Friday. I address intelligence agencies, law enforcement and behavioural scientists as they gather in Krakow. I tell them how they can help combat anti-Semitism in their work. The speech is a prelude to a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum. Words are not enough. While we meet, Lithuania highlights Russian attempts to bully pro-Ukrainian Nato countries with airspace incursions.

Saturday. China has held the Robot Olympics, firmly fixed on a tech-enhanced future. This weekend we Brits held an event of similar magnitude. Ours is devoid of AI-enabled humanoids; instead, it is all high lift cams, low growls, beer, nylons, rouge, flat caps and the exquisite aroma of Castrol R. Do not dismiss the Goodwood Revival as backward–looking. In Britain, nostalgia is fuel for the future. The traditional and familiar are no brake on progress. They are a necessary condition of it. Trackside, in the shadow of towering Hannah Waddingham and her preacher hat, I enjoy a brew with fellow dyslexic and driving legend Jackie Stewart. He is towering, too, in a different way. Meanwhile, three Russian aircraft are intercepted in Estonian airspace.

Monday. The start of The Wargame. This is the TV version of Sky’s podcast, simulating the start of a hot war with Russia. Your editor and I spent four days in a bunker with political opponents, role-playing a coalition government on the brink. While we had been filming, fictional events of hybrid warfare mirrored the reality. An assassination in Poland and another Russian vessel in our waters. Four days of filming was condensed into four hours of telly. Diplomacy, the creation of strategic dilemmas, choking off Russia’s ability to fight in Ukraine, financial sanctions and 58 attempts to get Potus to trigger Article 5 did not make the edit. By Wednesday’s episode we were at Bikini State Red Alert.

No one will be surprised to hear me highlight our lack of conventional forces and the sense of spending 5 per cent GDP to prevent a war costing 50 per cent of it. But when Harriet Harman (Sky’s home secretary) and Nicola Sturgeon (Sky’s deputy prime minister) have joined the cause to re-arm, people ought to wake up. It is about to be too late.

As the nation watches the fictional disaster unfold, in the real world, Vilnius and Copenhagen airports are closed because of Russian-launched balloons and drones. The drones were launched from three Russian-affiliated vessels. One is the shadow tanker Boracay, part of a now 1,000-strong dark fleet. 

While we wait for the government to come to its senses, we do what we can. I speak to two resilience groups this week. They are trying to ensure that whatever happens to us in the coming months and years, life can continue in the UK. Good people working hard to stay ahead of the threat. While I am on my feet, Denmark’s intelligence service issues a warning as Russia’s hybrid campaign escalates. Europe’s agencies and Baltic ministers say that these can no longer be called ‘hybrid’. They are overt attacks. In the UK, Wes Streeting urges us all to stock up on baked beans. He is doing all he can, it seems, to give Labour a second wind.

In a few days’ time, the Royal Navy’s Crew 1 in MCM2 Squadron will be stood down. They have no vessel to lower the White Ensign on, no shore establishment in which to meet to celebrate 20 years’ service so accomplished that it earned them the name ‘Fighting Aces’. They were the crew that dealt with MV Smyrtos as she sailed into UK waters earlier this year. These sailors will quietly head off to other duties, on other ships, with other shipmates while we do our damnedest to ensure they get a proper send-off.

For Conservative party conference week, I will need my passport. I will be heading from Birmingham straight to Broadway in Manhattan. The late Sir David Amess was president of the Music Man Project, a choir of musicians with learning disabilities. This small charity in Southend-on-Sea now has global reach, providing teaching materials and music opportunities across the UK and, via sister organisations, worldwide. Their philosophy is that they should play the best venues in the world. I had helped Sir David in his successful attempt to secure the Royal Albert Hall. On the night they performed there he announced their dream to one day play their own show on Broadway. Nearly five years since his murder, they will be doing exactly that. The day after, they play at the UN, where we will announce an international alliance of disabled musicians. The past few weeks have been challenging for them. Setbacks were their bus being vandalised and their flights being cancelled at the last minute. They have cheerfully dealt with it all.

My week comes to a close with two fundraisers, for Conservative Associations and for veterans’ charities. The former is in Solihull; the latter at the National Memorial Arboretum. I’m always inspired to meet so many people working to make life better. If the worst befell our country, these folk would be first on the team sheet. My week has been book-ended with memorials – one to so many murdered by hate and one to those that hath no greater love.