Nadine Dorries is a romance novelist, and The Plot is a romantic novel though it pretends it isn’t. Her novels specialise in the miseries of working-class Liverpudlians, among whom she grew up, and she is more wracked than any of …
Nothing can save the BBC
It’s Valentine’s Day, 1922, and we’re in a rain-soaked field in the village of Writtle, deepest Essex. Night is drawing in. The clock ticks towards 7.15. In a low, chilly army hut, a man in a thick tweed suit leans …
Welcome to the age of hoaxes
In February 2019, an indignant opinion piece appeared in the Independent by one Liam Evans, a self-proclaimed “comedy aficionado” who believed that comedians ought to be subject to criminal investigation for “problematic jokes”. The piece was derided by some as …
Why the trolls are winning
In February 2019, an indignant opinion piece appeared in the Independent by one Liam Evans, a self-proclaimed “comedy aficionado” who believed that comedians ought to be subject to criminal investigation for “problematic jokes”. The piece was derided by some as …