Politics
How Badenoch forced Labour’s hand on Mandelson
“Will there ever be a normal news week?” one LOTO adviser messaged yesterday. It has been quite a week in Westminster – and one in which Kemi Badenoch has succeeded in carving out the agenda.
Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is on the ropes. Questions over his judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador – despite knowing of his links to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein – have sent Labour into open turmoil. Some MPs are now privately calling for his resignation; others are opnely briefing against him. Only a handful of loyalists remain. “It feels like the end of days,” one Labour MP tells me.
And they now have the option for an unholy alliance as Badenoch yesterday – in a speech that was whipped up within 24 hours – made them an offer to join forces: “Let’s talk seriously about a vote of no confidence.”
A Tory shadow cabinet member adds: “You know things are bad when their MPs are telling me – a Conservative shadow secretary of state – just how awful it is.”
Each Conservative intervention has only made matters worse for the Prime Minister. At PMQs prep earlier this week, things felt routine enough. “We did the prep and asked the questions,” one person involved tells me. “The effect was where it all came down.” By forcing Starmer, on the third attempt, to admit that he knew Mandelson had maintained ties with Epstein after his conviction, Badenoch played a blinder.
“She did well to force Keir’s hand,” a shadow cabinet minister says. “Not only blocking his attempt to stitch up the release of documents, but also making him admit he knew about Mandelson’s Epstein connection before appointing him.”
“You could hear everyone gasp and see the Labour benches droop in despair. It was a genuinely shocking moment.”
A Tory adviser adds: “The last thing we expected was that Starmer would finally confess he’d known about Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with Epstein, at which point Kemi’s PMQs request for all documents to go to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) became the only real option for the government.” That was despite Starmer dismissing that very option at PMQs.
Inside Tory HQ, they knew they had spotted a moment of “massive weakness” when Starmer gave in to an opposition humble address (a clever bit of Parliamentary procedure) on his own appointment – the same one he had said he had “full confidence” in when Badenoch challenged him back in September. The deliberately broad wording extends the scope well beyond Mandelson’s appointment to include electronic communications and minutes of meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers, officials and special advisers during his tenure as ambassador.
That could include messages between the disgraced former ambassador and the Prime Minister himself, as well as his chief of staff – and Mandelson protégé – Morgan McSweeney.
“The benefits of having government experience from responding to humble addresses,” a senior Tory tells me, “and helped by the fact that half the parliamentary Labour party hate Mandelson!”.
One shadow cabinet member jokes that by the time disclosure could come around, McSweeney’s phone will probably be destroyed, at the bottom of the Thames somewhere. “But it doesn’t really matter,” they added, “the damage will be done”.
When originally planning the humble address, Badenoch “was absolutely clear she wanted to force Labour MPs either to collude in a cover-up or vote for total transparency”, a Tory adviser says. After Conservative whips “did a cracking job” leaning on Labour counterparts, by the end of the day No 10 had accepted ISC involvement – and “the Prime Minister looked utterly powerless”.
Tory chief whip Rebecca Harris was central to forcing it through, alongside Meg Hillier, who had called for ISC oversight, and Jeremy Wright, the ISC’s deputy chair. They were seen in intense discussions with Labour chief whip Jonathan Reynolds in the chamber. But it was the former government chief whip, now Leader of the House Sir Alan Campbell, who I’m told ultimately helped shepherd it through without a vote.
Those working in LOTO and the Tory whips’ office are credited with “delivering a masterclass” behind the scenes, alongside Alex Burghart – who led ono the humble address – and Neil O’Brien. “They are superb,” one colleague says.
As another shadow cabinet minister puts it: “We’re getting quite good at this opposition thing.”
The “cherry on top” came when, as one Conservative adviser tells me, “we realised we had enough MPs on both sides ready to hurl insults at Starmer”, prompting the decision to drop their second opposition day topic and devote the entire debate – until 7pm – to Mandelson’s appointment.
The adviser added: “The idea of Starmer being some sort of forensic lawyer must surely now be consigned to history. This is a man who chose not to probe Peter Mandelson’s original claims of innocence. Who chose not to probe the security vetting on Mandelson. And who has been taken apart by Kemi in two PMQs sessions dissecting the Mandelson appointment, to the extent his tenure in No10 is now hanging by a thread.”
Starmer likes to say his career was spent championing victims. Yet he appointed a man he knew had an ongoing relationship with a convicted paedophile to one of the most senior diplomatic jobs in the land.
