Politics
The uglification of Britain – spiked
I live in Glasgow now, but I grew up in London. And I remember, as a teenager studying for my GCSE in drama, going to see Alun Armstrong’s barnstorming performance as Francisco Pizarro in Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun at the Royal National Theatre. It was a sumptuous affair, all vibrant, elegant staging and costumes, starkly contrasting with the dark themes inherent to Shaffer’s exquisitely harrowing narrative. But staring up at the National at 16 years old, I had a similar experience to thousands of people down the years looking up at the building, the gopping eyesore that it is.
‘Is this the best we can do?’, I wondered. We house the best of our national artistic endeavour in a multistorey carpark. And, if I had my way, not even our carparks would look like that.
These days, planners seem to promote ugliness as some kind of quasi-political message. Any British town will show it clearly enough: housing estates are poured in grey concrete, new towers go up that could be anywhere in the world, and ring roads – like the one encircling my own home in Glasgow – hem us in with an almost defiant lack of charm. It’s a truly soulless business, modern British urban planning, and has been since the middle of the 20th century.
These are not places designed to be loved. They don’t inspire numinous awe, like cathedrals of old; nor do they suggest elegant restraint, like a nice Georgian mews. They function, and we are increasingly told that that is enough.
I’ve come to think that ugly architecture and town planning aren’t neutral things – rather, they are symptoms of a spreading disease. We no longer assume that the environments we inhabit should uplift us, or delight us, or make us feel big, or make us feel small, or do anything other than contain us in concrete.
Architects and certain graduates will tell you of brutalism’s many benefits, of post-modernism’s philosophical elegance. But the desire for proportion, elegance, colour and harmony – for something that helps us to transcend the humdrum, rather than forcing us to give in to it – is not learned in privileged educational establishments. It’s inherent, a part of being human.
Our willingness as a society to provide beauty is waning. And when it disappears, it is the working classes who feel its absence most acutely. Ask anyone who grew up on a 20th-century council estate. It is ordinary people, stuck in modern housing, using those ugly carparks and civic buildings every day, who are left with the consequences of a political choice to uglify the human world.
Brutalism was no accident. It emerged through mid-20th-century planning regimes implemented by postwar governments, often influenced by left-leaning ideals. After the Second World War, many European governments were expanding the welfare state. We were doing so in Britain. There was a deep political commitment to provide mass housing, public institutions and civic infrastructure quickly and affordably. Fair enough – I applaud the postwar consensus as a moment of national pride.
But efficiency, uniformity and mass provision were social and economic priorities, not a recipe for something beautiful. Brutalism, with its exposed concrete, modular forms and minimal ornament, suits those goals. It was efficient, scalable and rejected what was seen as the decorative excess of earlier, class-bound architecture. Functional design could engineer a fairer society, they told us, and we’re still getting shafted by their sensibilities.
A similar pattern seems to have got its fingers into our broader culture, though this time perhaps led by tech bros and Silicon Valley types. Art and literature, and the magnificent inner worlds they mirror and enhance, are giving way to TikTok and all that rubbish. As a children’s author, I see this played out particularly harshly. Fewer children read for pleasure, and fewer families pass on the habit of sustained attention to language. I recently ran a creative writing workshop for a school. Many of the 11-year-olds that I was teaching had a reading age of six. Because reading, once a shining portal into other worlds, is increasingly shunned.
Something vital is lost as we lose the ability to delight in words and stories, to engage with philosophy and learn our histories. As with architecture, we are no longer uplifted, but are instead dragged down. And just as with architecture, the consequences are uneven. Some children, surrounded by books, will still find their way into that richer world. Others will not, through a lack of exposure, largely through their parents’ ambivalence.
These twin declines, intentionally uglier environments and less literary engagement, reflect a similar drift – a loss of confidence that ordinary life should be elevated. A well-built civic building and a well-turned sentence both signal care, intention and something beyond mere utility. They both brighten your day, and let’s not underestimate the importance of that. When we abandon any of it, we diminish.
Beauty, in all its forms, is not expendable. It is part of a life well lived. A society that stops offering it will soon forget how to recognise it, and, in time, stop demanding it altogether. It will be poorer for it.
If we house Shaffer’s work in a brutalist slab, we run the risk of undermining what Shaffer had to say for himself. We will stop being uplifted and challenged by great literature, theatre and art, and will instead be happy to slop around in online swill. This is surely not the world we want to live in, or pass on to our children.
James Dixon is a Glasgow-based novelist, poet and playwright.
Catherine Barnard and Denzil Davidson explain why negotiations on a youth experience scheme between the UK and the EU are so complex.
A UK-EU deal on youth mobility or ‘youth experience’, was always going to be fraught. Stopping free movement of people was the issue that clinched victory for the Leave side in the Brexit referendum. Yet many think that limited-time work/study opportunities for young people should continue. However, there is a problem with legal competence – the power for the EU to negotiate a full-fat youth mobility scheme enabling young people to travel, study and, crucially, work. This blog explains the problem and considers what can be done.
The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), the current basis on which the EU and UK trade with each other, makes only limited provision for individuals to move between EU member states and the UK. They must be providing services on a temporary basis as, for example, independent professionals or short-term business visitors, and the type of business they do must be listed in the annex. So, researchers or consultants can move but musicians and artists cannot because their professions are not listed in the annex. Currently, anyone wishing to move from the UK to the EU or vice-versa to study or work must rely on the vagaries of the national law of the EU member state in question. Hence the call for a youth mobility scheme benefitting the 18-30s as part of the UK-EU reset to make this easier.
