Politics
‘Fisking’ Yasmin Alibhia-Brown on Margaret Thatcher
Back in the 2000s many bloggers used the art of ‘Fisking’ as a way of explaining why a MSM newspaper columnist was wrong. The term emerged in the early 2000s blogosphere and is named after Robert Fisk, a well-known Middle East correspondent for The Independent. Bloggers began doing line-by-line critiques of his articles, quoting passages and then responding to each point. Someone started calling that practice “Fisking,” and the name stuck. Anyway, today I am going to revive the art by critiquing a column from the I Newspaper written by my good friend Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Yasmin and I have been friends for the best part of 25 years, despite the fact we agree on absolutely nothing.
This week, she wrote a column defenestrating the reputation of Margaret Thatcher, who I wrote a biography of last year. I’ve always known Yasmin loathed Thatcher, but I was a little disappointed when she declined an invitation to the book’s launch party last year. My book was far from a hagiography and many people on the Left of politics have told me how much they enjoyed it and that they learned a lot from it.
There is a lot of deliberate blinkeredness when it comes to Margaret Thatcher. There are few shades of grey, as Yasmin’s article this week shows. Instead of actually studying the evidence, prejudice against her masks any intention to see the other side of the argument. This is, to be fair, not unique to Yasmin. I may be regarded by many as one of the keepers of the Thatcher flame. But I am not blind to the fact that in her 11 and a half years as prime minister, she made errors. I mean, who wouldn’t?
I find it asbolsutley fascinating that the psyche of the Left is hell bent on blaming Thatcher for most of the ills afflicting Britain today. She left office 35 years ago, for goodness sake! You have to be 57 to have voted for (or against) her!
So when Yasmin describes her as ‘pitiless’ and the person ‘who broke Britain’, I shake my head in disbelief, not least because she’s buying into the Farage narrative that Britain is actually wholly broken. There are aspects of our country that are indeed broken – our politics, for example, and our public discourse. She can’t be blamed for either of those things, given that one of the reasons for the breakdown in discourse is social media. When she left office, no one had even heard of a thing called “The Internet”.
Anyway, on with the Fisking. My comments are in bold and italics.
Yasmin begins…
I saw Margaret Thatcher in the flesh for the first and last time on 31 January, 2008. It was at a grand Guild Hall dinner celebrating “Great Britons”. Artists, pop stars, Olympians, CEOs, politicians, and financiers mingled graciously. Thatcher, dressed to the nines and then 82, was getting a lifetime achievement award. Ecstatic, beatific faces lit up as she stood up. For her devotees she is Brittania, a saviour of the nation, whose trident and shield symbolised her indomitability.
Personally, I have despised Thatcher since January 1978.
‘Despised’ is a very strong word. It’s the kind of word which if I, as a man, would use against a female left wing politician, I would be held to account for. But this is typical. Dislike isn’t a strong enough word for the Left when it comes to Margaret Thatcher. It has to be more hateful.
Just hours after I had given birth to my son, she declared that people were afraid Britain might be “swamped by people with a different culture”.
I agree these words were clumsy and open to misinterpretation, but she wasn’t wrong, was she? These fears are far worse today. In the late 1970s the National Front was on the rise. She killed it off. It is a fact that when Thatcher was in power, she controlled immigration and the NF disappeared. No words of gratitude from Yasmin on that front.
In her glory years, my animosity intensified as her fundamentalist neoliberalism and punitive policies ripped the fabric of our society. But, escorted to the stage by David Cameron, she seemed frail and vulnerable. I felt a pang of pity. Which she would have hated.
Very true. The worst thing that can happen to a politician is when people pity them or feel sorry for them.
Because she never had any, for the weak, helpless, or needy.
Simply not true. There are countless examples (many detailed in my book MEMORIES OF MARGARET THATCHER) of her displaying acts of personal kindness to people in distress or less well off than herself. Having said that, especially in her early years she played up to her reputation as an Iron Lady, so unless you were prepared to look beneath the surface, it was easy to see her as hard hearted.
Her time in office was defined by arrogance and certitudes, self-belief and recklessness.
This falls into trap of gross generalisation. Name me a successful politician who has never displayed arrogance. This was certainly more evident in her final two years in office, that much I accept and make the same point in my book. Certitudes? She certainly appeared totally sure of herself and her policies, but as Charles Moore reveals in his magnificent biography, there were many moments of doubt and self-doubt. But of course Yasmin won’t have read Moore’s books, preferring instead to rely on her gut instinct, rather than the fully researched facts.
Margaret Thatcher broke Britain.
Er no, she didn’t. If anyone broke Britain in that era it was the trade unions through strikes, Spanish practices and utterly unsustainable pay claims.
The destruction was meticulously planned. The resulting follies, dust, scraps and shards are all still around us.
Easy, prejudiced words to write, but not backed up by the facts, as evidence by the fact that Yasmin doesn’t give any.
As are the get-rich predators who gorged on the deregulated capitalist system and underfunded welfare state.
A bit insulting to the millions of ordinary people who took advantage of the opportunity to become shareholders for the first time. What she calls ‘te deregulated capitalist system’, I would describe as an enterprise economy designed to encourage entrepreneurs to build businesses in an economy which rewarded risk takers, and thereby created economic growth. A concept alien to many on the Left, who seem to forget that it is the tax receipts from the wealthmakers who fund the welfare state.
There is an alternative view. Iain Dale, the conservative journalist and broadcaster, and author of a new biography of the former prime minister, told me: “Margaret Thatcher restored a sense of national pride and renewal after decades of decline. She transformed an economy beset by strikes and inefficient nationalised industries into one which embraced enterprise and entrepreneurship, something which this Government should learn from. There have been only three transformational prime ministers since 1945. [Clement] Attlee, Thatcher and [Tony] Blair. She was a signpost, not a weathervane.”
I do agree that she was steady and consistent and didn’t blow with the wind. Unlike, say, Keir Starmer who U-turns giddily. And several recent Tory leaders who were more flighty than flinty.
Actually, her reputation for not doing U-turns is not as factual as she might like. There are plenty of examples of her bending to her critics.
The public view of her is not what you might think. At the time of her resignation in November 1990, the majority view was that her government had been good for the country, though three in five people said they disliked her. But time passed. Those negative feelings subsided. Eleven years on, in another poll, more people said they found her more inspirational than Blair or the Pope, behind only Nelson Mandela and Richard Branson.
Enthusiasts today include Labour heavyweights. Starmer has praised the iron lady for seeking to drag Britain “out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism”. In 2024, Rachel Reeves, claimed her generation of women had been inspired by Thatcher. And David Lammy pronounced her “a visionary leader for the UK”. Who needs friends when you have such lovely foes?
Was the last comment really necessary? Margaret Thatcher broke a glass ceiling for women, so any woman would surely recognise the importance of that. My eight year old niece said to me in 1987: “Uncle Iain, can a man be prime minister?” That was the extent of her impact.
Though it was massively discomfiting, I did include Margaret Thatcher in my book, Ladies Who Punch, about females who reshaped the UK. I had to. She was the first elected female leader in the UK and Europe. As Meryl Streep, who played her in a biopic, acknowledged: “To have come up, legitimately, through the ranks of the British political system, class-bound and gender-phobic as it was… was a formidable achievement.” And her feminine, magnetic forcefield awed many, including France’s François Mitterrand who famously declared, “She had the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe”. But writing the chapter only rekindled my anti-Thatcher passions. I blame her for the state we’re in.
Of course you do. Right, let’s get into the serious rebuttal.
On this charge sheet I consider six items. There are more. First, the privatisation project. That did, admittedly, lead to modernisation and increased efficiency in the telecom industries.
Thank the Lord for small mercies for that small piece of recognition. But it wasn’t just BT. It was ABP, Britoil, National Freight, British Airways, Amersham International. British Airports Authority, British Aerospace, BNFL, British Waterways, Cable & Wireless… I could go on, but you get the picture. No one would suggest renationalising any of these privatisations.
But in most other sectors it was a disaster. Remember what that did to the railways.