What happens next is unclear. Many in Westminster expect McSweeney to go first, Starmer later – there is no obvious successor, no easy handover, and a set of awkward local elections to get through in May. But perhaps their fates are bound together.
As one shadow cabinet minister wonders aloud: “Does Keir think: if he has to go, I’ll go too?”
One LOTO source tells me Badenoch wanted her speech yesterday to make clear this was “not just a Westminster bubble story”, which is why she repeatedly stressed that “Britain is not being governed”.
“While Labour lurch around punching themselves in the face,” they say, “the world moves on at pace. And instead of keeping up with it, we have a government that is just not really governing. Not taking any big decisions or passing any important legislation.”
Amid the Mandelson maelstrom, not only have Badenoch and the Tory machine demonstrated their political competence; there was also a personal boost for the Tory leader. At a shadow cabinet meeting this week, pollster Luke Tryl of More in Common noted that Badenoch’s favourability is improving and the party’s polling has stabilised – with her now leading the Conservatives like David Cameron once did.
“Positive news,” one shadow cabinet member texts me. Not a bad way to end the week.
Nick Buckley MBE is the Advance UK candidate in the Gorton & Denton byelection. With the fight for the seat heating up, we thought it was time we shone a light on what Buckley actually stands for. And it’s pretty dark:
This is what feminism has done to women – turned them into whores and made them unhappy – 20% of U.K. women are on antidepressants.
Feminism:%20Myths,%20Lies%20&%20Ungratefulness%3A%20Exploring%20Ground%20Zero%20Of%20The%20Woke%20Virus https://t.co/1vxHNVOYJ2
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) October 26, 2024
Let’s get it out of the way, you’re going to see a lot of misogyny and racism, so buckle up.
Another woman-hating, racist wanker on the ballot
Buckley has been on some really fucking wild rants on Twitter. Firstly, he states women shouldn’t have tattoos, and we can’t do anything right:
Female tattoos are just a trendy way to self abuse – just like cutting, not eating, gender ideology, abortion and always picking wrong men. https://t.co/su3L2sTgx4
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) September 5, 2025
He fucking hates abortions and apparently all women do is hoof antidepressants and kill babies:
If we do not support women across the globe then how are they going abortion their babies, rely on antidepressants, neglect their children, hate men and contribute to the coffers of the multinationals??
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 28, 2026
And comparing abortion to the holocaust is absolutely wild:
We are killing our babies almost as fast as we are making them. Abortion is out of control and a shame on our society like slavery and the holocaust. History will judge us and it will not be pleasant. https://t.co/XEAkgJ1mIB
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 23, 2026
He really fucking hates abortion:
Feminism taught us that men and women are the same. Women are just as evil as men and commit horrendous acts – they just do it differently to men. pic.twitter.com/UgY75PFrVX
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 15, 2026
And let’s throw a little transphobia in there for good measure:
The Trans lunatics are back! The NHS, our NHS as we are constantly told, is going to be experimenting on kids – legally. All doctors involved should be stripped of their license and prosecuted for child abuse. pic.twitter.com/Q5ekCC2fJz
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) November 26, 2025
Policing
Let’s be honest, it’s not shocking at all that Buckley is racist. It’s almost a given with Advance UK:
This is a great example of the failures of DEI. We recruit rapists because we have to give blacks a job to ensure no one thinks we are racist. It started with feminism but ends with rapists. pic.twitter.com/3JXAQHU5Kq
— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 8, 2026
One commenter was quick to point out the case of Wayne Couzens, a white copper who killed Sarah Everard:
That’s never happened before. pic.twitter.com/8KRjEWrhgf
— catrellneff (@catrellnefff) January 9, 2026
The police literally ignored sexual harassment allegations made against him. Oh, and two other coppers shared racist and misogynistic messages with Couzens.
This isn’t an issue of political correctness; it’s an issue of the police ignoring the offences of its officers.
This disgustingly racist rhetoric is absolutely bullshit.
Currently, 97% of rape allegations are not even brought to charge in the UK; why the fuck isn’t he screaming about that? 6 out of 7 assaults against women are carried out by someone they know.
Why the fuck are we bringing race into this when it’s clearly just a man problem?
Advance UK throws another stereotype into the ring
Let’s be honest, none of this is shocking from a far-right party endorsed by Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk. But this sets a dangerous precedent for the trajectory of Advance UK. For a party that claims it’s not far right, it definitely seems like it is. And the leader, Ben Habib seems to fully support Buckley:
I am delighted @NickBuckleyMBE will be standing for @_AdvanceUK in the Gorton and Denton by election.
