The media misremembers the Watergate scandal of 50 years ago in two significant respects: the first for an understandable reason, although one that ultimately is unflattering to the media. But the second misrepresentation defies explanation. Let’s take the puzzling one …
Sweden saved children from lockdown
It’s been more than two years since the world went into lockdown and schools, like most institutions, closed their doors. But the most devastating consequences of this policy are only just coming to light. Thousands of disadvantaged children have fallen …
Inside Wakefield’s corrupt election
“I have been a foster carer for over 14 years and have never sexually assaulted anyone. I am happily married to Janet.” Paul Bickerdike secured 102 votes when he stood for the Christian People’s Alliance in last July’s by-election in …
Middle-aged women don’t want sex
“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple,” wrote Jenny Joseph in her poem, “Warning”. “With a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me”.
She describes a dream of growing old disgracefully, as a reward for …
Will bishops stop the Rwanda plan?
“Retribution, it appears, is coming,” says the journalist Tom Newton Dunn. He is referring to the bishops in the House of Lords who had the temerity to collectively criticise the Government’s Rwanda policy. It “shames Britain”, the bishops said. Tory …
The long march of the French Left
In the hit French television series, Le Baron Noir, unifying the Left is the holy grail of the main protagonist, Philippe Rickwaert. His main obstacle is Michel Vidal, the vain and uncompromising founder of Debout le Peuple, determined to steal …
Kyiv’s war for independence
The square is an ocean of black and green tents flying yellow and blue flags. Their canvas openings flutter serenely in the breeze amid surroundings of organised chaos. Violence has come to this place. Torn up paving stones lie in …
How the RA uncancelled me
It has now been a year since I woke up to nearly the entire UK press in my inbox, wanting to speak to me.
The Royal Academy of Arts had just publicly announced that they would no longer stock my …
Pro-porn feminists can’t tell the truth
Should porn be banned? The question would have seemed a perfectly reasonable one during the post-1968 “Porn Wars”, when prominent feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon drafted anti-pornography ordinances that passed in major cities — before being struck …
What I saw during Watergate
Fifty years ago this Friday, the police of Washington, DC discovered a break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex. When the news first broke, I, like most people, gave it no notice. Within …
The scapegoating of the Grenfell firefighters
Five years ago, in the early hours of the morning, I was suddenly awoken by a ringing mobile phone. Sky News were hoping to speak to a Fire Brigades Union (FBU) official. A fire was ripping through a high-rise residential …
The new war on Islamism
Art and Islam often seem like oil and water. Other times, they behave like matches and gasoline.
It is hard to believe that more than 30 years have passed since Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The …
Is this the end of Chinatown?
Beneath the fluttering red and gold lanterns on Gerrard Street, drivers unload vats of rapeseed oil fresh from China, for cooking up batches of deep-fried pork balls and the like. In the windowless Lo’s Noodle Factory in a passageway off …
Why should lesbians have sex with men?
These days, a woman who calls herself a lesbian invites suspicion. Over the past 20 years, bars, bookstores, and festivals, once set aside for women attracted to other women, have rebranded themselves as “trans-inclusive” or “queer”, shut down, or gone …
The kids aren’t alright
A few months after I had my twins, I heard a phrase that, I was promised, would change the lives of me and my children, and only for the better: “baby-led.” I was complaining to a friend about my difficulties …