Er, Margaret Thatcher never touched the railways. In fact, she rejected railway privatisation. It was John Major who privatised the railways. Furthermore, the Thatcher government doubled the rate of subsidies to the railways in the 1980s to the 1970s. That’s what she did to the railways.
And water. Many years of neglect and profiteering since has caused the avoidable pollution of our waterways. This is a real problem now. Two weeks ago, 30,000 people in Sussex and Kent had no water for almost a week. South East Water, the company responsible, issued the same old apologies and excuses.
This is far more complicated that Yasmin seems to think. The water industry was privatised primarily because the state could no longer afford to pay for the investment needed to update a Victorian system of waterpipes and sewers. The only way they could be repaired was to accept private sector investment. In the first decade of privatisation this worked like a dream. It was only when companies like the Australian banl McQuarrie started buying up water companies that things changed and the asset stripping and profiteering began. The Blair government could easily have given the regulator OFWAT new powers to stop what was happening in plain sight, but chose not to. As did the coalition and ensuing Conservative governments. This was a major failing of public policy, but it wasn’t privatisation that was the issue, it was the system of regulation.
Starmer has called the situation “totally unacceptable” and wants the water regulator Ofwat to review the company’s
licence. Yawn. Nothing can be done because the original deals conspicuously favoured the buyers and made it hard to hold them accountable. Energy companies are not dissimilar. Our money is going into the deep pockets of investors who can never have enough.
This is not capitalism as we once knew it. Before Thatcher, all political parties were committed to a balanced economy in which the NHS worked, industry and commerce thrived, and people had proper jobs, as well as affordable homes. National pride was built on real foundations – not imagined superiority.
Talk about looking back on the 1960s and 1970s through rose tinted glasses. There was no “balanced economy”. Mass unemployment was masked by industries which were only still in existence due to mass taxpayer funded subsidies, and many of them (Steel, coal, motor) had been driven into the ground by strikes, work to rule and general industrial blackmail. And to balance that, weak management let it all happen, both in the public and private sectors.
Second, the social housing shortage. The sale of council houses to tenants was a pivotal Thatcher strategy which created a whole new strata of homeowners and a swell of Tory supporting working-class voters. A good number of the purchased properties were then offloaded by the buyers at market prices. Fair enough, you might think. But these homes were part of the nation’s resources for people in need. Local authorities were effectively forbidden from replacing the stock. And so social housing shortages became an unsolvable crisis.
The sale of council houses was one of the greatest achievements of the Thatcher government, and even today, there are many thousands of families who remain grateful to her for the opportunity to own their own homes. Yes, it was a mistake not to allow new social housing to be built, and there is indeed a long-term overhang from this. But 35 years on, it remains a fact that Labour had 13 years in government to reverse this. And that government built fewer council houses than ever.
That too was intentional. Today’s frustrated homeseekers never impugn the architects of the current crisis. They blame migrants or each other when they should blame Thatcher.
Had we not had such high levels of immigration in recent years, and had we not had government that failed to build the infrastructure to cope with the extra numbers, things might be different. But that cannot be laid at the door of Margaret Thatcher, or at least most of it can’t.
Third, workers’ rights. Thatcher’s war on unions was relentless. Right-wing media outlets were her mercenaries. Union action was described as the “British disease”.
Miners had gone on strike in 1972 and 1974, and got what they demanded. Thatcher became the Tory leader and won the 1979 election. The miners’ strike between 1984 and 1985 gave her the opportunity to crush upstart trade unions and demonstrate her indomitability. Arthur Scargill, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, cared about the workers, but did not call a national ballot which would have conferred legitimacy on the strike. That was tactically injudicious. The strikers were violently suppressed. And impoverished. It was a dark chapter in British history.
Well that gave me a good laugh. Arthur Scargill “cared about the workers”. What a risible thing to say. The only thing Scargill cared about was using his members to overthrow the Thatcher government. His failure to call a national ballot was not just “tactically injudicious”, it divided his own workers down the middle. Let’s also remember that it wasn’t Thatcher who closed the most pits because they were uneconomic. It was Harold Wilson. In the 11 years of the Wilson and then Wilson/Callaghan governments 285 pits were closed. Between 1979 and 1984 the Thatcher government closed 47 pits. During the 11 years of the Thatcher government, 120 pits were closed. I rest my case.
In 1984, Orgreave, a mining town near Sheffield, experienced some of the worst clashes ever in British industrial history. Picketers were charged with riot and disorder – crimes punishable by life imprisonment. Evidence given by the police was deemed unreliable and the trials collapsed. An inquiry is continuing today.
Some past union bureaucrats overreached their roles and created chaos. That was self-defeating. They gave union-bashing media outlets the opportunity to turn public opinion against unionised workers. Thankfully, a new generation of union leaders – Mick Lynch, for example, and Sharon Graham of Unite – have regained respect. But union membership is still low. Zero-hour contracts, food banks and depleted towns are Thatcher’s legacies.
Fact. There were no foodbanks in Thatcher’s Britain. They started under Blair in 2000, ten years after Thatcher left office. Zero hours contracts didn’t really exist under Margaret Thatcher. They started becoming increasingly used in the 2000s under the then Labour government, but only 0.6% of employees were on them. In 2025 that figure had risen to 3 per cent. Yet from the way the Left talk, you’d imagine most people were on them. And let’s remember, many people like them because of their flexibility – students, single mothers, carers. And as for depleted towns? I am trying to fathom why the state of our high streets in 2025 is down to Margaret Thatcher. I still can’t work that one out.
Fourth, we can add the brutal curtailment of manufacturing sector – once the mainstay of the country. That was economic and societal vandalism. The collective spirit of factory workers of all backgrounds was shattered. They became poorer, more segregated.
Again, a myth. As I have argued above, some of these heavy industries were masters of their own decline. In 1979 we were the 6th or 7th largest manufacturing country in the world. In 1990 we were the 7th or 8th, so declining one place in the league table. Most people think we have plummeted since then, but this is not true. We remain the 11th largest manufacturing nation in the world by both output and value, but we have been overtaken by South Korea, Mexico and Brazil. We are one place below France.
Expansive social bonds were anathema to this PM. Remember her words: “Too many children and people have been given to understand, ‘I have a problem, it is the government’s job to cope with it!’, or, ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’, ‘I am homeless, the government must house me!’, and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing. There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves”.
At least Yasmin has the decency to give the full quote. And in doing so demonstrates that Margaret Thatcher had a very good point, which has been utterly warped by her critics.
On to the fifth indictment. Progressive movements for equality and justice were besieged by Thatcher and her devotees. LGBT+ rights have now been mainstreamed. But in 1988, Section 28 in the Local Government Act banned the “promotion of homosexuality”.
“Besieged”, eh? Again, that gave me a good laugh. All Yasmin can do is quote one example to prove a massive allegation. I make no defence of Section 28, but Charles Moore argues in his biography that Thatcher was never personally in favour of it, but felt she owed a favour to its proponent, Dame Jill Knight. Perhaps Yasmin didn’t know that Margaret Thatcher was one of a handful of Tory MPs to vote for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.
Sixth, white nationalism. Thatcher’s exaltation of Britain’s imperial history was a ploy and a cover. It knowingly excluded Brits of colour with roots in the old colonies and duped patriots. For example, in September 1988, in a speech in Bruges, she said this: “From our perspective today surely what strikes us most is our common experience. For instance, the story of how Europeans explored and colonised — and yes, without apology — civilised much of the world is an extraordinary tale of talent, skill and courage.” Such evocations thrilled nostalgic natives. Distracted by Rule Britannia fantasies, they didn’t notice the country’s assets were being gobbled up by foreign-owned companies.
Oh dear. This is just a reiteration of the Left wing narrative that the British Empire was all bad and there was nothing positive about it at all. Yasmin’s phrase ‘white nationalism’ says it all. One of her first foreign policy achievements was the Lancaster House agreement bringing black majority rule to Zimbabwe. She allowed Lord Carrington to get on with it, but the achievement was in great part hers. Yasmin will deny this to her dying day, but in my book I detail how Margaret Thatcher was pivotal in helping bring about an end to Apartheid. It’s the one chapter I really wish Yasmin would read. Nelson Mandela also thanked her for assisting in his release, something Yasmin will presumably never acknowledge because it doesn’t suit the narrative.
