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The House Article | Government must help farmers facing a changing climate

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Government must help farmers facing a changing climate
Government must help farmers facing a changing climate


4 min read

I am privileged to be the first Labour MP for Hexham: a constituency stretching from County Durham to the Scottish border, and from Cumbria in the west to the edge of Newcastle.

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Farming is woven into the landscape and life of our constituency. Farmers produce our food, shape our countryside and sustain the jobs, businesses and communities that make Northumberland what it is.

But farming has become harder and less certain. Fourteen years of Conservative government left farmers contending with a botched Brexit deal, damaging trade agreements and the withdrawal of European support without a reliable replacement.

It is no secret that Keir Starmer’s changes to Agricultural Property Relief and the sudden closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive further undermined confidence. We must acknowledge that trust has been damaged. But Andy Burnham’s government now has an opportunity to reset that relationship: listening to farmers, providing greater certainty and treating them as essential partners in delivering our economic, environmental and food-security ambitions.

The urgency of that task has been underlined by the extreme weather of recent months. Across Northumberland, weeks of searing heat and little rain have left fields scorched, grass struggling to grow and soils cracked. Crops have been put under severe stress, while livestock farmers have faced dwindling grazing and the prospect of using winter feed months earlier than planned.

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For farmers, drought means smaller harvests, higher feed bills and difficult decisions about livestock. It can wipe out months of work and investment, with the effects continuing long after rain returns.

That reality makes the Conservatives’ retreat from climate action all the more indefensible. Kemi Badenoch now acknowledges that climate change is making farmers’ lives harder, while attacking the policies designed to limit its impact. The Conservatives cannot pose as champions of British farming while abandoning the action needed to protect its future.

And what happens on our farms does not stay there. When harvests fail, or businesses become unviable, the consequences travel along the supply chain, through rural employers and onto supermarket shelves and household budgets.

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War, volatile energy prices and extreme weather are already disrupting food production and trade. Greater reliance on fragile international supply chains leaves Britain more exposed to every new shock. And once those shocks drive up food prices, they rarely return to where they started. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit describes this as the “rockets and feathers” effect: prices rise rapidly during a crisis but fall only slowly and partially afterwards.

Building resilience into British farming is therefore not simply a countryside concern. It is part of protecting every family from a permanently more expensive weekly shop.

It is also vital to rural prosperity. When farmers receive a fair return, that money circulates through nearby towns and villages, supporting vets, machinery dealers, food processors, shops and pubs. A successful farm sustains far more than the people working within its boundaries.

The public wants to buy British food, but our farmers are too often undercut by imports produced to standards that would not be accepted here. Government should uphold high standards in trade agreements, improve transparency over where food comes from and use its purchasing power to put more British produce into schools and hospitals.

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Backing farming is also essential to our environmental ambitions. Healthy soils retain water during drought and absorb it when heavy rain arrives. Trees, hedgerows and restored habitats can shelter livestock, support pollinators and reduce flooding. With the right support, farmers can help protect the country from the climate extremes they are already experiencing.

I therefore welcome the additional support announced during Burnham’s recent visit to Cornwall. It suggests a government prepared to listen, but it must develop into a dependable, long-term settlement. Farmers need support to manage water, improve soil health and withstand increasingly frequent extremes. Environmental schemes must provide certainty and properly reward them for producing food while restoring nature.

As Chair of the Rural PLP, I look forward to working with the PM to ensure farmers and rural communities are heard at the heart of government.

 

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Joe Morris is the Labour MP for Hexham

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The Celebrity Traitors Season 2 Trailer Shows Cast In Action With Claudia Winkleman

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The stars of The Celebrity Traitors season 2

A new trailer for the upcoming second season of The Celebrity Traitors has been unveiled.

In the cryptic new clip, the star-studded cast is shown together for the first time, gathered in the chapel on the iconic castle’s grounds.

Host Claudia Winkleman then declares: “A moment of silence for the celebrities gathered today.”