Nick is a proud patriot, local to the area where he also based his charity, Mancunian Way. His MBE was for charitable work.
Nick offers real change, not the same old or the…
— Ben Habib (@benhabib6) January 31, 2026
Luckily, Advance UK’s man seems somewhat irrelevant, but we need to be calling out these fascist wankers whenever we can, and Buckley is definitely one of them.
Featured image via Instagram
The post Is the English countryside ‘too white’? appeared first on spiked.
Rivals fans who’ve been waiting over a year for the next instalment of the award-winning series are about to have their patience rewarded.
And we’re happy to report that the new episodes of the Disney+ show look every bit as raunchy as season one.
The new trailer for Rivals season two was released online on Thursday evening, opening with cast member Emily Atack declaring in character as Sarah Stratton: “Welcome to the naughtiest show on television.”
Within the first 10 seconds of the new trailer, we’re treated to a snapshot of everything you’ve come to expect from Rivals, including a steamy shower scene, luxurious and decadent partying and the return of David Tennant as Lord Baddingham.
“Sorry I’m late, darling, I’ve had a terrible headache,” he declares, referencing that infamous season one cliffhanger.
Meanwhile, the minute-long montage also includes shots of fan-favourites Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson, as well as a snippet of new addition Hayley Atwell in character.
Take a look at the full trailer for yourself below:
A press release for season two previously teased: “Rivals returns in 2026 with even more wit, desire, and jaw-dropping twists. Power struggles intensify, rivalries deepen and ambition pushes loyalties to the brink.”
Rivals was adapted from the Rutshire Chronicles novels series, made popular by British author Dame Jilly Cooper, who died last year at the age of 88.
While Dame Jilly was laid to rest at a private funeral towards the end of 2025, last month, a more public memorial service took place in her honour attended by Rivals cast members Aidan Turner, David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Alex Hassell, as well as Queen Camilla.
Back in December, Queen Camilla also paid a visit to the Rivals set for a behind-the-scenes tour, where she was joined by members of the late Dame Jilly’s family.
Rivals returns to Disney+ on Friday 15 May.
Keir Starmer was torn apart by an audience member on BBC Question Time last night as questions over his judgement continue to mount.
The prime minister is facing pressure to resign from some Labour MPs after appointing Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington, despite knowing about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
As the show discussed whether Starmer should now step down, one audience member suggested this was the final straw.
“I think that since Keir Starmer became prime minister, he upset the pensioners by saying about the winter fuel allowance, then he upset the farmers, then there was the Angela Rayner scandal, and then Alli,” she said, alluding to the clothes the prime minister received from Lord Alli.
“I think how can people trust this prime minister when he appointed Mandelson and he knew that he had the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and also he has done so many U-turns on different policies,” she continued. “He has betrayed the British people, especially on disappointment with Mandelson, so how can we trust him and how can we keep him as a prime minister?”
However another member in the audience said “no major party is without scandal”, and that since July 2024 is the only time there’s been stability in governance especially with a shift in the international world order.
“I feel like right now it’s better off either keeping the party current or keeping the leader current to avoid destabilising the country,” he said.
A third audience member said Starmer “looks like a very broken man” when he issued an apology over Mandelson on Thursday.
However, she added: “But I can’t excuse what he did. I really was hopeful that he would be a good leader. I thought he had all the qualities. So if he doesn’t, then who does? How do we move forwards?”
Environment secretary Emma Reynolds defended the prime minister, saying he has dealt with international challenges “very skillfully” in a difficult geopolitical period.
“The security services did not advise against appointing Mandelson,” she noted, while adding that this process clearly needs to be improved.
Jacob Elordi has shed some light on how he tackled the Yorkshire accent for the controversial new Wuthering Heights film.
Among accusations of whitewashing and test audiences’ shock at a reported opening mid-execution ejaculation scene, the fact that the film’s two leads – Jacob and Margot Robbie – are both Australian has been less talked about.
However, when the trailer – and, later, a full clip – dropped for Saltburn director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic novel, we got a preview of Jacob’s take on the Northern English accent.
Speaking to the BBC, the actor has now revealed how he tackled the notoriously tricky task.
“I just practise it in the bath, over and over and over and over,” he said. “I like the ‘meks’ and the ‘teks’, instead of ‘take’. I like the ‘M-E-K’, ‘T-E-K’.”