In 1989, the late Hugo Young, an astute political observer wrote One of Us, a deeply researched biography of Thatcher, her upbringing, her domestic life, her mind, her prejudices, her insights and obstinacies, her successes and failures. It ends with these lines: “She had done so much. She was the scourge, the aversion therapist, the creative counterforce. But the nation remained the same nation. She succeeded in the end because she was not one of us. And she went for the same reason.”
Several close colleagues concluded she had to go, because she had alienated too many. While her acolytes mourned her departure, others felt, as do I, that our first female PM had damaged too many people and broke the nation she claimed to love. Under her, the United Kingdom felt disunited and unequal, its peoples hopelessly divided.
This conclusion is seen through the prism of equality being the be all and end all, which it undoubtedly is for those on the Left. For those of us on the right, equality of opportunity is far more important than equality of outcome. And there can be no doubt that she offered millions of people huge opportunities.
This is not an academic exercise looking at the distant past. An honest reckoning with the Thatcher era is necessary if the country is to be restored and renewed. Will the Labour Government find the courage to do that? Can it free us from her legacy and open up the future?
An honest reckoning is indeed, what is called for. I think I achieved that in my book, but I am afraid Yasmin does not achieve that in her article. Those with closed minds on a particular issue rarely can.
But Yasmin, I still love you and you’re aq great, loyal friend!
You can buy my biography of Margaret Thatcher HERE.
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Although we’ve come a long way as a culture in destigmatising therapy, there are still many lingering myths and misunderstandings that shape how people think about the process.
From incorrect beliefs about how therapy is “supposed” to work to misguided assumptions about what it means to seek mental health treatment in the first place, these misconceptions can keep people from pursuing this helpful option – or leave them disappointed when it doesn’t unfold the way they imagined.
Below, mental health professionals break down some common misconceptions about therapy and what the experience is actually like.
Misconception: Going to therapy means something is wrong with you.
“A persistent misconception is that going to therapy means something is wrong with you, or that you are weak,” Dr. Sue Varma, a psychiatrist and author of “Practical Optimism,” told HuffPost.
She – like most mental health professionals – doesn’t see it that way, however.
“It takes courage to reflect honestly on your life, your patterns and your relationships,” Varma said. “In my experience, the people who do that work are some of the bravest people I know.”
Misconception: Therapy is only for extreme or acute emotional times.
Another common misconception is that you should only seek therapy in times of extreme distress or a spiral.
“Many people come through my door for the first time immediately following a loss or major life disruption like a breakup,” said psychotherapist Meg Gitlin. “This is OK and is often a motivating factor for seeking help. However, there are people who come to therapy when they have ‘hit rock bottom’ emotionally and then disappear when things are good until the next fire.”
Although people can seek therapy intermittently or to address short-term issues, Gitlin finds the most successful therapy experiences are not defined solely by catastrophic events.
“My experience as a therapist tells me that while therapy can feel particularly helpful during crisis management, people are actually able to understand and process much more when things are going well for them,” she said. “I would encourage people to stick with therapy when things calm down, and they can approach their issues from a thoughtful non-alarmist stance.”
Misconception: There will be a big epiphany moment.
“Another misconception is that therapy always has to involve dramatic breakthroughs,” Varma said. “Sometimes the work is quieter. Simply bringing problems into the open, gaining insight, increasing awareness and trusting your own intelligence to manage challenges more effectively can be deeply meaningful.”
She noted that a core goal of therapy is to build flexibility in how you think, relate to others and respond to stress. The process can help you understand different people’s perspectives, strengthen self-compassion and empathy, and learn healthier ways to cope with difficulties, express emotions and deepen relationships.
Fiordaliso via Getty Images
“Finding out how to improve our mental state and reduce our suffering is a process,” said therapist Nina Tomkiewicz.
“Life is made up of small moments, so ‘small wins’ are the necessary building blocks of ‘big change.’ I always love celebrating small wins with my clients – I think this is something we just aren’t taught to do in this society. We see big, sweeping accomplishments celebrated in the media, and we think that’s how our life should go.”
But what’s more important are the small moments when you start to feel like you get it and see improvements that show what you’re doing is working.
Misconception: Medication can replace the need for therapy.
“Many clients believe that if they begin taking medication, their problems will be resolved,” said Jill Lamar, a licensed professional counsellor with Thriveworks.
“Yes, medication in certain circumstances can be a helpful part of treatment, and often those clients feel better with it. But evidence shows that medication plus talk therapy is the combination that provides the best chance of success.”
She noted that therapists want to see their clients feel better, and medication can be a great partner in treatment.
“Talk therapy provides an opportunity to discover and change destructive attitudes and behaviours that drive the negative feelings, and can provide resolution as opposed to merely changing one’s brain chemistry,” Lamar said.
Misconception: You should feel change quickly.
“It takes time for a person to learn how to best use the therapy space,” Tomkiewicz said. “Especially if you’ve never been to see a therapist before, you shouldn’t expect to know exactly what to do or how to be or what to share.”
She emphasised that people make lots of mistakes and take time to figure things out at the beginning of their therapy journeys.
“In the beginning, it’s OK to make mistakes and figure things out,” Tomkiewicz said. “I’ve worked with clients before who came to our initial sessions without knowing what to talk about or where to begin. But over time, they became more aware of the exact topics they wanted to bring into the therapy space to review and change.”
Over time, she added, people often become more empowered with their change process – noticing problems during the week, taking the steps they can and then bringing the rest to sessions to figure it out with their therapist.
“We also need to give ourselves the grace to practice figuring out how to be satisfied with our therapy sessions,” Tomkiewicz said.
Varma similarly advised against rushing the therapy process or giving up too quickly.
“I encourage people to read a therapist’s bio, see whether their approach resonates and check whether they specialise in what you are actually seeking help for – whether that is couples or family work, anxiety, depression, OCD, substance use, eating disorders or another concern,” Varma said.
“It is also completely appropriate to ask therapists questions about their training and approach, and to use the first one or two sessions simply to see if the fit feels right.”
Misconception: Everything will focus on your childhood.
“Another misconception about therapy is that most of the work will be surrounding a client’s childhood,” Gitlin said. “While it’s important to me to obtain and consider a complete oral history about a client’s upbringing, I think therapy is just as effectively focused on the present and future of the client.”
While exploring early experiences can be meaningful, many therapists stress that the work doesn’t stop there.
“This means talking about what things would look like presently if the client was able to make some changes,” Gitlin said. “I also think it’s important to cultivate hope about the future, and take specific measurable steps to get the client there.”
Misconception: Therapy provides a simple ‘fix.’
“Sometimes therapy is viewed idealistically, as something that is going to solve all their problems,” said Caitlyn Oscarson, a licensed marriage and family therapist. “Therapy is all about noticing what’s not working, discovering the common themes and making small steps toward new patterns.”
Tori-Lyn Mills, a licensed professional counsellor with Thriveworks, advised against viewing therapy as a way to find a simple or quick “fix” for your mental health and relationship struggles.
“While some issues can be addressed through solution-focused therapy to ‘fix’ a problem, many people come to therapy for things that need to be healed,” she said. “The misconception is that the therapist or therapy is going to ‘fix’ something that actually needs to be acknowledged and/or explored for healing, or the idea that there is an external remedy when the work is really internal and requires practice.”
Varma similarly emphasised that simply showing up to therapy is not going to “fix” or magically change your life.
“I see this often in couples therapy, where partners come in hoping the therapist will ‘fix’ the other person,” she said. “Each person is focused on what their partner needs to change, rather than on their own role and responsibility. Therapy requires agency. Growth comes from taking accountability and actively practicing new ways of thinking, communicating and responding.”
Misconception: The therapist runs the show.
“A misconception is that the therapist is the primary agent of change rather than the client,” Mills said. “Therapy offers the opportunity to develop a different relationship with yourself. Sharing expectations, thoughts and beliefs you have about therapy with your therapist can help to foster openness, allowing you to approach the process with both an open mind and open heart, and get the most out of your sessions.”