After close-ups of their nervous expressions, she calls for “thoughts and prayers” before strutting out.

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“Who doesn’t love a dramatic exit?” she then concludes.

A release date for the second season of The Celebrity Traitors has not yet been revealed, but the first iteration began airing in early October, and ended four weeks later, in November.

What we do know, though, is the cast of stars on the line-up, which boasts an eclectic mix from the world of TV, music, sport and beyond.

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The stars of The Celebrity Traitors season 2
The stars of The Celebrity Traitors season 2

The contestants this time around include comedians Joe Lycett and James Acaster, actors Bella Ramsey, Richard E Grant and Michael Sheen, TV personality Maya Jama and chart-topping singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock.

The full cast list is as follows:

  • Amol Rajan
  • Bella Ramsey
  • James Acaster
  • James Blunt
  • Jerry Hall
  • Joanne McNally
  • Joe Lycett
  • Julie Hesmondhalgh
  • Kenny Oghenovo “King Kenny” Ojuederie
  • Leigh-Anne Pinnock
  • Maya Jama
  • Michael Sheen
  • Miranda Hart
  • Myha’a
  • Professor Hannah Fry
  • Richard E Grant
  • Rob Beckett
  • Romesh Ranganathan
  • Ross Kemp
  • Sebastian Croft
  • Sharon Rooney

Earlier this year, it was confirmed that the regular Traitors and its celebrity counterpart had both been renewed by the BBC until 2030 at the earliest.

Celebrating the news, the CEO of production company Studio Lambert, Stephen Lambert enthused: “The Traitors has become a genuine television phenomenon across the world, but especially in the UK, and we’re thrilled to continue the journey with the BBC.

“It’s hugely exciting that audiences will have many more years of strategy, suspense and shocking twists still to come.”

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Channel 4 Denies Nigella Lawson And Paul Hollywood ‘Arguing’ Claims

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Channel 4 Denies Nigella Lawson And Paul Hollywood 'Arguing' Claims

Back in July, Paul and Nigella were the subjects of a story in the Daily Mail, alleging that the two were “not really getting on too well” behind the scenes of Bake Off’s new season.

The piece claimed that the latter was finding the former’s somewhat ostentatious conduct – including arriving to set in a helicopter – “rather cringe”.

However, this was played down by Channel 4 exec Kiran Nataraja during a speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

Per Deadline, Nataraja claimed: “We’re really excited to have her on the show. Contrary to ‘the Sidebar of Shame’, [she] and Paul are not arguing about helicopters the whole time.”

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Representatives for Channel 4, Paul and Nigella previously did not respond to HuffPost UK’s request for comment on the story.

I’m uncharacteristically rather lost for words right now!” Nigella revealed when the news of her casting was first announced. “Of course it’s daunting to be following in the footsteps of Prue Leith and Mary Berry before her, great dames both, but I’m also bubbling with excitement.

“The Great British Bake Off is more than a television programme, it’s a National Treasure – and it’s a huge honour to be entrusted with it. I’m just thrilled to be joining the team and all the new bakers to come, I wish the marvellous Prue all the best, and am giddily grateful for the opportunity!”

Check out the newly-released trailer for the upcoming season of the Great British Bake Off in the video below:

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Nearly 1 Million Young People Out Of Education And Work

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Nearly 1 Million Young People Out Of Education And Work

Nearly one million young people are still not in education, employment or training, damning new figures have revealed.

The official data released by the government showed that the number of so-called NEETs fell by 30,000 between April and June.

However, an estimated 981,000 16 to 24-year-olds remained economically inactive, piling pressure on ministers to act.

The figures emerged a day after the first group of young people began work as part of the government’s “jobs guarantee” scheme, which sees young people on Universal Credit supported into work.

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Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden said bringing down the number of NEETs – which soared after the Covid pandemic – was “a priority” for the government.