While the UK and the EU share a vision on the breadth (and benefits of) the youth experience scheme, they have different substantive priorities. For the EU, it is access to UK universities for EU students on the same terms as UK nationals i.e. at lower ‘home’ fees (something that was not in the 2025 Common Understanding between the EU and UK). For the UK, it is the opportunity for the young to work, study and travel and a potential, reviewable cap on numbers of EU nationals coming.
The UK already has highly flexible, albeit capped, youth mobility schemes with 13 countries. Armed with a visa (on payment of a £319 fee and the health surcharge of £776 p.a.) and with savings of £2,530, the young person is free to come to the UK for two to three years to study, to work, to travel or to do nothing at all (and to switch between these activities), with no requirement to be sponsored by an employer. This is the UK’s vision for the EU/UK scheme.
By contrast, the EU itself has no youth mobility schemes. It has Directive 2016/801 which allows third country nationals to come to an EU member state for research, studies, training and voluntary service pupil exchanges, and to be an au pair, but not to work more generally. Individual member states have their own youth mobility schemes and it is the national mobility schemes which allow individuals to come to, say, France to work.
Herein lies the rub. The EU can negotiate a deal with the UK only in areas where it has competence. Its mandate, while broader than five years ago, does not explicitly extend to work. Further, Article 79(5) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) reserves to member states the right to determine ‘the volume of admission’ of third country nationals coming to their countries to work. This includes not just numbers but other conditions, such as a labour market test or sectoral limitations.
The EU’s lack of competence is one explanation for why the UK tried to negotiate bilateral schemes with France, Germany, Spain after Brexit: it’s the individual states who can agree to the terms on work. However, the UK was blocked by the European Commission which objected to the ‘differential treatment of Union citizens’.
Yet, the 2025 Common Understanding said that a youth experience scheme should facilitate the participation of young people from the EU and UK in ‘various activities, such as work, studies, au-pairing, volunteering, or simply travelling, for a limited period of time’. The Commission now worries that it does not have the legal competence to negotiate this ‘full-fat’ deal. It is dependent on the member states to deliver on commitments about work and the fear is that under Article 79(5), France, say, could set the figure on UK nationals coming to work in France at zero. So, it seems that the Commission has stopped bilateral deals without having the power to negotiate an EU-wide replacement.
Is there any way out of the impasse?
The legal basis (i.e. EU power) to adopt Directive 2016/801 was Article 79(2)(a) and (b) TFEU. This gives the EU the powers to regulate (a) ‘the conditions of entry and residence, and standards on the issue by member states of long-term visas and residence permits’ and (b) the definition of the rights of third-country nationals residing legally in a member state. One argument would be that the reference to ‘rights of third country nationals’ should include the right to work. The Blue Card Directive 2021/1883, adopted under the same legal basis, lays down ‘the conditions of entry and residence for more than 3 months in the territory of the member states, and the rights, of third-country nationals for the purpose of highly qualified employment and of their family members’. But that does not deal with the problem of Article 79(5).
If the Commission and the member states will not accept full competence under Article 79(2), another solution could be a framework or ‘mixed’ agreement, whereby the European Commission negotiates on matters which are under national competence but any resulting agreement requires member state ratification for it to come into force. This is complicated by the British desire for a UK-EU youth mobility agreement to secure youth mobility for British citizens not only to individual member states but enabling them to move across the EU more broadly, at least between two or three states, a matter on which the Commission’s competence is also uncertain.
Alternatively, there is a Canadian model: Canada has bilateral youth mobility agreements with 21 EU member states but no EU wide framework. An agreement could be made on non-work mobility between the UK and the European Commission, with a commitment that bilateral agreements on work would follow. But this may be unsatisfactory in two ways: first, the EU could obtain its ask on study without the UK ask on work being guaranteed, so some form of carrot and stick needs to be built into the agreement together with a review mechanism, and, second, it could mean precisely the differential treatment by nationality that the Commission wishes to avoid.
Some political flexibility and legal creativity are, therefore, needed if a youth experience scheme is to be agreed in time for a summit in early summer. The UK, the EU and its member states will need to understand that the benefits of a youth mobility agreement will be balanced and will be delivered by all sides. And since the Common Understanding’s other work strands in agrifood (SPS) and emissions trading form a package deal with youth mobility, the summer summit may lack substance if that flexibility and creativity is not found.
By Catherine Barnard, Professor in European Union Law and Employment Law, University of Cambridge and Denzil Davidson.
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You might think about it when you’re desperate for a wee, or when your Pilates instructor screams at you to engage your core – but other than that, our pelvic floor is a criminally unattended-to muscle.
Often ignored until a woman is pregnant or approaching menopause, the pelvic floor actually plays a key part in our health throughout our lives, as it is responsible for core strength, stability, and bladder control.
If that’s not enough to convince you to give it some attention, your pelvic floor also plays a big part in your sex life.
“The pelvic floor supports bladder, bowel, and reproductive health, but it also plays a key role in sexual sensation and pleasure,” says Samantha Marshall, head of brand at sexual wellness company Smile Makers Collection.
As well as being the absolute pinnacle of pleasure, orgasms are essentially just your pelvic floor contracting rhythmically, Marshall explains. When the muscle is too weak or too strong, this can cause problems with pain, lack of sensitivity, and weak orgasms.