Clients can get more out of therapy by sharing specifics about what success and progress would look like and if they recognise any actionable steps that could help reach those goals.
ferrantraite via Getty Images
“Therapy is a place where you should feel collaboratively involved in the process,” Tomkiewicz said. “If you and your therapist are diving deep into one topic, but you realize that there is actually a bigger, more important topic that is surfacing, it’s important to say something and request to shift the conversation.”
Of course, the therapist plays an active role in the process as well. But sharing feedback with them can help foster a good connection and empower the client.
“Remember: You are the expert on your life, not your therapist,” Tomkiewicz said. “They are experts in the domain of mental health, psychology, healthy communication, but they do not know what stirs your soul – you do. You should feel like you can be more of yourself in the therapy room.”
Misconception: All the work and healing happens in sessions.
Lamar believes a big misconception about therapy is “that all the work and healing will happen in their sessions.” She explained that people tend to be creatures of habit with deeply ingrained attitudes or behaviours that contribute to uncomfortable experiences and feelings.
“A common phrase therapists employ is, ‘It gets worse before it gets better,’” Lamar said. “Breaking these habits can be very hard. Though a therapist will point them out and hold clients accountable in session, the real work happens after the client leaves.”
That’s why it’s useful to think about therapy in between sessions, paying attention to emotions and events that impact you, and how you might apply what you’re learning.
“I often compare therapy to working out with a trainer,” Gitlin said. “The trainer can teach you exercises but in order to strengthen these muscles, you actually have to do them regularly. Especially if these exercises target muscles that aren’t often used, it will feel really difficult or even impossible at first.”
With practice, however, your muscles get stronger the exercises become easier. The same logic can apply to practicing healthier communication patterns.
“People may not have been taught certain skills growing up because better options weren’t prioritised or modelled for them,” Gitlin said. “However, they may have identified in therapy that it’s something they want to work on. That’s where the real work comes in ― identifying and implementing a plan are the best way to maximise the benefits of therapy.”
Some therapists give homework assignments as part of treatment. That might involve taking note of triggering situations, behaviours, intrusive thoughts or responses to events during the week. Or even writing personal essays. Or implementing healthier habits.
“Better communication takes practice and commitment,” Lamar said. “Learning how to de-escalate an emotionally heightened situation and setting boundaries can be scary, but they’re often necessary in many relationships. Most of this work is done outside the therapist’s office.”
Misconception: You’ll find certainty in life after ‘healing.’
“I think a misconception we have about healing in this culture in general is the belief that once we are ‘healed,’ we will find certainty in life,” Tomkiewicz said. “I think many of us enter the self-improvement space believing that we will eliminate suffering if we just follow a step-by-step guide, and that our lives will just get more predictable and secure – and thus better – if we just do our homework.”
But the reality is that life is inherently uncertain, and leaning how to exist in that uncertainty is what improves our experience.
“It’s learning how to make meaning out of our lives in a way that feels life-giving rather than life-destroying,” Tomkiewicz said, emphasising that this is a highly individual journey that changes over time.
“Therapy can be so helpful because it offers healing within the very human experience of interconnectedness, of having your more vulnerable parts held and reflected back to you by another person,” she added.
“It’s a really beautiful process, but one that does not result in life being more predictable, in bad things never happening, and in you having all the answers.”
The post The drugs made me do it appeared first on spiked.
So Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News got herself a scoop last night.
And to be honest, readers, we were a bit confused. “Gender critical views” are not only lawful things to hold and express, they’re one of a small subset of opinions that are explicitly protected as such in law. And why would a man very occasionally airing some lawful and protected views on social media be a news story? You might as well run “BREAKING: Premiership footballer discovered to enjoy cheese-and-ham toasties”.
So we thought it merited a closer look.
Newman didn’t reveal any of the offending tweets (such is the way nowadays, as covered in Wings passim – we’re told things are “offensive” or “controversial”, but not actually shown them to judge for ourselves). But Natasha Loder, the Health Editor of The Economist, was so obviously excited at the development that she let the cat out of the big black binbag of “serious questions”.
Wings readers might be scratching their heads trying to detect anything improper there. Professor George said women’s rights were worth defending and expressed the view that men shouldn’t punch women in the head in boxing matches – opinions which until recently would have been reliably shared by all human beings outside of the Taliban. He also endorsed a tweet from JK Rowling (which you can read in full here) in support of Sandie Peggie, who an employment tribunal found had been harassed by her employer in the service of a trans doctor.
Contrary to Newman’s claim, none of the tweets – or at a minimum, none that have been published – involved “mocking trans supporters”.
It was particularly curious given that Prof George had NOT even been employed by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority at the time – as Newman semi-accurately noted, he only took the role last month after being appointed in November 2025.
One might have imagined that the MHRA would have been delighted to have such an upstanding figure on board. Its recent track record hasn’t been the best.
But it seems that Professor George took his responsibilities a little too seriously for some people’s liking, and a media hatchet job was swiftly commissioned.
It’s hard to understand why, however, if Prof George holding normal, reasonable, lawful opinions about medicine and science disqualifies him from performing aspects of his job as the Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, the same principle doesn’t apply elsewhere in the NHS.
The Health Research Authority is heavily involved in the PATHWAYS puberty blocker trial that Professor George was just removed from oversight of.
And this is its current Interim Director.
Jonathan Fennelly-Barnwell was the Deputy Director of Approvals at the Health Research Authority when the controversial puberty blockers trial was approved, and as such is the person who ought to have been most concerned with making sure it was safe and ethical.
It was in that role that he appeared in a Teams meeting last year with this as his background.
(He’s been blacked out here in case any details help reveal the identity of the colleague who sent the pic to us.)
So why didn’t he? Well, here he is liking a Facebook post last December about being a “trans ally” by Hazell Dean, the Patron of Pride In Surrey, whose founder Stephen Ireland was imprisoned for 24 years last June for the rape of a 12-year-old boy and other child sex offences.
Fennelly-Bramwell is a dedicated “queer” activist. In 2015 he contributed to a video project reported by the Towards Queer website that sought to “reclaim Shakespeare as a queer figure”. You can see the video here.
In 2023, in his official NHS capacity, he celebrated the Stonewall riots, having previously enrolled the Authority in the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme and “delivered a suite of activities to support trans inclusivity” and issue “guidance on the use of personal pronouns”.
None of these activities are in any way unlawful or improper. But it seems reasonable to posit that given his views on “anti-trans arseholes”, his stance as a declared “trans ally” and his membership of the “LGBTQ+ staff led interest group”, Mr Fennelly-Barnwell has at least as much of an impartiality issue as Prof. Jacob George.
So why didn’t he recuse himself from the decision to go ahead with the PATHWAYS trial, and failing that why hasn’t the CEO done so?
Oh, right. Perhaps that’s why the HRA has removed itself from Twitter.
The NHS is one of the most trans-captured organisations in the entire UK, as the Sandie Peggie case, the Darlington nurses case and the Jennifer Melle case (among many others) have all demonstrated starkly in recent months. But there have been few clearer illustrations of the double standard widely employed with regard to gender ideology than this.
A man with an unblemished records making a few comments (before he was even in a relevant post) that are both factually and medically correct, and in line with the views of the vast majority of people in the UK including those who work in the NHS, is smeared as some sort of dangerous bigot, while someone actively involved in approving the puberty blockers trials who refers to “anti-trans arseholes” and who wants to “queer” everything in sight remains at the heart of proceedings.
(Top of the list of things he wants to “queer” is spelling, it seems.)
But we’re sure Cathy Newman and Natasha Loder are on the case.
It’s almost time to roll out the red carpet for the 2026 Brit Awards, with some of the biggest musicians on the planet up for the night’s top awards.
Fresh from their respective victories at the Grammys earlier this month, Olivia Dean and Lola Young are going into this year’s Brits with the most nominations, racking up an impressive five each.
Just behind them is Mercury Prize winner Sam Fender, with four nods in total, with Wolf Alice, Lily Allen and Dave also in the running for the night’s top prizes.
Meanwhile, international nominees include Bruno Mars, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.
Who is nominated at the 2026 Brit Awards?