Generally speaking, fans’ reactions to Jacob’s accent has been positive, with many putting their aspersions about Emerald’s take on Wuthering Heights aside to praise how he “nailed it”.
Meanwhile Margot – who plays heroine Catherine in the film – hasn’t gone for the northern accent for the film, instead adopting something closer to received pronunciation English.
Emerald has previously spoken about adding her own stamp to the gothic story, and her choice to include quotation marks around the film’s title.
“I knew right from the get-go, I couldn’t ever hope to make anything that could even encompass the greatness of this book,” she said.
“All I could do was… I don’t know… make a movie that made me feel the way the book made me feel. And so, therefore, it just felt right to say it’s Wuthering Heights… and it isn’t! You know?”
The director isn’t shy about provoking a strong reaction with her work, with Saltburn becoming a huge cultural moment thanks in part to scenes like Barry Keoghan’s bathtub moment.
Equally, her directorial debut Promising Young Woman picked up a slew of awards for its smart, feminist take on rape culture and supposed “nice guys” in the wake of the Me Too movement.
Wuthering Heights arrives in cinemas on Friday 13 February, just in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Following Keir Starmer’s recent visit to China, Steve Tsang offers his take on how the UK government should approach its relationship with Beijing.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer was right to visit China and work to put UK-China relations back on an even keel, even though the deals he secured were paltry at best. He should not have been surprised. What was surprising was that his government encouraged the expectation that the trip would benefit the UK economy when, in fact, more new investment will flow to China than the other way round. Moreover, the visit has shown that the UK does not have a strategy for engaging with China.
While putting relations with China on a firmer basis is to be welcomed, a more important question remains: how will it advance UK interests? Indeed, what does the UK want in its relations with China? And how did the visit fit into the big picture? The simple answer is that we do not know.
British policy towards China has swung and drifted in the last decade, as it is not guided by a longer-term strategic vision. When we are dealing with a leading global power with enormous ambitions, some clearly harmful to us, drifting is an indulgence we cannot afford.
For the UK to have a good China strategy, one that advances our interests effectively, we must start by recapitulating our core interests and compare them to China’s in its long-term global strategy. The most basic is over the UK’s commitment to individual rights and sustaining the rules-based international order while China is committed to repressing individual rights and making the world safe for autocracies. Focusing on our core interests will enable us to see where we should or should not cooperate, and provide an anchor for our policy towards China, despite changes of government.
The core interests of the UK are to uphold the values that make all British citizens free and able to fulfil their individual potential. It requires the UK to uphold democracy, freedom, individual rights, and a rules-based international order, the upholding of which should forbid China from seizing Taiwan by asserting, on very dubious grounds, that Taiwan has always been Chinese.
China under Xi Jinping, in contrast, has a global strategy that aims to make China great again, described by Xi as fulfilling ‘the China Dream of national rejuvenation’. This implies China taking over the besieged liberal international order and transforming it into a Sino-centric variant, based on the tianxia (all under heaven) paradigm. In Xi’s conceptualisation, the best of times in history were when China was pre-eminent, with the mythical tianxia order in place, to which all other nations look up, embrace and defer, thus delivering pax Sinica. China’s national rejuvenation is about ‘restoring’ China as the pre-eminent power.
Translated into contemporary policy terms, Xi’s China dedicates itself to forge a ‘common destiny for the humankind’ by ‘the democratisation of international relations’. It means China proactively cultivating support in the Global South, which consists mostly of a majority of UN member states and the bulk of the world’s population. China presents itself as devoted to advancing the interests of the Global South, reassuring autocracies they will be safe under Chinese pre-eminence. With their support China will make the UN and the wider international system put the interests of the Global South as interpreted by China first, ahead of the minority and privileged ‘democratic West’.
If Xi has his way, a new rules-based international order will replace liberal internationalism with Sino-centrism, based on Xi and the Communist Party’s preferences. Xi will need to mark the advent of Chinese global pre-eminence by a spectacular event, the most likely of which is for China to take Taiwan, despite American commitment to preventing a forceful change of Taiwan’s status. Despite its rhetorical commitment to peace, the fulfilment of Xi’s global strategy implies a major war if Taiwan, a vibrant democracy that is also a middle power, should fail to surrender. Such a war will have cataclysmic consequences for the world economy.