“We are determined to turn the tide on the youth unemployment crisis, which has been years in the making with the number of young people not in education, employment or training rising by 248,000 between 2021 and 2024,” he said.

“These latest figures underline why we are addressing youth inactivity as a priority.”

Lindsay Judge, research director at the Resolution Foundation think-tank, said the latest statistics were “a worrying sign that Britain’s NEET crisis is a long way from easing”.

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“Good intentions and warm words will not achieve the systemic shift needed on their own,” she said.

“Reversing this trend in the long-term will take serious investment – on a similar scale that lower-NEET countries devote to supporting young people into work or training – and a joined-up effort from the level of Whitehall departments to local services.

“Without that, we risk our younger generation paying the price for a system that is failing to support them through the transition to adulthood.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Top Gear Reboot Confirmed By BBC After Jimmy Carr And Joe Marler Rumours

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Andrew Flintoff hosted Top Gear for four seasons until a serious accident behind the scenes led to the show being "rested"

The BBC has confirmed plans to reboot Top Gear after a prolonged absence.

Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Thursday, the broadcaster’s director of entertainment Ed Havard responded to recent rumours suggesting Top Gear was being revived.

He said: “There has been a lot of speculation about this and we can confirm that Top Gear is coming back.”

After 20 years on our screens, with an array of different presenters at the helm, the BBC motoring series was “rested” in 2022, following a serious on-set crash involving one of its presenters, Andrew Flintoff.

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The former cricketer – who co-hosted the series with Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris – said he suffered “life-alteringly significant” injuries in the accident, and was later reported to have received £9 million in compensation from the BBC for loss of earnings in the aftermath of the crash.

Andrew Flintoff hosted Top Gear for four seasons until a serious accident behind the scenes led to the show being "rested"
Andrew Flintoff hosted Top Gear for four seasons until a serious accident behind the scenes led to the show being “rested”

Last week, The Sun reported that controversial comedian and presenter Jimmy Carr was “in talks” to host the rebooted Top Gear, with former Celebrity Traitors star Joe Marler and model Jodie Kidd also among the names mentioned by The Guardian as supposedly being in consideration.

Havard refused to be drawn on this speculation, insisting he was “not going to talk about talent”, but did concede that “Jimmy would be a great host.

“I won’t be discussing that today,” he continued. “We will have more information on Top Gear shortly.”

Top Gear first premiered in the 1970s, but was brought back in the early 2000s with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as its hosts.

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After an infamous behind-the-scenes “fracas” with a producer led to Clarkson’s contract not being renewed, his co-hosts chose to leave the show with him, and they later launched a rival car show, The Grand Tour, on Amazon Prime.

Since their departure, a host of stars have fronted Top Gear, including Chris Evans, Friends star Matt LeBlanc and the late Sabine Schmitz.

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Menopause Bladder Control: Jude Bladder Health Supplement Review

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Menopause Bladder Control: Jude Bladder Health Supplement Review

It doesn’t happen often, but there’s one inescapable thing that makes me wish I had a penis. Okay Freud, butt out! I don’t have penis envy (like that).

Yup, it’s when I’m out and about and I need a wee. I’m not ashamed to say it, because it’s simply not fair that men can whip their members out anywhere and go for a wazz, meanwhile women have to be PREGNANT (ugh) to access a toilet for free. Can you tell I’m mad about it?

No matter how many pelvic floor exercises I do, I always need to find a toilet when I leave my house, whether it’s nipping into the nearest pub, or (ahem) finding a spot for a nature wee. I’m sick of it, and I know I’m not the only one.

In fact, one in three women experience bladder leaks, and bladder control can get worse as we age. It’s no secret that declining oestrogen in women and a shrinking bladder can contribute to more frequent trips to the bathroom as you age.

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But beyond that, urinary tract health is not something we talk about enough as a society.

I’ve already eschewed the benefits of wearing breathable underwear in the hotter months (and, just, year-round). But there are plenty of other ways to look after your vulva and prevent UTIs.