Here’s the full list of all of this year’s nominees…
British Album Of The Year
Dave – The Boy Who Played The Harp
Lily Allen – West End Girl
Olivia Dean – The Art Of Love
Sam Fender – People Watching
Wolf Alice – The Clearing
Calvin Harris and Clementine Douglas – Blessings
Chrystal and Notion – The Days
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande – Defying Gravity
Fred Again.., Skepta and Plaqueboymax – Victory Lap
Lewis Capaldi – Survive
Myles Smith – Nice To Meet You
Olivia Dean – Man I Need
Raye – Where Is My Husband!
Sam Fender and Olivia Dean – Rein Me In
Skye Newman – Family Matters
British Artist Of The Year
British Group Of The Year
British Breakthrough Artist
British Alternative/Rock Act
Calvin Harris and Clementine Douglas
Fred Again.., Skepta, Plaqueboymax
British Hip-Hop/Rap/Grime Act
International Song Of The Year
Chappell Roan – Pink Pony Club
Disco Lines and Tinashe – No Broke Boys
Gigi Perez – Sailor Song
Gracie Abrams – That’s So True
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars – Die With A Smile
Ravyn Lenae – Love Me Not
Rosé and Bruno Mars – Apt.
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Taylor Swift – The Fate Of Ophelia
International Artist Of The Year
International Group Of The Year
Who has already won awards at the 2026 Brit Awards?
In the run-up to the ceremony, it was revealed that Jacob Alon had beaten Rose Gray and Sienna Spiro to the Critics’ Choice prize, which honours emerging British talent.
Last year, the award went to singer-songwriter Myles Smith, with other past recipients including Adele, Florence + The Machine, Sam Smith, Sam Fender, Jorja Smith and The Last Dinner Party.
John Marshall – JM Enternational
Meanwhile, PinkPantheress has made history as the first woman to be awarded Producer Of The Year, while Noel Gallagher has been named Songwriter Of The Year, in a controversial move considering he hasn’t actually released new music in the last year.
The Outstanding Contribution prize is going to Mark Ronson this year, while Ozzy Osbourne is to be posthumously bestowed with a Lifetime Achievement recognition.
The 2026 Brit Awards will take place at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena on Saturday 28 February.
It’s a tough time to be an author.
The era of spending an evening with a book for company is long gone, as reading competes for our attention with TV, radio, podcasts, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X, PlayStation, Xbox, films, streaming, virtual reality, audiobooks, Substack, magazines and more…
Many aren’t even picking up a book now and again. According to The Reading Agency, half of adults don’t regularly read, and research from the National Literacy Trust shows only a third of 8 to 18 year olds say they enjoy reading for pleasure – hardly reassuring for the industry.
This apparent dwindling interest in reading is making it even more difficult for authors to capture public attention when competing with the stardust of a singer or the chaos of a reality TV contestant, but that’s not stopped some bucking the trend.
In a classic case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them, outshine them, and catapult yourself to national stardom’, psychological thriller writer Harriet Tyce found fame competing on The Traitors, the biggest show on TV.
As Traitor Hunter-in-Chief, Tyce used her author’s eye for detail and powers of persuasion (she’s also a former barrister) to create some of the TV moments of the decade.
Aside from “impulsivity and ego,” she says the main reason she wanted to compete was because she’s a massive Traitors fan and thought it would be great fun.
“I love the show, I’m fascinated by the tropes. It’s a kind of whodunit, or rather who’s doing it. It’s the only way that you can live that kind of psychological thriller in real life without, God forbid, being involved in an actual murder mystery.
“The primary motivation came from wanting to take part. Anything else is a massive bonus.”
Tyce – spoiler alert – didn’t win The Traitors, but arguably walked away with a better prize: her book sales jumped 96% when the series aired. Her latest novel, Witch Trial, is released this week.
Despite completing the book before applying to enter the castle, it shares some eerily similar themes to the show. The thriller follows the case of two Edinburgh teenagers accused of killing their classmate using dark, ritualistic methods: a modern-day Scottish witch trial.
It’s largely told from the perspective of a jury member – part of a group of random people thrown together to solve a whodunit – which also feels Traitors-esque.
According to Tyce, it’s an “amazing coincidence,” which has helped draw more people to her novels.
“It’s unprecedented that book tours should sell out. Normally we have to cancel at least two or three events because they sold five tickets. Every author has been there, other than those who are huge.
“There are so many distractions on everyone’s time that it’s tough to cut through with books. I’ve been really lucky that my books have sold well and I’ve always had a level of interest around them, but I’ve never known anything like this.”
Appearing on primetime BBC One might seem like a no-brainer for an author, but Tyce says the decision was not risk free.
“If you’re writing books which are meant to be intelligent, articulate and show a level of general intelligence, and then you go on a programme and you show yourself up as being really not very bright and not very likeable, then you run quite a significant risk of alienating your readership. There were a lot of moments I thought ‘should I be doing this?’ My editor was quite concerned.”
She need not have worried. Tyce built herself a reputation as a witty, no-nonsense genius and a nationwide community of fans. She seems to be loving the ride, and the opportunity to fly the flag for authors who don’t always get the credit they deserve.
“We all do our best. The majority of [authors] are absolutely working themselves into the ground, from writing and editing the books, to marketing themselves online, to trying to build up a social media following, to feeding that social media following, to taking part in events and festivals.
“It’s not just about talent, because there are some very, very talented writers who get no attention at all, and some might argue there are some much less talented writers who get a huge amount of attention because they’re very good at marketing.
“A lot of us are people who like sitting in bed in pyjamas making things up, but we then have to go and be good at interviews and good at public speaking and good at content creation…”
She makes no apology for fuelling her recent success through TV, though:
“It definitely has given my name greater recognition, and it will have given this book greater recognition, but I don’t feel bad about that…Why shouldn’t somebody try and get on telly and see if they can see if they can get some of that attention? It was about time.”
Not every author has a shot at TV fame, but other platforms like TikTok are proving just as effective at giving them big breaks. #BookTok has received over 370 billion views and helped launch authors like Colleen Hoover and Frieda McFadden into bestsellers lists across the globe.
Another success story is Cassie Steward. A make-up artist with no social media experience, her self-published novel Number Thirty Two took off on TikTok after she started posting on the platform. The support she received enabled her to become a full-time writer.
“Somehow, TikTok worked its magic and some reviewers found my videos, bought the book and started shouting about it. It snowballed from there, I was getting tagged in hundreds of videos and the sales rocketed…I wrote the book as a passion project, knowing and accepting that most books never really make money, so I feel very lucky.
“I am still full time now, living off the earnings of one book that came out over two years ago.
“TikTok is an extremely powerful platform for writers and really community driven. It’s amazing how many strangers want to get behind you as a writer and also as a person.”
There might be less people reading, but there will always be an audience for a good book – as long as people know where to find it.
Politics
‘Let him think he won': Inside Minnesota Dems' effort to fend off Trump's immigration surge
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz finally got President Donald Trump on the phone seven weeks into the administration’s crackdown on Minneapolis — and the president had a complaint.
Trump told the Democratic governor he didn’t “know what’s wrong with Minnesota,” comparing the state to cities like Louisville and New Orleans where there had been less fierce resistance to his immigration surges.
Walz was furious. “You didn’t kill anyone there,” he fired back, two days after public outrage over Alex Pretti’s death at the hands of Customs and Border Protection agents forced Trump to change his approach.
But the governor’s staffers, who were listening in, quietly urged him to “slow it down,” Walz said in an interview with POLITICO earlier this month. They feared if he let his rage take over he would antagonize the president.
“It’s infuriating that you got to let him think he won or whatever,” Walz recalled. “That’s not how adults usually negotiate.”
The call was one moment in an agonizing stretch for Democratic state and local officials as they sought to weather the Trump administration’s crackdown. In interviews with POLITICO, Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Attorney General Keith Ellison and more than a half-dozen state and city officials described a concerted campaign to fight Trump’s immigration enforcement in the courts and through the media while coordinating with each other to keep the city from spinning out of control under immense pressure.
The behind-the-scenes effort was the crescendo of a broader, yearslong push to prepare the city for the worst, after surviving the upheavals that followed the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, when protests spiraled into looting and violence and Minnesota Democratic leaders faced criticism from both the left and right for their response.