China under the Communist Party has never shared the UK’s core values, but China before Xi did not have such a grandiose global ambition. A fundamentally mercantilist China, as it was from Deng Xiaoping through Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, was one we could accommodate, but one that works to reshape the world after its image, as under Xi, requires a re-think. In working out a China strategy, the UK cannot lose sight of the implications of Xi’s ‘China Dream’.
Xi’s ’China Dream’, to be fulfilled by 2050, goes against the core interests of the UK. In the very least, the UK should ensure that a Taiwan contingency does not arise, as such an eventuality could imply Washington asking London (and others) to join its efforts to confront it, either militarily or with wide-ranging economic sanctions, or both. It should also work with democratic allies to contest China’s efforts to transform the UN with Global South support.
A China strategy for the UK should first and foremost be based on how we can contain Xi’s global ambitions so we can protect our core values. Preventing a takeover of Taiwan will require the democratic West to reinforce US military deterrence by collective economic deterrence. The latter is more likely to deter as Xi’s top priority is to stay in power and he can hold off invading Taiwan if he knows it will trigger an economic catastrophe for China, potentially unleashing forces to challenge his leadership. This can happen as nearly 50% of China’s external economy is interdependent on the major democratic economies.
There is therefore no need to create a false dichotomy that we either uphold democratic values or engage with China. The reality is that diplomacy is a desirable luxury when engaging with friends but an absolute essential when dealing with one with less than benign intents. Engagement is just an instrument. Economic ties provide leverage in diplomacy, though they always cut both ways. We must engage with China, but it should be guided by a long-term strategy, so we avoid being distracted by short-term gains that undermine our long-term strategic objectives.
By Steve Tsang, Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Institute at SOAS, London.
His new book (with Olivia Cheung) China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping will be released by Oxford University Press on 1 September.
Cervical screenings are key to spotting cell abnormalities and HPV (responsible for 99% of cervical cancers) early, preventing any changes from turning into cancer.
Since 1964, these screenings have happened through cervical screenings in the UK, in which a “soft brush” is inserted into a person’s cervix to collect cells.
But new research published in the BMJ said “HPV testing of menstrual blood could be a robust alternative or replacement to clinician-based testing”.
This could be promising, the researchers say, because people can “non-invasively collect samples at home”. The process also “reduces their discomfort and alleviates fear of pain”.
As many as 62% of people eligible for cervical screenings say they worry about discomfort, while one in three skip their appointment.
How could period blood help with HPV screening?
In this research, 3,068 women, aged 20-54 years, with regular periods, wore “minipads” while menstruating.
This was a sterile cotton strip added to their period pad.
They also provided a clinician-collected cervical sample, and an “an additional clinician collected cervical sample for laboratory processing” – like a regular cervical screening.
Researchers wanted to measure the respective diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of these different tests.
“Sensitivity indicates how well a test picks up people who have a disease and specificity indicates how well a test picks up those who don’t,” the BMJ said in a press release.
In this study, minipads had a sensitivity of 94.7% for detecting CIN2+ (precancerous cervical cells usually caused by HPV). This was not far from the sensitivity of clinician-collected samples (92.1%).
And while specificity was lower in the minipad tests (89.1% vs 90.0%), with clinician-collected samples performing better, the negative predictive value, or “the probability that a person with a negative test result truly does not have the disease,” was identical (99.9%).
Additionally, the positive predictive value – “the probability that a person with a positive test result truly has the disease” – was about the same (9.9% v 10.4%), and referrals for further testing were also about equal.
Can we expect these tests soon?
Researchers stressed that more research is needed. This study also said that real-world research should focus on factors like cost and accessibility, as well as ensuring the biomarkers they’re using to detect HPV help the tests to become as specific and sensitive as possible.
Still, the authors add, “The results of this large-scale community-based study show the utility of using minipad collected menstrual blood for HPV testing as a standardised, non-invasive alternative or replacement for cervical cancer screening.
“The findings of this study support the integration of menstrual blood-based HPV testing into national cervical cancer screening guidelines.”
There are two types of people in the world: type A and type B. Or so common wisdom says, anyway — of course, as with anything human, we’re all much more complex than that.
Still, sorting people into type A and type B categories can sometimes serve as useful shorthand for understanding ourselves and others. This is especially true in romantic relationships.
You might think that a partnership between a type A person and a type B person could never work, or would be fraught with tension, but this isn’t completely accurate.
Firstly, type A/type B relationships are all around us — opposites attract, after all. In fact, these relationships can be super successful. All it takes is a little communication.