But research shows that 60% of women have symptoms of poor pelvic floor health, namely: needing the toilet often; incontinence; and pain or numbness during sex.
Plus, just 22% of women do pelvic floor exercises regularly, and 23% don’t know how to do them. Enter: pelvic floor trainers.
These devices lead you through pelvic floor exercises, often tailored to your body’s needs, so that you can strengthen and tone your pelvic floor and maintain its health throughout your life.
Why use a pelvic floor trainer?
While the idea of adding another step into your wellness regime is always overwhelming, especially when you don’t know how to do it, exercising your pelvic floor is just as important as training the rest of your muscles at the gym.
“Regular activation of these muscles can help maintain strength and responsiveness, which may support bladder control, reduce the risk of weakness, and contribute to more satisfying orgasms over time,” Marshall explains.
“Just like any part of our wellbeing, looking after our pelvic floor creates a positive domino effect for long-term health. Building awareness of these muscles, through exercises, pelvic trainers, or even vibrators, helps us better understand our anatomy and notice changes earlier.”
Whether you’ve noticed a change in your sensitivity during sex, or simply want to set yourself up for a long and satisfying sex life, these are the best pelvic floor trainers to level up your orgasms.
Don’t make us download another app, please! Thankfully, this techy trainer helps you understand your pelvic floor engagement without the need for an app (or sharing your data) by vibrating when you’re engaging properly as a little treat to your G-spot. It has eight modes to give you something to work towards – just like a training routine in the gym.
Just as you’d lift weights in the gym, weighted beads can help tone your vaginal muscles. And it’s totally not a vanity thing: instead, it’s a way to get stronger pelvic floor muscles and with that, more powerful (and pleasurable) orgasms. Not convinced you’ll make time for them? Don’t worry, you can multitask wear them while running, walking, and even swimming for a bit of extra excitement.
These balls are also weighted, but come in three sizes so you can gradually work your way up to the strongest. They’re coated in silky silicone, so you don’t have to worry about forcing them in (although adding some water-based lube wouldn’t go amiss), which also makes for an easy clean up when you’re done.
Intimina
Worried you don’t know your own strength? Never fear, this Intimina trainer uses touch sensors to tailor a regime tailored to your needs. It’s anatomically shaped, so it doesn’t feel like an intrusive object (ahem) up there, and it will automatically adjust your program over time to help you reach peak pelvic strength.
Invisible technology can sometimes be a little off-putting, we get it. If you like to know what’s going on down there, this medical-looking trainer lets you choose your own setting depending on what kind of training programme you’re after, and then remembers it for the next time around. It even comes with a handy booklet to teach you exactly how to do a pelvic floor exercise – with or without the machine.
Honestly, we’re not adding anything into our routines if it isn’t easy and affordable – and this kegel trainer ticks both of those boxes. Not only is it smooth to insert thanks to the silicone coating, but the remote control lights up to show its five levels that vibrate as well as tone.
Crystal lovers, unite! This seriously classy set contains two rose quartz eggs to help you ‘channel your inner energy’. Beginners will want to start with just one in the single silicone egg holder, and progress to two for deeper muscle engagement. Best of all, when you’re done you can pop them into that vegan leather case (just make sure you wash them first!).
How often should you train your pelvic floor?
While you might stumble across the odd kegel exercise video on your social media every now and again, that is not enough to maintain a healthy pelvic floor.
“Using a pelvic floor trainer around 2–3 times a week is a good starting point, but it should fit into your routine in a way that feels realistic, whether that’s part of your ‘everything shower’ or a few minutes of intentional practice,” says Marshall. “Consistency matters more than intensity.”
It’s also important to pay attention to your body, as you can overwork your pelvic floor.
“Sometimes these muscles are already too tense or overactive, and what’s needed is relaxation rather than strengthening,” Marshall adds.
Just as important as engaging the muscles is remembering to fully release them. A responsive pelvic floor is one that can both contract and relax. Listen to your body – it’s always the best guide.”
A BBC correspondent has delivered a reality check to Donald Trump just hours after the US president announced a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war.
The US president confirmed a suspension of hostilities shortly before the deadline he had given Tehran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply is transported.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump said it was “a big day for world peace”.
“Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough,” the president declared.
The breakthrough came less than 24 hours after Trump had warned that “a civilisation will die tonight” unless the Iranian regime agreed to end the war.
However, it remains unclear whether Iran will now be able to control what traffic passes through the Strait of Hormuz, an advantage they did not enjoy before the war started.
On Radio 4′s Today programme, BBC US correspondent David Willis pointed out that Trump appeared to have achieved none of the objectives he had sought when the war began at the end of February.
They included the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability and the overthrow of the country’s Islamic regime.
He said: “Despite this ceasefire, the fundamental differences with Iran remain and they are perhaps sharper than when the conflict began five weeks ago.
“Iran’s nuclear stockpile remains in place, the theocratic government which President Trump urged people to overthrow is there too, albeit under a different management, and four weeks after he demanded their unconditional surrender, the president is about to negotiate with that same government.
“Against that backdrop, he now faces the challenge of reaching a more permanent settlement within the space of the next two weeks. In comparison, it took the Obama administration two-and-a-half years to negotiate the 2015 nuclear accord – that’s the one that Donald Trump withdrew from.”
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it would negotiate with the US in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, starting on Friday.
But while accepting a ceasefire, it said in a statement: “It is emphasised that this does not signify the termination of the war.
“Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force.”
