A recent La Vie meat substitute billboard advert points out that “our parents got the property boom, but we've got vegan bacon that tastes like bacon”. While many young people are sentenced to a life of insecure rent-paying after 12 years of Conservative housing policies that intentionally favour an older, wealthier, property-owning voter base, at least we can be comforted by the promise of an ethical fry-up. Indeed, an increasing number of advertisements are referencing the cost-of-living crisis: supermarkets, bars and even dating apps attempt to reflect the economic anxiety that many are facing as a way of attracting struggling customers. And it isn’t just housing that can be used as a form of sad advertising (or "sadvertising"). Rising energy prices are ...

What does a real refugee look like? Yet again – being a refugee myself – I ask this question.  A recent article in the Independent reporting that most Albanian asylum seekers granted UK visas are trafficked women has somehow become a prime example for the entire system being broken. That people are using this anecdote to try to discredit all asylum seekers is yet another example of the distorted rhetoric that has infected debate about the subject. Border Force officials have said since the summer that up to 60 per cent of those making the Channel crossing in small boats now are Albanians, a huge rise in the past two years. This week Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, claimed in the Commons that ...

Israelis woke up on 2 November to a news blast from the not-so-distant past. In the country’s fifth election in less than four years, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister still on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery, looks set for a clear victory. But the real winner of the election is Religious Zionism, the far-right alliance of parties on track to win an unprecedented 14 seats. They will be a powerful member of a Netanyahu-led government. According to the results so far Netanyahu, 73, who has spent the past year as leader of the opposition, can build his coalition with the support of the two ultra-Orthodox parties and the Religious Zionism slate. In Israel’s proportional representation ...

There is a lemon-coloured book burned into my memory – in part because of that acid colour, but largely due to the words on the cover: “ADHD Does Not Exist”. Ten years ago, when I was fast realising I had ADHD, this scepticism dominated any conversation about the condition. At best, acquaintances and family might concede that ADHD existed in a “maybe it’s real for you” way – much as you might humour a kooky friend who believed their house was haunted. I would bury my head in the books I couldn’t read, in frustrated response to the stream of tabloid articles by and about the book’s author, Richard Saul. Today we find ourselves in the reverse position: it would appear ...

If you haven’t tried travelling any significant distance in this country recently, then I wouldn’t recommend it. OK, it’s probably fine if you have a car and don’t mind driving. And, thanks to the generosity and foresight of Britain’s new prime minister in the Budget he announced when he was chancellor last autumn – delivered, as it happens, just days before Cop26 – internal flights actually incur lower taxes than ever. Hilarious. If you’re the kind of person who cares about their carbon footprint, though, I have some bad news: Britain’s trains are about as bad as they’ve ever been. Avanti West Coast – the company that, in a particularly bracing bit of private competition, is responsible for trains between England’s ...

Suella Braverman has had a taste for scandal and, apparently, she likes it. In the latest saga, she’s called Channel crossings an “invasion on our southern border”. But if you’re shocked, you haven’t been paying attention. These are no longer the days when such comments can be cast off as the spit-filled ramblings of red-faced Farageans. These are the days in which the Home Secretary herself dreams of jetting refugees to Rwanda in body restraints. The medium has shifted to the right, and the parameters of acceptability with it. “Right” may not be a fair characterisation: this is not a slide towards conservatism, it’s a slide away from compassion. What does it even mean to be a home secretary anymore? The brief has been ...

Matt Hancock has had the Conservative whip suspended because he will appear on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. Matt Hancock, the man who oversaw one of the worst Covid responses in the world while he was the UK's health secretary, is going on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. Matt Hancock, horndog star of one of the most dispiriting pieces of CCTV footage ever seared into the minds of the British public, is going on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. There are sentences that refuse to sink in. Yes, we have a long and colourful history of politicians making clowns of themselves on reality television. George Galloway’s infamous turn as a cat on ...

Elon Musk’s fan boys should note that SpaceX is not the only private company that has attempted colonisation of a foreign land. In December 1606, the Virginia Company of London sent three ships from England to Virginia with the singular goal of making profit. The indentured servants sent to the new colony signed contracts to work for several years in exchange for land and freedom. Things did not go as planned. Between 1609 and 1610, life in the new colony disintegrated in a Lord of the Flies-like fashion. Out of the 500 original settlers nearly 400 either starved to death, died of disease, or were killed by the Powhatan native Americans. Those who managed to survive did so by eating the ...