In case you weren’t taught this in sex ed, you have to pee after sex, and sitting around in a soggy bikini on holiday isn’t exactly conducive to a healthy vulva.

And let me tell you, I found those out the hard way. As a frequent victim of UTIs, I’m always in pursuit of ways to one up my intimate health. That’s what led me to Jude.

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Working with leading women’s health experts, Jude has created a supplement designed to make you feel more confident in your bladder control throughout the day.

Packed into a handy capsule format, the supplement is loaded with pumpkin seed extract, B vitamins, iron, zinc, soy germ extract, and magnesium, which support urinary tract elasticity.

You can choose from either a four week, 12 week, or one off plan, but I opted for 12 weeks to see whether it could help me stop needing to pee on holiday and at the festivals I was going to this summer.

I knew I was going to be drinking a fair bit of wine and wanted to be prepared for what that would do to my bathroom habits.

Not to mention that my morning coffee sees me peeing approximately five times before midday.

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I’m pleased to say that my little experiment worked. Not only did I feel less overwhelmed by the sudden need to pee before the 12 weeks was up, but I felt less worried about getting a UTI after sex as everything felt soothed down there.

And I’m not alone: 77% of Jude testers said they felt more in control after 12 weeks, and 90% felt less held back by their bladder.

The supplement is designed for people over 40, so if you’re going through menopause it could be just what you’re looking for to stop those urination urges.

If you’re curious to try it out and see whether it can help you, we’ve got an exclusive 20% discount for our readers with the code BABY20.

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Tim Curry Voiced An Underrated Disney Villain In Beauty In The Beast II

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Tim Curry's villainous Disney role was – and, indeed, still is – genuine nightmare fuel

In her tribute to her former Annie co-star Tim Curry, screen legend Carol Burnett remarked that “nobody could play lovable villains better than he could”.

And let’s face it, she’s certainly got a point.

The British actor – who died on Tuesday night at the age of 80 – was known for playing plenty of iconic baddies, dating right back to his film debut in the 1970s, starring as Frank-N-Further in the cult musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

From there, his villainous roles included the dastardly pirate Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, the nightmarish Pennywise in the TV adaptation of It and, as mentioned, Miss Hannigan’s no-good brother Rooster in Annie.

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But there’s one evil performance of the Emmy winner’s that we think is often overlooked, as he also lent his voice to one of Disney’s most underrated villains ever.

In 1997, Tim joined the cast of Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas as its central villain, Maestro.

Tim Curry's villainous Disney role was – and, indeed, still is – genuine nightmare fuel
Tim Curry’s villainous Disney role was – and, indeed, still is – genuine nightmare fuel

Now, we know what you’re thinking. Straight-to-video Disney sequels were rarely the stuff of cinematic greatness, and this Beauty And The Beast follow-up is probably no exception (not that we let that stop us from streaming it every single December, of course).

However, true to form, Tim’s voice performance as Maestro is as stellar as you’d expect, flipping from comedic sarcasm to unsettling fury with remarkable ease.

A Beauty And The Beast “midquel”, The Enchanted Christmas takes place during the events of the first film, around the festive season.

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Tim’s character, Maestro, is a domineering pipe organ intent on keeping the Beast as miserable as possible, who tries to stop him falling in love with Belle so as not to break the spell that the enchanted castle is under.

While he’s overall a pretty shady and sinister fella (not helped by the nightmare fuel that is his early CGI appearance), he does get to deliver some brilliant one-liners, our favourite being: “Heavens, look, I’m bolted to the wall!”

Fittingly, the three-time Tony nominee also got the chance to perform his own villainous musical number with Don’t Fall In Love.

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“I think writers have a lot more fun writing villains,” Tim once said while discussing his work in the Disney movie. “They’re just, on the whole, very much better written, and therefore a great deal more fun to play. You get to be the bad guy!”

