It breaks your heart. Our rogue Prime Minister has just been thrashed by the voters in the local elections. Our Great Misleader is staggering backwards, waiting for the knockout blow. And what are the headlines all about? Keir Starmer having a beer and curry with a dozen Labour activists after a day’s campaigning during a Covid lockdown. It is bad enough that Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, should have put himself in a position where 54 per cent of the public now think he definitely or probably broke the rules, with just 21 per cent disagreeing. What was he thinking? Or not thinking? Still worse, he and his team have inexplicably allowed the story to rumble on for nearly a ...

Writing for the New Statesman last week, Marie Le Conte noted that “Britain, in 2022, does not know what it wants from London”. As much as I admire her I believe she is wrong. The rest of the country knows what it wants from London -- specifically from its government in Westminster -- and its demands are eminently reasonable.  First of all, we want economic growth in the country at large to match its capital. We want to maintain at least the faint illusion that we inhabit one country, rather than an all-consuming capital and its poorer peripheries. Economic output in London, measured in terms of gross value added per hour worked, is 30 per cent above the England-wide average, and 55 per ...

People are wrong about things almost every minute of every day. It’s human nature to misunderstand and misrepresent what we see in our day-to-day lives. We all make mistakes. But in the social media age, such errors can be amplified and spread, turning an honest mistake into something harmful. That is the charitable explanation of why wild allegations that misrepresent the findings of studies into Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccines are going viral on social media. The supposed "Pfizer documents" scandal that has been careening around certain corners of the internet for the entire pandemic has broken into the mainstream, becoming a Twitter trending topic for large portions of this week, after being given the oxygen of publicity by high-profile individuals like the ...

Certain kinds of events entice people to come together and watch a spectacle. Moments of significant political history? Absolutely. Terror and tragedy? Sure. The defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, however, should not be one of them. And yet yesterday evening I received a breaking news notification on my phone from a well-respected outlet, which read: “Actress Amber Heard takes the stand in defamation trial launched by ex-husband Johnny Depp – follow live here,” as though it was some kind of unmissable show everyone just had to watch. As if the subject of the lawsuit itself – allegations of domestic abuse – wasn’t difficult enough, the mainstream media and the internet's reaction to the case has been nothing ...

What is the price of a quiche Lorraine? What is the price of a pint of milk? And can either of these things be found in the Sainsbury’s basics aisle? These are questions that Boris Johnson and other Tories probably do not know the answers to – which is not very good given the Prime Minister fights election campaigns on the basis that he understands ordinary voters. Being out of touch with common people is one of the gravest sins a Tory can commit. Well, that’s not quite true – we all know, sotto voce, that many of them are out of touch by definition, but we look past that to have a good laugh. However, a Tory acknowledging that difference, ...

The unconfirmed leak from the US Supreme Court revealing a majority decision in favour of overturning the 1973 ruling in Roe vs Wade might be shocking, but ultimately it is unsurprising. Republican politicians have renewed their focus on an anti-abortion position in recent times, as a means of pitting themselves against liberals in the culture wars. Donald Trump was a prime example of this electioneering tactic – shapeshifting from disinterested pro-choicer to evangelical protector of unborn babies almost overnight. Those of us who have watched with dismay the attempts to introduce punitive heartbeat bills and brutal restrictions across various states, as well as the appointment of two staunch conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, will know that Roe has been ...

I sat next to an important, well-known at a fancy British film industry dinner recently. He asked me “what feminism was for” these days, and told me that he found some women confusing because they dressed in a way to make themselves irresistible, but then complained when they were attacked. As I opened my mouth to counter this extraordinary view, an excellent human called Judith leaned into the conversation to clarify. “It isn’t confusing if you realise that women are people,” she said. In this one sentence, Judith supplied the answer to his first question. What is feminism for? Feminism is fighting to get power-mongers and legislators to realise that women are people and act accordingly. Today (3 May) we woke up ...

Another Nadine Dorries interview did the rounds on social media yesterday (28 April), when she claimed twice to LBC radio that Channel 5 was privatised. Numerous commentators pointed out her error -- the network has never been owned by the government -- and her comments created yet more fodder for comedians who impersonate the Culture Secretary. Indeed, it is frequently asked in jest whether Dorries is imitating the Catherine Tate Show’s Lauren Cooper, the 2000s doyenne of “chav” culture.This all raises the question of whether there is a snobbish edge to the mockery. Dorries, who grew up on a Liverpool council estate, gets called out for her simple, sometimes two-word ripostes, and is derided for having bookshelves with (the horror!) ...