Associate Political Editor @NewStatesman. Devout classicist, "indulgent editrix", at one point the only Ancient Greek teacher in South Korea
Nov 30, 2023 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
Back at the Covid Inquiry for Matt Hancock part 2 - and we're off!
Hugo Keith begins my challenging Hancock on his so-called "Pandemic Diaries".
"So stylistically, it is not a diary, it is re-pieced together and called a diary?"
"Correct. It is my recollections."
((You may recall I had exactly the same thought when I reviewed these "diaries" last year. Or, as I like to call it, this work of "self-aggrandising fan fiction".))
Matt Hancock: "The absolutely central problem with the planning was that the doctrine was wrong. The doctrine was to plan for the consequences of the disaster, can we buy enough body bags, where are we going to bury the dead."
Would love @LucyGoBag's thoughts on that...
"I’m not very good about talking about emotions and how I feel," Matt Hancock tells the Covid Inquiry.
From his book:
“What price love? I’ve always known from the novels that people will risk everything… We knew the devastating implications of our feelings for each other."
Jun 22, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The way people talk about the mortgage crisis compared to the rental crisis is so revealing. (Full disclosure: I have a mortgage)
Mortgage crisis: talk of the horrors of costs going up by hundreds of £ a month and the threat of people "losing their homes". Rental crisis: silence
Yes the rental crisis has been covered, but not to anywhere near the same degree of panic. The fact that renters have been losing their homes too for a year now, as rents sky-rocket (in some cases doubling), hasn't been viewed as the same kind of systemic horror show
Jun 6, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Following the Prince Harry stuff and I still don't get how anyone thought any of this was okay.
Phone-hacking or not, a cabal of tabloid journos essentially decided it was fine to hound and stalk and ridicule a traumatised teenager whose mum had just died, because he had a title
Like, how would they have felt if their kids' school sports injuries were splashed all over the headlines? Or if their child couldn't go to a pub or kiss someone without everyone knowing about it? It's sick, and no amount of "but royal privilege" makes up for it. He was a kid
May 2, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The really unjust thing about tuition fees isn't the fees themselves but a) the interest rate that makes paying it off virtually impossible, meaning it's essentially a tax and b) the subsequent refusal to admit it's a tax, giving grads a higher marginal tax rate than billionaires
A graduate employee with earnings of £27,295 has marginal deduction rate of 42.25%. Earn £50,270, and the rate is 52.25%.
The top rate of tax for high earners (over £125,140) is 45%.
Rishi Sunak, the UK's richest prime minister in modern history, had a marginal tax rate of 22%.
Dec 6, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
I really cannot stress enough how bizarre, insulting and immature Matt Hancock's "Pandemic Diaries" really are.
They are written as though a teenager was set a school project to write "A day in the life of the health secretary" and got carried away
newstatesman.com/culture/books/…
Every other entry is "I did/said this clever thing. Other people didn't realise how clever it was. We'll see who was right." And we, as readers, know what happened and are expected to go "Gosh, look at how clever/prescient/charming Matt Hancock was."
Reality of our ageing population: older voters block things younger voters need in order to work and pay taxes to fund things the older voters need.
Older voters them complain young are entitled and should "work harder" like they did. MPs indulge them.
Rinse and repeat.
I know people say don't fuel generational division. And that's a fair concern. But you can't fix the challenges facing the UK - housing, productivity, social care, the NHS, fertility - without looking at the demographic angle.
And the demographic angle is we're all screwed
Sep 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A quick word on the "there's a time and a place" objection to protest: if you're one of the 24% of Brits who believes we shouldn't have a monarchy, the passing of power from one unelected head of state to another is *exactly* the time to voice your opinions
Of course people will find it "disrespectful". That's the point. Protest isn't about showing respect. And if you start trying to curtail it on the basis that some people might find it disrespectful or offensive, very soon you'll have no protest rights at all
Sep 12, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
"Somebody might be offended" is not the bar at which police can interfere with someone's right to free speech.
If it were, we'd be in a very different world very quickly. And my suspicion it's not the kind of world any of us - even the most ardent royalists - would like
On a related note, I'm surprised police forces haven't been trained in how to react to anti-monarchists right now. We know preparations for this moment have been underway for years. Why the sudden panic at how to respond to people voicing their opinions?
May 4, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I've said this before, but. If you genuinely believed abortion is murdering babies, you'd do everything you could to prevent the need for it. Comprehensive sex ed. Widely available free contraception. Criminal penalties for men who remove a condom mid-sex without consent.
Free, high quality pre and post natal care. Free, high quality healthcare for children. Accessible childcare. Strong parental leave policies. Tough rules on child maintenance payments that were actually enforced. Workplace regulations that support parents. Better schools.
Oct 1, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
You know what would make women safer? If they felt comfortable reporting "minor" incidents like flashing, groping, harassment. If those were believed and properly investigated and taken seriously. If the men didn't learn how much they can get away with and go on to do worse.
If the justice system weren't so broken it took years for cases that are reported to come to trial. If police and the CPS weren't so overwhelmed cases got dropped due to workload. If there were support for women who came forward. If rape crisis centres were properly funded.
Sep 7, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
A response I keep seeing to the idea that pensioners should downsize from large expensive homes to pay for care costs: "But I've always lived here". As if living somewhere a certain length of time entitles you to have other people pay for you to stay there.
A third of young people will never be able to own a home *at all* thanks to our screwed up housing market, which is exacerbated by people not downsizing when their homes are too big for them. No one talks about millennials' "right" to a home. They'd be called selfish if they did
Apr 11, 2019 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Okay. This is not going to be an easy thread to write on Julian Assange. But here we go.
The Julian Assange saga wasn't my first direct experience with rape culture. But it was the first time I felt like my entire social community was consumed by it. The accusations first came out while I was at uni, and for weeks it felt like that was all anyone could talk about.
Oct 31, 2018 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
So I’ve been watching the William Sitwell Waitress vegangate scandal play out on Twitter all day. It’s been fun. I haven’t got involved, because really sometimes it’s more interesting to watch. But it’s late on a Wednesday night and I have thoughts. You ready? Thread time! 1/
This has become episode 20 million of the culture war. It’s the outrage army (mostly millennials and younger) who say damn right Sitwell resigned after joking about killing vegans vs the PC-gone-mad brigade (mostly older) claiming it’s an affront to free speech. And jokes 2/