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Just a couple of hours before the alleged two-week ceasefire between Iran and the US-Israel axis, the US bombed Iran’s largest aluminium works. A huge explosion that ripped through the Arak aluminium factory in central Iran was captured in footage broadcast on Iranian local media:
The US have again showed complete disregard for the health of Iranian civilians. Fumes or vapour from burning aluminium have some of the most serious health impacts on those forced to breathe it in, from incurable respiratory conditions, to bone degeneration, to Alzheimers-like neurological breakdown:
• Pulmonary fibrosis: inhalation of aluminium vapour or fine dust can lead to the incurable condition pulmonary fibrosis, one of the most appalling and distressing breathing diseases. Lung tissue hardens and scars, making it progressively more impossible to draw breath. Always terminal, life expectancy is usually less than five years.
• Alveolar proteinosis: in this disease, air sacs in the lungs become filled with protein. While symptoms can be treated – through distressing ‘whole lung lavage‘ – it cannot be cured and leads to recurring bacterial and/or fungal infections.
• Metal fume fever: acute exposure can cause flu-like illness with fever, chills, metallic taste in the mouth, headache, breathing difficulties and cough, along with underlying lung damage and blood toxicity.
• Neurological effects: high exposure can affect the central nervous system, decreasing neurological performance in memory, learning, attention, causing tremors and physical degeneration of the brain. Symptoms can be so severe that they are misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease.
• Bone diseases: aluminium accumulation can disrupt bone renewal, leading to osteoporosis and other bone-weakening diseases.
Trump ordered this strike knowing that a deal – at least a claimed one – was close, after threatening to destroy Iranian civilisation for ever. War criminal.
Featured image via the Canary
Oscar-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell has denied reports that she is in talks to direct a new reboot of the erotic thriller Basic Instinct.
Earlier this week, the Saltburn and Wuthering Heights director was said to be in negotiations to helm the new project, following comments made by its screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas.
However, as his claims became more widespread, a spokesperson for Emerald was quick to shoot down the rumours.
In a statement to HuffPost UK, her representative said: “There’s no truth in this. She is not involved in any way.”
Production company Amazon MGM Studios also called the reports “categorically false”.
During an interview with The Guardian published on Tuesday, Joe – who also wrote the scripts for Showgirls and Flashdance – claimed that he was almost done with penning his new version of Basic Instinct.
He alleged: “The producers are negotiating with a really interesting director – a Brit, Emerald Fennell – who did Promising Young Woman and Wuthering Heights.
“Her sensibility is exactly right. She’s someone who is not afraid of controversy and sexuality. So I’m thrilled by that. I hope it works out.”
After starting her career in front of the camera in projects like Call The Midwife and The Crown, Emerald made her feature-length directorial debut in 2020 with Promising Young Woman.
The movie went on to be nominated for five Oscars – including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Carey Mulligan – and won one in the Best Original Screenplay category.
Her next film, Saltburn, generated even more conversation thanks to its dramatic twists, graphic sex scenes and performances from the likes of Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike.
More recently, she put her own spin on the classic gothic romance Wuthering Heights, which proved to be the most divisive film of her career, mostly down to the many deviations she took from Emily Brontë’s original novel and controversy surrounding the casting of Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie as her Heathcliff and Cathy.
Spain’s prime minister has torn into Donald Trump for unleashing “chaos” with his war in Iran.
The US president agreed a two-week ceasefire with Tehran overnight, following more than a month of conflict.
The news came as a relief considering the president had warned a “civilisation will die” unless the Iranian regime agreed to end the war just 24 hours before.
Trump had told Tehran it had to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, the major shipping lane which transports a fifth of the world’s oil supply, by 1am Wednesday morning (UK time) – or he would attack civilian infrastructure.
Oil prices have already started to fall after the truce was announced but there is no guarantees that the global economy will settle back to normal anytime soon.
Spain’s Pedro Sanchez made it clear he is not willing to forget the mayhem unleashed by the US’s Operation Epic Fury.
According to a translation on X, the Spanish PM tore into the US for the “destruction” it has caused over the last six weeks.
He said: “Ceasefires are always good news.
“Especially if they lead to a just and lasting peace.
“But this momentary relief cannot make us forget the chaos, the destruction, and the lives lost.
“The government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket. What’s needed now: diplomacy, international legality, and PEACE.”
The Iran war has put a major strain on US relations with European allies.
Trump has repeatedly raged over Nato’s refusal to support him in the conflict, even though the alliance was built for defence – not to attack.
Allies also refused to send warships to the Gulf to force Iran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, with figureheads like Keir Starmer reminding the public that it is “not our war”.
The prime minister has been particularly berated by Trump because the UK refused to grant American troops access to British military bases for pre-emptive strikes on Iran.
While Starmer permitted the US to use its sites for defensive and limited strikes, Trump has called British ships “old and broken down”, comparing them to “toys”.
On Monday, he even compared Starmer to 1930s Tory PM Neville Chamberlain, who is remembered for pursuing an appeasement policy towards the Nazis before World War 2.
Politics
Callum Murphy and Luke Robert Black: From Canary Wharf and Canning Town – what younger urban voters are really telling Conservatives
Callum Murphy is the Director of Campaigns for the Conservative Friends of the Overseas Territories and is standing as a Conservative candidate in Canary Wharf. Luke Robert Black MBE is the Director of Engagement for the Next Gen Tories and standing as a Conservative candidate in Canning Town.
