August is traditionally the height of the holiday season.

I was away at roughly the same time as the prime minister, but we had quite different holidays. He and his family jetted off to America's sunshine state California, where he has a £5 million penthouse complete with "pet spa" apparently. I was in more modest accommodation - a tent in the south-west of England where the weather was more variable shall we say!

Rishi Sunak does like California. As we remember, he kept a green card for working in America while he was Chancellor. During his tenure as Chancellor, billions of pounds worth of fraud related to Covid-19 schemes took place, according to the National Audit Office (we’re not going to get that back under him). You may also have seen he donated $3million to a California-based college but could only muster a £10 bottle of wine for a school in his own constituency, trying to raise funds for vital school equipment.

I don't know what his mode of transport was while away. When he's here it’s often a helicopter. We filled our own car up with petrol and I was able to use my own bank card to pay, without assistance. Rishi famously borrowed a supermarket worker's motor to fill up for a fake photo opportunity and clearly had trouble knowing what to do with a debit card!

I also had cause to use a train. I don’t know when you last tried to travel any distance by train, but my experience was dreadful. Mass cancellations, delays to the trains that were running, seemingly random terminations and charging from one platform to another to try and make a connection. The sooner there is a Labour government, and the operators' licenses expire, and they come back into public ownership, the better.

  • Cllr Matt Tumaine is Labour's Parliamentary candidate for Watford