Maria Korneeva via Getty Images
We spoke to two relationship experts to find out what type A/type B relationships tend to look like, and how to navigate some of the issues that can crop up in these pairings.
A Quick Recap Of Type A and Type B People
People often use the terms “type A” and “type B” in everyday conversation, but few know their slightly odd origins. According to Medical News Today, the terms were first invented in 1959 by two cardiologists whose research suggested that a type A personality may be linked to higher instances of coronary heart disease — but their research has been widely questioned because the scientists received funding from the tobacco industry. Still, the categorizations themselves do hold water as a starting point to understanding how different people work.
Anyway, “type A is typically characterized by high drive, urgency, competitiveness, and a need for control. The person who has a color-coded calendar and gets twitchy when plans change,” Sabrina Zohar, a dating coach and podcaster, told HuffPost. “Type B tends to be more laid-back, flexible, go-with-the-flow, and less reactive to external pressure.”
With that in mind, there’s a LOT of nuance to these categories, and it’s important to take them with a grain of salt. After all, there’s even been a type C personality discussed lately.
“Awareness of one’s personality is helpful when it comes to matters like job placement and relationships; however, only focusing on one’s designated personality type may cause one to underestimate their ability to adapt to circumstances,” Michele Leno, a licensed psychologist, relationship expert and host of the talk show “Mind Matters with Dr. Michele,” told HuffPost. “If you place them in a box, you may not notice the type A behaving calmly under pressure or how well the type B pursues and accomplishes goals.”
Also, there’s a difference between innate personality traits and those brought on by environmental necessity. “Type A may be dealing with anxiety that causes more hyper-vigilance,” said Dr. Leno. “Type B has perhaps learned to home in on their emotions and effectively manage underlying distress so that it is less obvious.”
And another thing: Nobody is just type A or just type B. “We exist on a spectrum and can shift depending on context. Someone might be extremely type A at work but more relaxed in relationships, or vice versa,” said Zohar. “The labels can help us understand general tendencies, but I’d caution against using them to box people in or excuse behavior. We contain multitudes, and ‘that’s just how I am’ isn’t a free pass.”
How Type A And Type B Partners Complement Each Other In Relationships
It’s called a partnership for a reason. When we have different strengths and weaknesses in a relationship, we can fill in the gaps for each other — making the ride easier for both people involved.
In a type A/type B relationship, “the type A partner brings structure, planning, and forward momentum,” said Zohar. “The type B partner brings flexibility, calm, and the reminder that not everything needs to be optimised. Type A helps type B stay on track; type B helps type A actually enjoy the ride.”
… And How They Clash
When someone close to us does things really differently from us, many of us find it difficult, and we may turn to judging them rather than seeking to understand how they work.
“Type A can perceive type B as lazy, unmotivated, or not taking things seriously,” Zohar said. “Type B can experience type A as controlling, critical, or exhausting. Type A wants a plan; type B wants to see how they feel. Type A gets frustrated when things aren’t efficient; type B gets frustrated when everything has to be a production.”
“You didn’t fall in love with this person so you could turn them into you.”
– Sabrina Zohar, dating coach and podcaster
But differences aren’t bad in themselves — the problem lies in how the type A and type B partners respond to those differences.
“They can clash when one tries to change the other,” Dr. Leno said. “While early dating can be exciting, as the relationship progresses, so will expectations. Requiring one to deviate from their natural way of being will induce conflict and possibly a breakup.”
Or as Zohar put it, problems arise “when each person starts interpreting the other’s wiring as a personal flaw rather than a different operating system.”
How Common Are Type A/Type B Couples?
Short answer? Type A/type B couples are super common. “Opposites do attract, especially early on when differences feel exciting and complementary rather than irritating,” Zohar said. “Type A might be drawn to type B’s ease and chill energy, thinking ‘I need more of that in my life.’ Type B might admire type A’s ambition and ability to get shit done. We often seek out what we feel we lack.”
You probably know where this is going: Those differences may not always feel as good as they did when you started dating. “What attracts you in the beginning can become what annoys you later if you’re not intentional about appreciating those differences rather than trying to change them,” Zohar said.
How Can These Partners Learn to Communicate Effectively?
It doesn’t matter who you are, ALL romantic relationships include major differences between partners — and a learning curve to navigate them effectively.
In the case of a type A/type B relationship, “First, recognize you’re speaking different languages. Type A communicates to solve, fix, plan. Type B communicates to process, connect, explore,” Zohar said. “Neither is wrong, but if you don’t understand what your partner actually needs from a conversation, you’ll keep missing each other.”