Before Pretti’s death, Trump White House officials were “in dialogue” with Walz, but they had not engaged in “any urgent or meaningful way,” said a Democratic state official, who was granted anonymity to describe private interactions.
The two-term governor and former vice presidential nominee, well aware of the president’s personal enmity for him, said he understood that Trump was only now calling because “this had become a disaster for him politically, and he needed me to help him get out of it.”
A White House official said that Trump had always wanted to work with local officials and that the recent drawdown in personnel was because they were now working with them.
For all the fury the governor hoped to channel, for himself and for his constituents, he acknowledged Trump “holds all the cards in this — a lot of them, certainly.”
Walz’s careful approach to the president on that call — and other public flashes of anger, when Frey seethed at ICE to “get the fuck out” after Renée Good was killed — represents the push-pull for Minnesota leaders, who were desperate to end the lengthy immigration showdown while not setting a precedent of submission, these Minnesota Democrats said. At least 3,000 ICE agents were deployed to Minneapolis, vastly outnumbering the city’s police force, as Trump officials said Minnesota leaders had “incited this violent insurrection.”
Democrats were united in their desperation to head off any scenes of destruction, which they believed would lead to Trump invoking the Insurrection Act — something the president threatened to do multiple times for Minneapolis and during other immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago. The Pentagon ordered 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota.
Privately, Walz and Frey enlisted business leaders and state Republicans to urge the Trump administration to change course in Minnesota. In phone calls and text messages, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) urged White House officials to deescalate after the shootings of both Good and Pretti, according to a person briefed on her conversations and granted anonymity to describe private interactions. Publicly, Walz and Frey pleaded for protests to stay peaceful, and urged Minnesotans to document on video everything they saw. “Carry your phone with you at all times,” Walz said at the time.
“I think the feds were waiting and expecting for Minneapolis to devolve into chaos and for these protests to get out of hand,” one Democratic city official said, “and so much of what we did was just focused on preventing that from happening … even if those were sometimes hard or stressful calls to make in the moment because you don’t want to upset residents.”
Minnesota Democrats leveraged local outrage until it combusted into a national backlash after Pretti’s killing, caught on video from multiple angles, rocketed across social media and cracked the country’s consciousness. As Republicans started to call for “thorough” investigations into Pretti’s death, Trump called Walz, then Frey. The president pulled Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino from the city and dispatched his border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. On Feb. 12, Homan announced the end of “Operation Metro Surge.”
It’s a playbook other Democrats from blue cities and states are eager to replicate. Officials from San Francisco and Portland have already reached out to Frey and his staff for advice, two Minneapolis city officials confirmed. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Frey met earlier this month to discuss what Minneapolis had been through, and the mayors’ respective chiefs-of-staff shared similar intel with each other over the phone.
The Trump administration is also looking to copy its own playbook from Minnesota, the one implemented by Homan since he took over in early February. Last week on CNN, the border czar described “unprecedented” cooperation from Minneapolis leaders and police force since he arrived. He said “the streets of Minneapolis, the streets of Minnesota, are safer today,” adding that he isn’t surprised state and city leaders disagree with that assessment because they don’t want to give Trump “a win.” He said he expected ICE to return to its “regular footprint” within a week.
A White House official said that new cooperation allowed them to scale back personnel, adding that details of that cooperation are considered law-enforcement sensitive and declined to share specific details on it.
“Tom Homan’s critical work in Minnesota has secured new agreements to cooperate moving forward. These agreements, paired with pledges from local police to respond to our officers’ call for help, take down roadblocks, and respond to agitator unrest, represent unprecedented levels of cooperation that did not exist before,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “Democrat officials should want to work with federal law enforcement, not against them, to keep communities safe for law-abiding Americans.”
But Frey forcefully pushed back on the characterization that Minneapolis had changed any of its pre-existing policies. The separation ordinance, which prohibits city police officers from enforcing federal immigration law, is still in place, Frey noted.
“There were no deals cut,” Frey said in an interview with POLITICO. “There were no trade-offs of our values.”
***
Minnesota state and city officials began preparing for a federal crackdown long before ICE descended on Minneapolis last December. It started in 2020, after Floyd, a Black man, suffocated under the knee of Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer. Floyd’s death triggered a wave of protests in the city, some of which turned violent and destructive, while state and city officials struggled to respond.
“In those first few moments after Renée’s death … my first thought was George Floyd,” Walz said.
Ellison echoed him: “It was on everybody’s mind.” he said.
In the five years since Floyd’s death, local officials have overhauled the city’s emergency management protocols, incorporating 27 recommendations from an after-action report that was released in 2022. That included attending a four-day retreat to the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where more than 70 city officials, including Frey, simulated realtime emergencies. They practiced how to respond to massive civil unrest that pitted residents against a military force and game-played when to ask the governor to call in the National Guard.
Walz had faced intense criticism for not activating the National Guard faster in 2020 — and he and Frey had pointed fingers at each other for the delay. “There was a real breakdown in communication at that time” between the two officials, said a Minnesota Democratic operative who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations. Walz’s role in the delay followed him into the 2024 presidential campaign, when he served as Kamala Harris’ running mate.
When the city officials returned to Minneapolis after their training, one aide wrote out a one-page checklist for requesting National Guard activation and displayed it prominently on an office wall so they could move as fast as possible should the need arise. It’s still hanging in the aide’s office now. By the time Minneapolis requested the National Guard last month, they knew what to do.
Minnesota Democrats redoubled those efforts after observing and talking with officials in Los Angeles and Chicago, two early targets of Trump’s crackdown. Frey’s office drew up — and signed, once ICE arrived in Minneapolis — one executive order to ban ICE from conducting operations on city-owned parking lots, after they’d seen what happened in Chicago, one city official confirmed. Ellison and his Democratic attorneys general colleagues regularly meet to discuss shared strategies for dealing with the Trump administration.
“If they tried to override the governor and try to nationalize our National Guard, we were ready,” Ellison said. “If they tried to invoke the Insurrection Act, we were ready.”
Walz also approached mobilizing the National Guard in a different way than he had following Floyd’s murder. When he did deploy the guard on Jan. 17 to support the Minnesota State Patrol, to help manage growing tensions between protesters and ICE agents near a federal building, he urged the Guard leadership to wear fluorescent orange vests and name tags. No masks. The Guard delivered donuts, hot chocolate and coffee to protesters.
“We addressed every single protester and introduced all of those protesters by name,” Walz said. “The goal was, ‘Minnesotans are all in this together.’ Police, National Guard, everybody.”
***
Hours after Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7, Frey walked into a third-floor conference room in city hall. His senior staff was gathered to discuss what he would say at a press conference. Stephen Miller, the president’s homeland security adviser, had already cast Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism,” and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the shooting self-defense.
Frey, who had just watched the video of Good’s death for the first time, was planning to tell ICE to “get out of here,” he told his senior staff at the time. The expletive wasn’t in his talking points, Frey recalled, but he was angry and he wanted to be honest about his feelings. He had publicly warned in December that “somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed.”
“We felt here like we were screaming from the rooftops for weeks, and they weren’t listening, and so we needed to get attention,” Frey said of his now-viral moment. “I needed to channel the very real anger of hundreds of thousands of constituents … Because, again, I wanted to encourage [a] continuation of these peaceful protests.”
For Frey, the next several weeks would test his ability to both channel the fury of his constituents while seeking deescalation — even as Trump’s White House continued to accuse both Frey and Walz of failing to temper their own rhetoric. Their urgency to find a way out of what Frey called an “invasion” of an “occupying force” became all the more pressing after ICE agents shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, on the North Side of Minneapolis on Jan. 14.
That night, near midnight, inside city hall, Frey was on the phone with Klobuchar, asking for help. Frey’s chief-of-staff was on the phone with Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.). A chaotic scene played out on the TVs in the mayor’s office: sprays of tear gas and vandalized cars, the images of a city reaching a “boiling point,” Frey said. The mayor was growing desperate to find a backchannel to the White House, which they’d failed, so far, to establish, three city officials said.
