HOW do you like to take down the Christmas tree? With a sigh, the last dregs of the Midori, and a vow to buy a blooming artificial one in the sales? The BBC continuity announcer on duty early doors yesterday had her own idea. Why not let Andrew Marr keep you company, she suggested brightly.

Yes, because there is nothing cheerier than entering a new year with talk of war on the horizon.

Marr, like Sky News’s Ridge on Sunday, had two conflicts to cover. The first was between Iran and the US: a genuinely life and death affair. The second, trivial in comparison, was the fight to lead Labour.

Ridge, starting at 8.30am, interviewed Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, while he was en route to Marr. Smart idea; they should try it with more Marr guests. The central London location just off Whitehall would have been impossible any other time than a Sunday morning. As it was, there was hardly any traffic. London looked as if it was still on holiday.

Speaking of putting off the return to work, Ridge mentioned that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was travelling back from holiday in Mustique. The assassination of Iran’s military leader Qasem Soleimani on the orders of President Trump had brought about the biggest crisis in the Middle East since Iraq, said Ridge, yet nothing had been heard from Mr Johnson. Did he think the hard work had been done in winning a majority and he could now put his feet up?

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The PM was “in charge” said Mr Raab, adding that he had spoken to him several times over the festive break. Marr also wanted to know how Boris Johnson’s new government was going to measure up to the moment. Contrary to reports in some of the papers, there had not been a vacuum at the heart of government, insisted the Foreign Secretary.

Mr Raab’s word of the morning, and one suspects the week, was “de-escalation”. With so much at stake, including the possible impact on the case of the jailed British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, plus British civilian contractors and soldiers in Iraq, Mr Raab had to tread a line between the Trump position and growing unease in Europe, a path he will continue to take next week when he visits the continent before going on to Washington DC.

This role of“go-between” could be the shape of things to come for any British Foreign Secretary in the post-Brexit political landscape.

Both presenters brought up the other item in Mr Raab’s increasingly full in-tray: the 19-year-old British woman convicted of lying about being the victim of a gang rape in Cyprus. Again, a delicate approach was required ahead of sentencing tomorrow, one which expressed concern while not questioning the Cypriot judicial system too much. Mr Raab, a lawyer by trade, found the middle ground.

The battle to be Labour leader got off to a snoozy start after the General Election, but the pace is picking up now with more candidates declaring. The most recent to do so, Sir Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips, were on Marr. The intro to the show had them sitting together, which would have made a lively interview, but instead Marr spoke to them separately.

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Over on Ridge, Emily Thornberry was trying to handle the problem faced by every contender: how to court a membership that is heavily in favour of Jeremy Corbyn, and thinks he did nothing wrong, while arguing that radical change is needed. Thornberry’s response when asked if Mr Corbyn was a good leader was to start talking about Iran again, saying that had been taking up her time. Ridge persisted. “Jeremy had many, many talents,” said the Shadow Foreign Secretary eventually. The reason he was popular with the party was that he spoke from the heart, she added.

If that was the main quality of a successful candidate then Jess Phillips would be a shoo-in. The MP for Birmingham Yardley, whether on Twitter, in the Commons, or in one of her many television appearances, is passionate, plain-speaking, and funny. Unfortunately, as far as the task at hand goes, she has used those skills to become one of Corbyn’s sharpest critics and is not without enemies.

Despite a YouGov poll giving her 11% support among the membership, putting her in third position behind Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey, Ms Phillips reckons the party, and the electorate, is in the mood for some straight talking. Labour’s key problem was that voters did not trust them to govern, she said.

Mr Starmer said Labour had lost due to concerns about the leadership, the party’s woolly position on Brexit, anti-Semitism, and a manifesto that was overloaded. On Brexit, he said: “We should have taken a stronger position one way or the other.”

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Otherwise, he was keen to get off the subject as quickly as possible. No ifs, buts or maybes about a second EU referendum, the UK was leaving and the focus had to be on what comes next.

From non-stop Brexit to move along now, nothing to see here, more important matters to deal with. What a difference a festive break makes.