Both partners can work on how they approach discussions. “Type A needs to practice patience and resist the urge to immediately turn everything into an action item,” Zohar said. “Type B needs to recognize that their partner isn’t being controlling. They’re trying to create security in the way they know how.”
Again, as in every relationship, it’s important to be clear about what you’re looking for from your partner. “Get explicit about what you need: ‘I’m venting, I don’t need solutions’ or ‘I need us to make a decision on this, can we focus?’” Zohar said. “Don’t expect your partner to just know. Mind reading isn’t intimacy.”
Goodboy Picture Company via Getty Images
How Can Type A and Type B Partners Set Healthy Expectations and Boundaries?
The key to relational harmony is to really lean into what you’re both good at and feel grateful for what your partner brings to the table that doesn’t come as naturally to you.
“Divide and conquer based on strengths instead of fighting over whose approach is ‘right,’” Zohar said. “Let the type A partner take the lead on things that require planning and logistics. Let the type B partner take the lead on spontaneity and making sure you’re actually having fun together.”
In terms of expectations, you should both commit to understanding each other by explicitly communicating how you work and what you need AND by paying attention to your partner’s habits. “Type A: your partner’s relaxed approach isn’t a sign they don’t care,” Zohar said. “Type B: your partner’s need for structure isn’t them being uptight. It’s how they feel safe.”
In terms of boundaries, it’s “about protecting the relationship from your own worst tendencies,” Zohar said. “Type A might need to agree not to criticize how their partner loads the dishwasher. Type B might need to commit to showing up on time when it matters to their partner.”
More than anything, type A partners shouldn’t try to make their partner more like them, and vice-versa — that’s the surest way to strangle the relationship. “You didn’t fall in love with this person so you could turn them into you,” Zohar said. “The goal isn’t to make your type B partner more ambitious or your type A partner more chill. It’s to build a relationship where both ways of being are respected.”
Illustration by Tracy Worrall
4 min read
Lessons in political science. This week: arousal
One of the most important concepts in public opinion research is salience. All issues matter; some matter to voters more than others.
It will not come as a surprise to any regular reader of this column to discover that this apparently simple idea has been the subject of much academic debate. What exactly does it mean to say that something is important to voters? And whatever it means, how best do we measure it?
Traditionally, the approach has been just to ask people. Variants of the question asked in the British Election Study – “What is the SINGLE MOST important issue facing the country at the present time?” – are used in almost all election studies, either with pre-populated categories of response or allowing for free-form answers. They provide a useful measure of a voter’s sense of what matters to them.
But as with all subjective questions, how do we know voters are right? They might be fibbing to us or just deceiving themselves; we lie loudest when we lie to ourselves, as Eric Hoffer – no relation to Eric Heffer – put it.
A fascinating new piece of research has tested this by monitoring voters’ physiological reactions to issues, measuring both their galvanic skin response – that’s sweat to me and you – and eye dilation. Both are well-established tests for emotional arousal. When we encounter things that provoke an emotional response, the eyes dilate and the sweat glands kick in. The differences are tiny but detectable with the right equipment.
These objective physiological measures correlate well with the more subjective. At the same time as they were monitoring their sweat levels, the researchers also asked respondents to complete more traditional questionnaires, and in 90 per cent of cases all the tests identified the same issues as being the most salient. That is, the ones that people said were important to them were also the ones where they sweated most and their eyes dilated. In 85 per cent of cases, the same measurements identified the least salient issues. It turns out Saint Jerome, who said that the face was the mirror of the mind and that “eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart” was on to something.
That the eyes have it, as it were, is good news, because it means that voters have not been fibbing – to themselves or to researchers – and so we can, with appropriate caution, continue to ask them what floats their boat. For all that one can only be impressed by the rigour of the research, the thought that we were going to have to wire up future survey respondents to see if they became a bit clammy when someone mentioned immigration to them was not an attractive one.
Your body can betray you in other ways. Emotional arousal also causes changes in your vocal pitch. Based on analysis of more than 370,000 different speeches in the Danish Folketing – over more than two decades – researchers found that vocal pitch went up during important debates and when politicians were arguing with those from opposing party groups.
Note that the analysis involved comparison with an individual’s normal pitch level, thus taking into account that pitch varies by individuals anyway. These effects remained after controlling for the topic being discussed, showing that vocal pitch was a separate aspect of communication rather than just resulting from the topic being discussed.