The next day, Klobuchar talked to White House officials about connecting them with the mayor and Minneapolis’ police chief, Brian O’Hara, said a person briefed on the conversations and granted anonymity to describe private interactions. Frey’s chief-of-staff sent a cold email to White House senior staff and ramped up pressure on business leaders and state Republicans. However, the channels didn’t “actually open up” until after Pretti was killed, one of the city officials said.
They faced pressure from the left. Democratic Socialist Minneapolis City Council member Robin Wonsley criticized Frey and Walz for failing to do more to get ICE out, like declaring a “state of emergency” or eviction moratoriums. She told CNN in late January that residents were showing extraordinary bravery that’s “not being matched by the elected officials who do have the power to protect our residents.”
“I think there’s a nearly unanimous belief that the mayor balanced two interests — fighting for the city but at the same time, understanding there needed to be an end game, which is dialogue with the administration,” said Abou Amara, a civil rights lawyer and activist in Minneapolis.
Walz was already under pressure before ICE showed up in Minnesota, after a sweeping fraud scandal engulfed the state this fall, which drew the attention of Trump. The governor ended his own reelection bid in early January, citing the scandal as influencing his decision to pull out.
It’s clear that even after a decade of Trump, Democrats — and some European leaders — are still struggling with how best to approach the mercurial president. Both publicly and privately, Minnesota Democratic leaders said they mimicked how European countries responded when Trump threatened to buy Greenland: They didn’t blink. They refused to give until it was too politically untenable for Trump to keep pushing.
“Stephen Miller talks about this whole concept of ‘might makes right.’ If you have the military muscle to do something, then you can, and that’s the right thing to do,” Frey said. “And they’ve attempted to use that methodology on an international level, and clearly that is also a methodology used at the local level.”
These Minnesota leaders were also clear about why they think Trump replaced Bovino with Homan, who ultimately ended the operation by mid-February. After Pretti’s death, Trump’s poll numbers dropped. About six in 10 Americans now think Trump’s ICE deployments in cities have gone too far, according to a recent AP-NORC poll. Just 38 percent of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of immigration, down from nearly 50 percent approval a year ago, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.
“It became urgent for them and they knew they had to cut and run,” said a state official, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “It was clear they’d lost the messaging entirely.”
After Pretti’s death and the phone calls with Minnesota leaders, Trump dispatched Homan, who he called “tough but fair,” in a Truth Social post. Of Bovino, Trump called him “very good, but he’s pretty out there” and rejected the suggestion that it was a “pullback.”
Still, the exit wasn’t without its possible derailments. One came after Frey’s first meeting with Homan on Jan. 27, when he reiterated the city’s separation ordinance in a post on X. The following morning, Trump lashed out at Frey, accusing the mayor of “PLAYING WITH FIRE.”
One of the city officials said they had been intentional with their wording of the post because “a bright red line for us was when something was said about city policies or directives that were patently false,” even if there were some Minnesota Democrats “who felt like we were poking the bear a little bit.”
“We really want to make this end, but like to what end? Because we also don’t want to set a terrible precedent for other cities,” the official continued. “You just can’t set the standard that you can bully cities into submission.”
Minnesota Democrats continue to impart the lessons they learned with other blue cities and states. A state official said Walz was in regular touch with other governors, who are “supremely worried” about being Trump’s next target and are seeking advice, particularly over National Guard deployments.
During Frey and Mamdani’s New York City conversation last week, they compared notes on how to negotiate with the president, discussing the “nuance” required to “navigate Trump,” and “how you go about running a city through this,” according to a Minneapolis city official who attended the meeting.
“We talked about the state of play, how the federal administration conducts themselves, how decisions are made — not that either one of us knows all of it,” Frey said.
Frey, too, is giving advice for anyone who wants to hear it, from other mayors to CEOs, which he summed up in three points. First, “say what you believe, and you say it loudly and clearly,” and people “probably including Trump, respect that.” Second, “take the politics out” by focusing on how people are affected because “regular-ass people have a general concept of fairness.” Lastly, “keep repeating common-sense stuff,” which he said he’d raise in every public appearance, questioning the motives of ICE’s operations.
“This is in the back of everybody’s head … ‘if I just shut up and keep my head down, maybe they won’t notice.’ You won’t attract the eye of Sauron,” Frey said. “That is a wildly incorrect assumption. By bowing your head in despair, you will be the next city.”
Posting our every move on social media has its joys and consequences — one of which is the incessant opportunity for self-criticism. Our smiles, oddly enough, are often the target of our scrutiny. There we are, mid-scroll on TikTok, wondering if we should have worn our retainers a little more stringently in sixth grade.
But how many of us are actually taking action?
As it turns out, a growing number of young women are actively seeking out veneer consults, even when their teeth are healthy, straight and functional. Veneers — essentially a thin, custom-made porcelain shell for teeth once reserved for the Hollywood elite or midlife reinventions — have quietly become part of the modern beauty conversation, discussed in the same breath as Botox, filler and laser treatments.
What feels new isn’t the desire for nice teeth, but how commonplace the idea of altering them (often in a very costly and somewhat dramatic way) has become. In many cases, there’s nothing clinically wrong with our teeth at all — a smile may be slightly warmer in tone, a tooth a fraction shorter than its neighbour.
However, details that once would have gone unnoticed now seem glaring. These small variations are part of what gives faces character and humanity, but because they don’t resemble the uniform, hyper-polished smiles saturating social media, young women are increasingly growing up believing that cosmetic alteration isn’t an exception, but an expectation.
Spend time on TikTok or Instagram, and you’ll see it everywhere: “smile transformations,” “seat day” reveals, influencers documenting their temporary teeth and final results in real time. The language is casual, almost breezy, as if cosmetic dentistry is simply another stop on the self-care circuit (scheduled right after a facial or waxing appointment).
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than 260,000 minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed on patients 19 and under in 2023. And while veneers aren’t tracked the same way as injectables, young adults without medical issues are increasingly seeking consults with dentists for an aesthetic upgrade.
Young girls have always been coerced into obsessing about their image — having the perfect body shape, silky hair, impossibly smooth skin — but today, it’s getting even more granular.
“Now more than ever, we are staring at our own faces,” says Andi-Jean Miro, a New York City-based cosmetic dentist with several celebrity patients. “Between Zoom, FaceTime, TikTok and dating apps, it can feel like living with a camera on you all the time.” In that setting, small details become magnified, and perfection begins to feel attainable and therefore expected.
“Young women are increasingly growing up believing that cosmetic alteration isn’t an exception, but an expectation.”
Social media has also changed how cosmetic work is discussed. Procedures that were once private are now documented publicly, often framed as transparency. Veneer “journeys” unfold in real time — even though some of the details are omitted in favour of a pithy, watchable video. Temporary teeth are shown, final results are revealed. The repetition has a normalising effect.
“When you see it enough,” Miro says, “veneers start to feel routine, even if your natural teeth are already beautiful.” Celebrities and influencers have played a role in this shift, offering highly visible smile transformations that circulate widely online.
But the images themselves can be misleading. Many of the smiles labeled as “veneers” are actually crowns — a far more invasive procedure that requires the significant removal of the natural tooth structure.
Even moments that serve as cautionary tales don’t depict the true story. Internet personality Tana Mongeau famously posted a TikTok showing her “veneers” falling out, a clip that quickly went viral. What many viewers didn’t realise — and what dentists are quick to point out — is that what fell out was likely a crown, not a veneer, a distinction that underscores how poorly understood these procedures have become online.
But that difference is critical in a clinical setting. And once you shave down those pearly whites? Well, that’s that.
“A veneer is an enhancement. A crown is reconstruction,” Miro explains. Veneers cover only the front surface of a tooth and can often be done conservatively. Crowns encase the entire tooth, requiring aggressive drilling. “For younger patients with healthy enamel, crowns are usually unnecessary. And once that enamel is gone, you can’t get it back.”
Jan Nevidal via Getty Images
Pia Lieb, a dentist, founder of Cosmetic Dentistry Center NYC and a former clinical assistant professor at New York University, sees the effects of this confusion regularly. She describes a generation that examines their smiles with an intensity that was previously impossible. “Patients come in with concerns about a single tooth being slightly longer or less symmetrical,” she says. “They are zooming in on their own faces in ways that weren’t available even a decade ago.”
