister first. Simply getting to recess was an achievement for her, given the open warfare which broke out in the Tory ranks in the final days before Parliament rose till September.
Attempts to get on the front foot, however, have been thrown off course by blood-curdling warnings about the potential impact of a no deal Brexit.
Sky News have led the charge, getting their hands on council documents detailing the possibility of food shortages, a lack of medicines, civil unrest and the M20 becoming a lorry park for the next few years.
It has fallen to new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to try to lay out the Government's position. But when he hasn't been forgetting what country his wife is from, his warnings of an "accidental" no deal Brexit have been repetitive and largely unconvincing.
We learned last night that May will break into her own summer holiday to hold Brexit talks with French president Emmanuel Macron, but again this has given the impression of a Prime Minister desperately looking for a solution to a currently insoluble problem.
If all that wasn't bad enough, Boris Johnson has just regained his place as Tory members' favourite to replace her in Number 10, due in no small part to him quitting her Cabinet over Brexit.
Jeremy Corbyn probably looks at his opposite number's travails with a degree of envy.
Labour appears to be suffering a full-blown nervous breakdown as it seeks to find a way out of its latest anti-Semitism row.
The party leader, to be frank, seems either unwilling or unable to defuse a situation which is spinning out of control.
Every day brings further revelations about Corbyn's past associations with critics of Israel, which in turn stokes the anger of many Labour MPs.
If he wants to see how to make the best of a bad political situation, he could do a lot worse than follow the example of his old comrade, John McDonnell.
The Shadow Chancellor appears to at least grasp the severity of the situation, and how it is preventing proper coverage of Labour policy ideas like a citizens' income and a pledge to prioritise British-based rail manufacturers instead of overseas firms.
McDonnell has found time to tell the BBC how upset he is by the whole controversy, and vowed that it will be fixed by September.
Corbyn, on the other hand, was tetchy and ill-tempered when doorstepped outside his home this morning.
According to the app on my phone, the weather forecast in Westminster is set fair for the next two weeks.
May and Corbyn's long hot summer has only just begun, and already they are praying for rain.
