For most of us, a dull and cool summer may be something of a disappointment. But for senior figures at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and His Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service, it is something of a relief. Hot weather can make the conditions in prisons even more uncomfortable. Uncomfortable conditions increase the chances of prison riots. Prison riots, in turn, can take out of use a large number of cells, thereby reducing capacity. And currently, there is very little capacity within our prison system. Numbers published last week showed that the prison population in England and Wales was 87,012. The population is increasing. At the beginning of the year the prison population was 82,212; ten weeks ago it was 85,246. The ...

An alien, sent from his own planet, “Oitar”, to assess whether Earth is suitable for colonisation, falls down to the ground. There he makes the demand on every alien’s lips: “take me to your leader”. Mistaken for the emir of a wealthy Gulf state, he somehow wrangles an audience with the “pee-em”, a woman “as nondescript in dress and manner as any common walker”. Margaret Thatcher intones some platitudes about their “very ancient alliance which goes back”, promises to keep the oil prices up, and offers to sell him Mount Snowdon. She has already privatised the River Severn, you see, and sold the Channel Islands to France. This is the dystopian country Oi Paz discovers when he lands on Earth some ...

There was plenty to feel disappointed about after the Women’s World Cup final yesterday. From poor attempts at enthusiasm from the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales, to controversies surrounding the Spanish management and the president of the Spanish football federation, it's clear society's treatment of women’s football still has a long way to go. No one may know this better than Mary Earps. The England goalkeeper won the "Golden Glove" award for the best performance over the tournament. She was acclaimed on social media after appearing to scream “f*** off” when she saved a penalty in the final. Yet fans can't get a memento to celebrate, as Nike has refused to produce replicas of her distinctive pink goalkeeper's jersey. ...

Dr Charlotte Proudman calls herself “the Feminist Barrister”. She is known for outspoken appearances on TV, in magazines, and on Twitter. Often, she allies herself with the similarly controversial lawyer Jolyon Maugham. Often, she argues online with the Secret Barrister. She first entered the public eye in 2015 after tweeting about Alexander Carter-Silk, a partner at a law firm who sent her a LinkedIn message calling her “stunning” (the Daily Mail subsequently called her a “Feminazi”). Media noise can distract from the fact that Proudman, 35, is a practising legal professional. Last month she was on the front cover of Counsel Magazine, the monthly journal for barristers, talking about reporting colleagues who bullied her to the Bar Standards Board. As a ...

The Tory Party’s electoral woes are rooted in part in the consequences of Brexit. The vote to leave the EU and its consequences has caused a rift with younger voters who might otherwise have been attracted to the party. At the same time, the Tories have failed to satisfy many of those who supported Brexit, meaning they are receiving little benefit from having leant into the realignment. Now polling shows increasing regret with the decision, and dissatisfaction with how it has been handled. Many of the groups that first clamoured for an exit from the EU have found their hopes dashed by subsequent political decisions. Farmers and fishermen, the totemic industries of Leave, feel betrayed by subsequent trade deals that have largely ...

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been forced to distance himself from a former aide who called for the “full privatisation” of the NHS. Leon Emirali, who worked in Barclay’s parliamentary office as a media aide until July 2020, used a TalkTV interview to declare that “politicians with the guts” should devise a plan to “rip the whole thing [the NHS] up and start again”. Emirali, who is now a PR consultant and has previously stood as a Conservative council candidate, was asked during the interview if “part-privatisation” could help the NHS in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. He replied “full privatisation is the answer”, adding: “I think we need politicians with the guts to stand up and say we need to privatise ...

Rishi Sunak is probably doing one of two things right now: climbing the walls of Downing Street with frustration, or scrapping his “wedge issue” campaigns. Keir Starmer, on his mission to make politics boring again, is refusing to fight the battles the Prime Minister chooses, be it on immigration, trans rights or Brexit. The utter implosion of the Tories during “small boats week” shows the Labour leader’s strategy is working. Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, was supposed to be outraged at barges such as the Bibby Stockholm being used to house asylum seekers. He no doubt was – and not just because the desperate souls marched on to the vessel ended up being at risk of contracting Legionnaires' disease. But, given ...

Across the West, the left seems incapable of defining a politics for our age of insecurity. It oscillates between electoral caution to reassure middle-class swing voters, and impossible utopian visions to satisfy militant members. But neither strategy will deliver majority support nor engender radical reform. At a time when politics is small and inversely related to the scale of the task, the left should remember its radically transformative traditions, such as the postwar settlement ushered in by the Attlee government. Yet both in office and in opposition, the left is rowing back its previous pledges. Prior to his election, Joe Biden promised the largest nationwide social investment programme in support of the living wage and childcare since the Great Depression-era transformation ...