Filters and editing tools further distort expectations. Teeth appear whiter, straighter and more uniform than biology actually allows. “Young women are comparing themselves not just to influencers,” Lieb says, “but to filtered images and AI-generated faces.” The result is a narrowing definition of what a “good” smile looks like, one that often excludes natural variation. And that’s dangerous.
While veneers can be appropriate in certain cases — such as physical trauma, intrinsic discolouration or developmental issues — both Lieb and Miro caution against treating them as a cosmetic shortcut. Veneers require long-term maintenance and eventual replacement. Plus, they can take a good chunk out of your wallet, running from $500 to $2,500 per tooth.
Over-preparation can lead to sensitivity, nerve damage and restorative work later in life. “This part is rarely shown online,” Miro says. “Cosmetic dentistry is a commitment, not a trend.”
What stands out most about the surge in cosmetic consults isn’t vanity so much as vulnerability. It’s the moment when a young woman pauses a video of herself and wonders why her smile doesn’t look like the ones she sees everywhere else. It’s the slow accumulation of images, comparisons and “before-and-afters” that make perfectly healthy teeth start to feel insufficient.
And recent, poignant findings have shown that teen girls process social media content involving body image differently than their male counterparts. Research from 2022 suggests that teen girls reported using TikTok and Instagram (where there’s an abundance of content with strong suggestions about body image and aesthetics) more often, while teenage boys use Twitch, YouTube and Reddit.
One problem with this, says Amanda Raffoul, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is “a societal acceptance of body dissatisfaction in teen girls as a normal.” In a story by The 19th, she explained that this assumption “can create a dangerous environment for teens to engage in social media.”
Since young women and girls are exposed to more body criticism online, it’s worth having real conversations, offline, about what certain dental procedures entail and whether having one is truly necessary — rather than a byproduct of something we see on an AI-doctored image or in a post from an influencer.
In a culture that rewards polish and uniformity, the pressure rarely announces itself outright — it builds gradually, until opting out feels harder than opting in.
A smile, after all, is not just another aesthetic choice. It is functional, biological and deeply personal, shaped by genetics, age and real life experience. As cosmetic dentistry becomes increasingly normalised for younger patients, the question shifts from whether veneers are beautiful to whether young women are being given enough space — and enough honest information — to decide what they actually want.
Sometimes, enhancement is the right choice. But sometimes, the best option is realising that the smile you already have doesn’t need fixing at all.
I could tell you my marriage ended. But that wouldn’t be the whole story. The truth is I slowly and quietly destroyed my marriage while convincing myself everything was fine.
I’m an average guy. I had a good job, and I showed up physically. I paid the bills. I provided. I thought that was enough. I thought love was something you earned once and then just… had.
I grew up in a small town in rural western Kentucky, raised in church by a devoted mother. Faith was familiar. Scripture was familiar. People watched me grow up and assumed I’d be fine. I assumed it, too.
My parents divorced when I was five. After that, I saw my father three times before he died. No birthdays. No calls. No effort. For years, he lived a mile from me, and I never knocked on his door. I didn’t have the courage. We joked about it when we drove by his house, but jokes are sometimes just a mask for pain.
I didn’t realise then how much that absence shaped me. I learned how to be likeable. How to avoid confrontation. How to be “fine” instead of honest.
When she walked into church one Sunday in a red dress back in the summer of 2014, the world stopped. I still see it clearly. Third row from the back, sliding past her family to the middle of the pew. She didn’t know what she did to me just by walking in. I remember thinking, Don’t screw this up.
She had a way of making rooms feel warmer without trying. A confidence that wasn’t loud. A softness that wasn’t weak. She laughed easily, but she also carried depth. She noticed people. She listened. She remembered things I forgot.
When I told her I loved her and she said it back, something settled deep in me. Well, after my heart exploded in my chest. It felt safe. Certain. Like I had finally landed somewhere.
I loved her in ways that were quiet and ordinary. I loved how she moved through the world. She loved the beach, and I loved watching her stand at the edge of the water, red swimsuit with white trim, dipping her toes in and hesitating. She was terrified of sharks and whatever else she thought might await her out there. She would cling to me as I pulled her farther out, trusting me even when she was afraid.
I loved the way she looked at night when everything was quiet. Wearing one of my T-shirts, ratty pyjama shorts, hair a mess, no makeup. No one has ever looked better with no makeup. Standing at the end of the bed rubbing lotion on her arms, talking about something small that felt important just because she was saying it. I would watch her and think, This is it.
And still, I didn’t protect it.
I loved her voice. I loved the way she sang karaoke without fear. I loved how she laughed at herself. I loved how hard she tried. How much she gave.
And then, years later, when she said yes to my proposal, something in me relaxed. I thought the work was done.
I didn’t stop loving her. I stopped being careful with her heart. I stopped listening the way I used to. I stopped noticing when she was tired. I stopped hearing what she was really saying. I defended myself, instead of protecting us. I crossed lines I knew better than to cross. I hid things because honesty felt inconvenient.
I didn’t lose my wife all at once. I lost her in pieces.
For 10 years, I quietly gave her hell. Through defensiveness. Through distraction. Through choosing comfort over connection. Through the nights I chose screens, hobbies or “me time” over sitting next to her. Through moments where she needed my presence.
She warned me. She told me she was tired. She told me she felt alone. She told me she was losing feelings. She said it more than once. More than twice. I treated those words like background noise. Something to address later. Something that could wait.
I thought love would wait.
On Christmas morning in 2025, everything looked normal. The kids were laughing. Wrapping paper everywhere. A life built together doing what it had always done. But when I looked at her, her eyes were empty. Not angry. Not sad. Just done.
When she asked me to leave, I told myself it was temporary. I said what I needed to say to get back to feeling comfortable. A week later, it wasn’t temporary anymore.
I moved into an apartment. Friends told me I’d be home soon. I wanted to believe them. But something inside me knew I wouldn’t be.
There is a special kind of loneliness that comes from grieving someone who is still alive. Your brain lies to you and tells you there’s hope because she’s breathing, because you can still see her. But your heart knows when something sacred has already left the room.
Finally, the lights came on.
Years ago, my mum bought me glasses to help improve my colour-blindness. When I put them on, I cried. Colours I had never seen before exploded into view. That’s what this was like – except it wasn’t colours. It was her.
I saw everything clearly. The love she gave. Her patience. Her effort. All the times she stayed when she shouldn’t have. And then I saw myself, from her side, without excuses. I realised that I didn’t lose her suddenly – I lost her slowly, choice by choice.
I let the pain hurt. Sleepless nights. Knots in my stomach. A heaviness that didn’t lift when the sun came up. Somewhere in that pain, I began to change.
Not to win her back. I changed because I couldn’t live as that man anymore.
I am learning not to waste time on things that just fill gaps in the day, but to focus on the things that truly make an impact in my life. I have learned to lean on God in a way that I never have in my life. I’ve learned “I’m sorry” has to be more than just words. I am learning to be a man.
Every day, I ask myself one question: How can I love her today – even if she never comes back? Sometimes that means prayer. Sometimes silence. Sometimes restraint. Sometimes doing the right thing knowing she’ll never see it and never know.
Our old home feels different now. I see unfinished projects. Cracks I never fixed. The effort I postponed because I thought there would always be time.
I wish I had been more present. I wish I had soaked in the moments instead of multitasking my way through them. I wish I had taken more pictures. More videos.
I still love her deeply. I probably always will. I don’t know what tomorrow will look like. I don’t know when this pain will ease or when I will no longer feel the urge to crawl back into her presence.
The world doesn’t stop turning, so we move forward. But we don’t have to move forward blind. I pray there will be another chance for me to find this kind of love again in the future. If I do, I will walk into it as a man with a scar – one that will instruct me on how to love for the rest of my life.
If my story keeps one man from assuming love will wait, from believing tomorrow is guaranteed, then something good came from the wreckage.
Don’t wait until it’s too late.
Logan Durall is a pseudonym for a writer who hopes other men might learn from his example before it’s too late.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.
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