As Conservative candidates in Canary Wharf and Canning Town respectively, we are campaigning among voters who are often described in fixed terms: younger, diverse, urban – and assumed to be politically out of reach for the Conservative Party.
But on the doorstep, the reality is more fluid – and more promising.
Across East London, we are meeting a generation in their twenties, thirties and forties building careers in a modern, service-driven economy. They are renting at high cost, drowning in service charges, paying significant sums in tax, and trying to establish themselves in one of the most competitive cities in the world.
They are ambitious. They are hard-working. And they want to get on.
These are not voters who reject aspiration – they live and breathe it. The question is whether we are matching that aspiration with a credible Conservative offer.
For too long, we have not done so clearly enough. That has now changed.
Kemi’s New Deal for Young People represents a conscious shift back towards the priorities of this generation: home ownership, rewarding work, and the ability to build a secure future. Not at all departure from Conservative principles, but a sharper application of them to modern urban life.
It’s a genuine four-point plan we can point to on the doorstep – removing fiscal burdens on young people like Rachel Reeves’s graduate tax grab, helping to remove some of the costs of getting onto the ladder and celebrating young people for the vital contribution they make to our economy. That matters, because the pressures these voters face are real – and increasingly shared.
Housing is the clearest example. For a generation doing the right things – studying, working, contributing – the prospect of owning a home still matters, but feels distant for too many. High rents and constrained supply shape everyday decisions, from career moves to starting a family.
We should be honest about that frustration. But we should also be clear about the answer.
A serious Conservative approach means being serious about acknowledging the principles of supply and demand. This means building significantly more homes. It means building them faster, building them more beautifully, building them larger and building them in the places that people want to live.
Densifying gently in areas where there are transport links, job opportunities and cultural interests. Young Londoners want to live near the action. They want to live a reasonable tube ride from All Points East festival, Drumsheds or a good gym. They want to be able to enjoy this city’s restaurants, galleries, parks, theatres, cafes, bars and clubs. They want to enjoy the city they live in. They also want to acquire, accumulate and grow their wealth – don’t we all? So, restoring a property-owning democracy is not simply good policy; it is essential to restoring belief that the system rewards effort and allows people to enjoy their lives.
Alongside housing sits a second pressure: the sense of being overtaxed without getting ahead.
Many younger professionals we speak to are earning well by national standards, but do not feel secure. The combination of high living costs and the tax burden leaves them stretched, even as they do everything that should lead to progress. Plan 2 graduates feel this the most.
They are not asking for handouts. But they do expect fairness – a system where work is rewarded and advancement is possible.
This is where Kemi’s New Deal is politically important. A clearer commitment to growth, to lowering the burden on work, and to making it easier to build a family and a future speaks directly to lived experience – not abstract notions of what young people want.
And when that argument is made with confidence, it lands.
This is made even more salient when Labour’s taxation has catapulted the job prospects of young people into new territory – with the highest rate of unemployment in Europe – and Reform accuses young people of not doing ‘real work’, being lazy and working less hard than the nation’s pensioners. It’s a clear distinction that is becoming clearer every day – as a generation of ambitious, young, thoughtful people look for a party to place their trust in.
One of the most striking features of campaigning in our areas is the response to a pro-growth message. These are voters working in industries that drive Britain forward – finance, technology, construction, logistics. They want a country that is open, competitive and ambitious.
They do not want managed decline. They want opportunity.
That is a Conservative argument – and once again we are willing to make it.
At a local level, the expectations are straightforward: safe streets, clean neighbourhoods, and services that function properly. But beneath that sits something deeper – a demand for competence, seriousness and accountability.
That, too, should play to Conservative strengths.
Encouragingly, we are beginning to see the party respond – not just in policy, but in people. Across London, a new generation of Conservative candidates is stepping forward, rooted in their communities and shaped by the same pressures as the voters they seek to represent. This was shown last month as more than 180 under-35s standing as local Tory council candidates met to kick off their campaign.
That credibility matters. It signals that we are not just talking about these voters, we are starting to reflect them.What we are seeing on the doorstep is not entrenched opposition, but an open question.
Many younger urban voters already share core Conservative instincts: belief in aspiration, support for enterprise, and a desire for a fair link between effort and reward. What has been missing is a clear, modern offer that connects those instincts to their everyday lives. That gap is now beginning to close.
If we continue to do so – serious on housing, serious on growth, serious about helping people get on – then the assumptions that have long defined urban politics will start to shift. There is more to do – but the opening is there for Kemi and our party.
And if we sustain that shift, then areas like Canary Wharf and Canning Town could not just be places where we compete, they could be central to how we win again.
The new TV follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale is already being hailed by critics as a worthy successor to the Emmy-winning original series.
Adapted from Margaret Attwood’s book of the same name, The Testaments takes place decades after the events of the Handmaid’s Tale finale, but while time has moved on, things are still as bleak as ever in Gilead.
In this new chapter for the franchise, the action is centred around teenagers at a finishing school for girls being primed for marriage – which has led to surprising comparisons to everything from Gossip Girl and High School Musical to Pretty Little Liars, albeit with a nightmarish undercurrent.
Led by Oscar nominee Chase Infiniti, who recently won acclaim for her work in One Battle After Another, and Bafta winner Lucy Halliday, the show has already won a wave of near-unanimously positive responses from critics.
Here’s a selection of what the early reviews for The Testaments have had to say…
“In some ways, it is slightly lighter and brighter than its precursor – a kind of YA reboot. Set a few years after the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, it focuses on the next generation of Gilead women. But it’s a YA version that still encompasses bloody punishments, rotting corpses swinging from gibbets and indoctrination and abuse – with the youth of the protagonists making it even harder to watch. The iconography remains ravishing, though.”
