It was left to a – albeit extinct – tiny relative of the kangaroo to offer some relief from the blizzard of major events

Where to start in a week so fraught with major events you could hardly draw breath for the news flashes? It started with Trump’s alleged contribution to Jeffrey Epstein’s “birthday book,” shared by the Democrats on social media on Monday and leading to the discovery of a name not widely recognised in the US but of intense interest in the UK – Peter Mandelson. The British ambassador to the US had proffered an undiplomatically warm birthday message to the late child sex offender financier, starting a press scramble that ended, on Thursday, with Keir Starmer firing him.