Plus, the research found that rising vocal pitch could predict subsequent legislative behaviour. If their voice went up, it indicated an MP was about to break ranks. That’s one for the whips to note.
Further reading: C Tremblay-Antoine et al, How Can We Size Your Core Issue? Assessing Salience Validity Using Psychophysiology, Public Opinion Quarterly (2025); M Rask and F Hjorth, Partisan conflict in nonverbal communication, Political Science Research and Methods (2025)
Ever since Keir Starmer and his cronies blocked Andy Burnham from running, it’s seemed like Labour stood no chance in the Gorton & Denton byelection. To make matters worse, Starmer has embroiled himself in one of the most unseemly scandals of this century. And as you’d expect, that’s done nothing for Labour’s chances in Gorton & Denton:
It’s clear that #MandelsonGate is having an effect on the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Labour going down.
Greens going up.
It’s Green vs Reform – Labour are out of the running. pic.twitter.com/aMxUlbHUaZ
— Darren Parkinson 🌍💚💙 (@DarrenBar88) February 5, 2026
The Mandelson Affair
We’ve been reporting for a long time that Peter Mandelson maintained his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after the dead paedophile was convicted. We reported on it two years before Starmer made him the ambassador to the US, in fact; as did others:
This article came out in the FT over a year before Starmer appointed Mandelson
Starmer knew everything
Another powerful man who failed Epstein’s victims because he didn’t care
Starmer has to go. Now https://t.co/aSYRHCPbLk pic.twitter.com/ICn9OUWsX0
— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) February 5, 2026
In other words, Starmer knew all this when he promoted Mandelson; he clearly just didn’t think the media would call him out. And for a time, he was right. The release of subsequent Epstein Files made the story global news, though, and now this:
This is the start of the end.
From today’s PMQs. Starmer admits he knew Mandelson kept in contact with Epstein after Epstein was convicted of child prostitution… pic.twitter.com/XcQ9tWuia3— The Don (@don2345611) February 4, 2026
While Starmer and his most servile ministers are still trying to defend the indefensible, it isn’t going very well:
“I’m not in anyway blaming the vetting” says @MikeTappTweets, after having spent the entire interview blaming the vetting.
Tapp wants us to believe, btw, that vetting is just asking someone if they’re hiding anything & when they say no thats job done. pic.twitter.com/jYuY98M4lJ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 6, 2026
They also keep complaining that Mandelson – a career liar – lied to them (who could have seen that coming?):
Govt minister @MikeTappTweets defends Keir Starmer, telling us he’s a good man and stressing he was lied to by Mandelson.
The fact is Starmer appointed someone to a top job who had stayed at the mansion of a billionaire paedophile. I guess Mike doesn’t have a problem with that. pic.twitter.com/OoIzB6Fkkd
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 6, 2026
Some polls have the Greens above Labour nationwide:
🗳️ POLL | Reform lead by 13pts
➡️ Ref: 31% (+2)
🟢 Grn: 18% (-1)
🔵 Con: 18% (+1)
🔴 Lab: 16% (-1)
🟠 Lib: 11% (=)— Seats —
➡️ Ref: 370
🟢 Grn: 76
🟠 Lib: 72
🟡 SNP: 46
🔵 Con: 38
🔴 Lab: 14Poll: @FindOutNowUK, 4 Feb (+/- vs 28 Jan) pic.twitter.com/Zw3xOnVfT9
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) February 5, 2026
And now, as Green Party leader Zack Polanski highlighted, Labour seem to have accepted defeat in Gorton & Denton:
Labour is briefing that they know they won’t win the Gorton and Denton by election.
The Greens are favourites and are the only party that can stop Reform.
Lower bills, tax the rich, protect the NHS. We will win. pic.twitter.com/9eqISjNQ6G
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) February 5, 2026
End of the line
To be fair to Starmer, he is leading in some polls:
By 50% to 24%, Britons say Keir Starmer should step down as prime minister
2024 Labour voters are split, with 37% wanting him to stand down and 40% wanting him to stay
Results link in replies pic.twitter.com/NFiud6JQb4
— YouGov (@YouGov) February 5, 2026
First poll Starmer has been ahead in for quite a while.
Starmer knew about Mandelson.
Now he must resign. pic.twitter.com/EFV0Keh8g6
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) February 5, 2026
Oh actually, those are no good for him either.
For more on the the Epstein Files, please read our article on how the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.
Featured image via Pete Birkinshaw (Wikimedia)
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