“A story that feels fresh and vital and every bit as compelling as the original […] this is Bridgerton meets Lord Of The Flies; a young adult epic for the ages.”
“The Testaments is a triumph. The ten-part series achieves what few sequels or spin-offs do, to stand as an impressive entry outside of its predecessor and feel disturbingly familiar, while offering something new entirely.”
“A stunning follow-up […] The Testaments is a show about sovereignty and rebellion. It’s about having the courage to pull the rug out from under oneself, even when a soft landing place isn’t guaranteed. It’s a reminder that while the youth may be naive, once their eyes are opened, they can never unsee what they’ve discovered.
“Finally, it’s a stellar examination of the uniqueness of girlhood and how the patriarchy underestimates the power of female connection, often to its peril.”
“Not only does it succeed as a sequel, The Testaments is also a wonderfully defiant adaptation of the source material. The changes that have been introduced keep this story fresh in ways that better suit the medium of television without sacrificing the original tone or message that underlies it.
“This first season is about as perfect as a retelling of The Testaments could be, and it’s the best this franchise has been since The Handmaid’s Tale first peaked with seasons one and two.”
“There’s no case of sequel-itis here. The Testaments feels just as urgent as its predecessor – and just as darkly enjoyable.”
“Dystopian or not, there is always fun to be had watching young people navigate the trials of growing up. Aunt Lydia’s academy may be hell on earth, but it’s also Mean Girls with a dystopian twist.
“You have to admire the sheer chutzpah that the producers have displayed in taking a respected sci-fi text and turning it into a sort of George Orwell version of High School Musical – a potentially disastrous gamble carried off with style and assurance.”
“Plum-cloaked in a YA-leaning, high school drama that owes as much to Pretty Little Liars or Gossip Girl as it does to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments gives us an apocryphal version of the Epstein files.”
“There are terrific performances here, from budding star Chase Infiniti, up-and-comers like Lucy Halliday and Mattea Conforti, and known commodities like Ann Dowd and Amy Seimetz.
“But there’s something creatively suffocated about The Testaments, from the endless references to events featured in The Handmaid’s Tale to the cameos by key Handmaid’s figures to the various recycled archetypes to 10 episodes spent withholding a revelation I’m convinced every single Handmaid’s viewer will have already guessed.”
“On a school trip Lydia’s charges stand before a gibbet of hanged rapists and at a school assembly they scream for violent punishment against a man caught masturbating. But we’ve seen it all before, and it doesn’t feel shocking any more.
“Within the strains and tensions of a teen coming-of-age story there is a compelling sense that while the girls may be victims of male-dominated religious intolerance, they can also be complicit in authoritarian cruelty. But the show feels like another teenage drama set within an all-too-familiar landscape.”
The first two instalments of The Testaments are now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes coming every Wednesday.
Politics
Miriam Cates: Time’s up for the triple lock but there’s little hope of pension reform from the Right
Miriam Cates is a presenter on GBNews and the former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge.
I never used to understand the appeal of the radical left.
The combination of socialist economics and a rejection of tradition is a recipe for disaster, as has been proven time and again over the last century. But last week, for a brief moment at least, I experienced a pang of revolutionary zeal and saw why the extreme left, currently embodied in Zak Polanski’s Green Party, has become so popular with young people in Britain.
This revelation was delivered to me during a Reform UK press conference, where treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick announced that his party was now committed to keeping the pensions “triple lock.” In doing so, Jenrick slammed the final nail in the coffin for the hope of state pension reform from the political right.
Should the Tories (who still support the triple lock) or Reform, or a coalition of the two win the next General Election, Britain’s young people are now condemned to pay through the nose for the retirement of the wealthiest generation in history, while simultaneously being denied the opportunity for homeownership and parenthood that their parents and grandparents took for granted.
Storming the barricades seems like a perfectly reasonable response in such circumstances.
The triple lock is a relatively new policy, introduced by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government in 2011. It guarantees that each year, the state pension will rise by the highest of inflation, wages or 2.5 per cent. It is a mathematical certainty that the annual increase will always exceed the average of these three metrics, and that is why since in the last 15 years, the state pension has increased by 70 per cent, twice as much as wage growth over the same period. By 2030, the triple lock alone – not the cost of the pension itself – will add £15 billion a year to Britain’s benefit bill. And the price tag will continue to rise as the value of the state pension increases and more of Britain’s “baby boomers” reach retirement age.
The pensions triple lock is a policy that everyone in Westminster – politicians, economists, think tankers and journalists – knows is unaffordable.
Since pensions are paid from current taxation and the birth rate has been falling for 50 years, a shrinking group of working age tax payers is taxed more and more each year to fund a growing number of pensioners. The state pension is driving our economy off a cliff, yet no one in the corridors of power dares to admit it in public – though all do so in private – for fear of losing the ‘grey’ vote.
I had hoped that Reform would be different.
In so many policy areas, Nigel Farage has stood bravely against the consensus, holding his ground and winning the argument, forcing the Conservative Party (eventually) into more conservative positions. On Brexit, immigration, the ECHR and Net Zero, Farage steeled himself against establishment opprobrium, and shifted the Overton Window. The Reform leader has even had the courage to ditch some of his own popular but unsound policies – such as raising the income tax threshold to £20 000 – by explaining the need for fiscal responsibility. In recent months, both Farage and Richard Tice have hinted that the triple lock may need a rethink, rolling the pitch – or so I thought – for an honest debate. Farage is often labelled a ‘populist,’ but the British political right has been considerably strengthened by his willingness to risk being unpopular.
That is why last week’s triple lock announcement is so disappointing.
In departing from the Faragist modus operandi, Reform UK has ducked the challenge of using their unique place in British politics to shift the dial on pensions reform and force the Conservatives into a more sensible position. It was noticeable that in the press conference, both Jenrick and Farage reinforced misunderstandings about how Britain’ s state pension is funded, saying that retirees have ‘paid into’ their pension, even though this is untrue. National Insurance payments are not saved for an individual; NI is a tax that is used to cover the cost of current public spending. The average pensioner receives around 25 per cent more from the state than they contributed in tax and NI. This popular myth – that pensioners receive their pensions from a ‘pot’ with their name on it – is one of the major political barriers to reform and politicians ought to take every opportunity to correct rather than perpetuate the misconception.
Reform (and the Conservatives) also claim that the triple lock can be afforded by cutting spending on foreigners and the workless. But our national finances are in such a perilous state that we must do everything at once. State pension expenditure has reached £150 billion a year; annual spending on asylum hotels (which should of course be stopped) sits at just £2 billion. Universal Credit claims by households including at least one foreign national amount to less than £15 billion a year. It is not possible to reduce spending enough without addressing the burgeoning cost of the state pension.
Supporters argue that Reform’s commitment to the triple lock is born of pragmatism, and that the Party must bolster its position among older voters. Pragmatic it may be, courageous it is not. And it is certainly not in the national interest.
Yet judging by the arguments raging online and in the media this week, it is clear that many on the right see the triple lock and the state pension as untouchable foundations of government policy. Three main arguments are being made by so-called conservatives in favour of the status quo, none of which stand up to scrutiny.
Firstly, opponents to pension reform argue that a generous state pension is part of the social contract and so, even though the state pension is technically not a contributory scheme, it would be immoral for the government to change the terms. But healthcare and unemployment benefits are also part of our social contract, and we all recognise that it is up to the government of the day to set the level of NHS spending and welfare eligibility criteria based on what is sensible and affordable. When the current state pension was introduced, life expectancy was 65 and the birth rate was high enough to sustain our native population. In all other areas of policy making we recognise that times have changed; why ring fence the state pension?
Secondly, supporters of the non-means tested state pension claim that those who paid tax throughout their working lives are entitled to this state handout because of their financial contribution. But by that logic, all working age taxpayers should be allowed to claim Universal Credit. The welfare state is based on the understanding that high earners pay a lot of tax and at the same time are not entitled to benefits. It’s unclear why this should only apply to those under the age of 67.
Lastly, it is argued that pensioners deserve a well-earned and comfortable retirement as a reward for their working life. I have no doubt that most of Britain’s current retirees have indeed worked hard. But no generation has ever before – or will again – enjoy such lengthy and wealthy retirements, benefitting as they have from improved healthcare and macroeconomic policies that saw asset prices rocket. Are Boomers more deserving than, say, the silent generation who fought the Second World War, or the Edwardians who endured the Great War, and the Spanish Flu? Of course we shouldn’t begrudge anyone a long and happy retirement, but we must also recognise that the extraordinarily advantageous circumstances of many current retirees owes more to luck than virtue.
It’s as if a form of wilful blindness has taken hold of some on the right, preventing them from seeing the state pension for what it has become – a universal basic income for those over a certain age.
Apparently without embarrassment, some conservatives complain that Britain’s benefit system is increasingly socialist – with growing expenditure on asylum seekers and those who don’t want to work – while being unwilling to contemplate reform to our most socialist benefit of all; the state pension. The same people who argue that disability benefits should only go to those who really need them seem remarkably comfortable with millionaires (one in four of today’s pensioners) and higher rate tax payers (three million retirees by the end of next year) receiving a state pension. Britain’s pension system now functions as a cash transfer from poorer young to wealthier old, in a reverse Robin Hood phenomenon that has become known online as ‘Boomer Communism’.
The delusion is so potent that it has led some to claim that those calling for pension spending restraint are ‘far left’. We really are flying upside down.
Is it any wonder Britain’s young people are so demoralised? My eldest son turns 18 this year and, once he enters the workplace, a large proportion of the tax he pays will fund an income not just for poor pensioners, but for many who don’t need the money and are sitting on unearned asset wealth that he can never hope to acquire. If this is ‘capitalism’ then there are no prizes for guessing why young people might reject it.
In their press conference, the Reform Party pointed to polling that shows young people support the triple lock. But young people also support puppies and kittens; it doesn’t mean it will be a deciding issue for them at an election. And both Farage and Jenrick had some choice words about the apparently work-shy young, which is a bit rich considering they are the people who are being forced to fund a state pension that will be long gone by the time they reach old age.
Campaigning for economic reform should not be the preserve of the radical left.
There is a compelling conservative argument for addressing generational inequality, based on responsibility, opportunity and the virtue of living within our means. It is notable that Britain’s Reform Party is considerably less popular with young voters than their European counterparts. France’s Rassemblement Nationale and Germany’s AfD have attracted the support of around 30 per cent of young people in their respective nations; just 8 per cent of Britain’s youth say they will vote for Farage’s party.
Perhaps this is because Reform has leaned into Brexit and immigration, rather than issues of identity, ethnicity and economic inequality which drive concern among the young. Interestingly the newest entrant on the right – Rupert Lowe’s Restore Party – is deliberately directing its messaging at younger voters and calling on grandparents to make sacrifices for their grandchildren. Time will tell whether Restore can land their arguments with enough voters of all ages to make a difference.
Time is running out.
The welfare bill (of which around one half is the state pension) has now exceeded income tax receipts. Of course the very poor – of all ages – must be protected. But in refusing to address the burgeoning cost of state pensions, we are enriching the old at the expense of the young and condemning our economy to crisis. If that doesn’t radicalise you, nothing will.
Or perhaps you think we can just let the young eat cake.
The AA have decided to enter the war on disabled people, for some reason. The president of the car insurance firm, Edmund King, has accused disabled people of ‘misusing’ blue badges. And of course, the mainstream media were frothing at the mouth.
The Sun went with:
Number of blue badge holders hits record high amid calls for crackdown on cheats.
The Mail specifically had to mention disability:
One in TWENTY drivers now have disability blue badge as councils urged to crack down on misuse.
And The Telegraph went with:
Fraud fears as one in 20 holds blue badge.
The AA warns that up to a fifth of the permits are being misused.
The Independent is a funny one because it originally went with:
Call for blue badge misuse crackdown as one in 20 hold ‘lifeline parking permit.
But it changed the headline to:
Call for blue badge crackdown amid fears of fake and stolen permits.
The AA gleefully pile on disabled people
The story itself, is actually nothing to do with ‘benefit cheats” or ‘disability fakers, but why let that get in the way of a good pile on disabled people. It was instead about stats from the Department for Transport showing there are now 3.07 million blue badges in circulation in England. This means just 5% of the population are blue badge holders.
But, despite it being the Easter bank holiday weekend, the media didn’t miss a chance to shit all over disabled people again. The stats were apparently analysed by the Press Association, which is how the story made its way to all the shitrags.
The PA couldn’t just stick to facts, as that wouldn’t make a very clickbaity story. So they had to instead twist how small a portion of the country have a blue badge. Because let’s be honest, 1 in 20 sounds much more significant than just 5%. And it’s much easier to set doubt in people’s minds that 1 in 20 people actually need a blue badge.
To further sow the seeds of doubt the story also points out that in 2019 the eligibility criteria for blue badges changed. Where previously only those with visible disabilities qualified, now it’s open to all disabilities.
What’s missing from this of course though is that you have to also qualify for a disability benefit such as PIP, which requires horrendous amounts of evidence. You can’t just say you have a disability and get a blue badge.
The AA responds, for some reason
But of course it didn’t end there, they had to explicitly state that people were faking, and call in an ‘expert’ to back them up. This being the president of the AA. Even though the AA has got fuck all to do with blue badges or accessible transport.
Edmund King from the AA said:
The blue badge scheme is a mobility lifeline for millions of legitimate users and their families.
Our concern is not the absolute number of badges issued but the estimates that up to one in five badges may be used by someone other than the holder or authorised user. .
The thing is, the Department for Transport stats don’t mention blue badge fraud. And the only actual source for this ‘1 in 5’ figure are all of the articles quoting King on it. The only other reference before him is an Essex County Council blue badge investigations officer, who also doesn’t give a source.
It should be absolutely mindblowing that every single mainstream news outlet published this stat without verifying it, but then that wouldn’t suit the agenda.
As the PA has rightly pointed out, the department which records blue badge fraud doesn’t even exist anymore. The Fraud Authority was shut down in 2011. But that didn’t stop them using the 15 year old stat that blue badge fraud apparently costs £46 million per year.
Blue badge fraud can’t have been that much of a concern to the government though, if they literally closed down the department that investigates it.
Deserving vs undeserving disabled
This is bad enough, but then King makes it all even worse:
We would welcome a crackdown on illegitimate use of badges to safeguard the deserving users.
There it is, that distinction between who really needs support and who’s obviously just faking it.
Because as it always comes down to, who gets to decide which disabled people are ‘deserving’? How are we deciding that? Dunk them in a river and if they float they’re disabled? Drop them and see if they land butter side up?
And why does a president of a car insurance company get to have any say in that?
In the current climate though, it’s not hard to deduce what’s meant by ‘deserving’ though. The very narrow view of disability that almost definitely means you use a wheelchair and need constant care. If you can go out and enjoy your life you’re not disabled enough, despite blue badges being a big reason so many disabled people can get out.
It’s also not a stretch to assume these articles are also part of the recent trend of hating people with neurodivergent and mental health conditions. Which are coincidentally happening whilst the government is tryiing (and failing) to prove these conditions are over diagnosed so they can cut benefits.
The timing is also not a coincidence, as from this week new claimants of Universal Credit who can’t work will have their benefit halved. And Motability just announced that disabled drivers will have their mileage allowance halved.
Let disabled people live their fucking lives
The government can claim it wants to get disabled people into work all it wants, but attempted PIP cuts, Motability reforms and Access to Work being slashed say otherwise. If they truly cared about supporting disabled people the press wouldn’t be being used to demonise us every fucking day.
More than anything, seeing constant stories about disabled fraudsters is fucking exhausting. Disabled people are tired of being used as the scapegoats for failing governments which have allowed billionaires to destroy this country.
We don’t want thousands in taxpayer benefits, ‘motability mercedes,’ or free parking, we just want to fucking lives our lives.
Featured image via the Canary
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