He admitted: “My father was a minister, so I grew up in Methodist churches all over. So, I’m actually very fond of the sound of organ music. I just sort of tried to approximate that huge breathy sound [with my performance].”

“They said, ‘you could take it a bit further if you’d like to’, and I said, ‘that’s not a direction I hear very often’,” he added with a laugh.

As well as the returning voice cast from the original, Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas introduces new characters voiced by stage legend Bernadette Peters and Paul Reubens, while Haley Joel Osment took over as the voice of Chip.

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So, if you’re planning on revisiting Home Alone 2 this Christmas in tribute to Tim Curry, why not revisit this, too, and make it a double feature…?

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CNN Apologises After Featuring Dolly Parton Impersonator In TV Tribute

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A photo of Kelly Vohnn at a screening of Song Sung Blue were mistakenly included in a CNN tribute to Dolly Parton

The news broadcaster CNN has issued a public apology after mistakenly including footage of a Dolly Parton tribute act in their reporting on the late singer’s death.

On Tuesday night, following the news that the Jolene singer had died at the age of 80, the current affairs show Laura Coates Live included a segment paying tribute to the late Grammy winner.

However, included in this was a photo of Las Vegas impersonator Kelly Vohnn rather than Dolly herself.

A CNN spokesperson later told Deadline: “We regret the error and apologise to the Parton family.”

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A photo of Kelly Vohnn at a screening of Song Sung Blue were mistakenly included in a CNN tribute to Dolly Parton
A photo of Kelly Vohnn at a screening of Song Sung Blue were mistakenly included in a CNN tribute to Dolly Parton

Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for Focus Features

Kelly later posted a statement on Instagram which read: “I did not give anyone my likeness to be used in any way to fool people into thinking I am the real Dolly Parton. This has happened a couple of times now and it’s not OK.

“I don’t own these images. These photos were taken during a red carpet event in Las Vegas for the opening of the movie Song Sung Blue where multiple impersonators attended.”

She added: “My goal is to carry on [Dolly’s] giving, loving legacy in the world. We need reporters to do better due diligence when broadcasting to prevent [fake news].”

“I want to say, in no way, shape or form, have I ever given permission to anyone to allow them to use my image and say that I am Dolly Parton,” she said in the accompanying video. “I would never fool people that way. I am an impersonator.

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“People know that they’re buying tickets to see an impersonator, and I would never say that I’m Dolly Parton.”

Kelly also told the New York Post: “I started getting all these texts in from friends saying that I was on CNN, and I couldn’t believe it.”

“I was already heartbroken at losing Dolly because of how much she has given to me as a woman and an artist,” she added. “But then to see these images of me on screen was just weird.”

Dolly’s team has confirmed that the singer died in hospital on Tuesday following what they described as a “brief battle with cancer”.

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Canadian PM Mark Carney Opposes Trumps Lake Ontario Name Change

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Donald Trump and Mark Carney at the G7 summit in June.

Mark Carney has demolished Donald Trump’s attempt to change the name of Lake Ontario as part of his ongoing feud with Canada.

The US president signed an executive order on Thursday re-naming the vast expanse of water “Lake America”.

It came after trade talks between America and Canada collapsed last week, with Trump imposing 50% tariffs on imports from its neighbour.

Canada has said it will retaliate with “dollar for dollar” tariffs of its own on American goods.

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Lake Ontario is one of the five “Great Lakes” which straddle America and Canada.

Trump said the name change was “official, effective immediately”.

Donald Trump and Mark Carney at the G7 summit in June.
Donald Trump and Mark Carney at the G7 summit in June.

But responding on X, Canadian PM Carney blew Trump’s claims out of the water by pointing out it has been known as Lake Ontario for centuries and will remain so “now and always”.

He said: “The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’.

“The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

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“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms.

“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”

Other politicians, including Ontario premier Doug Ford and his Nova Scotia counterpart Tim Houston, also blasted Trump.

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Why can’t politicians admit there are serious problems with Pride?

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Why can’t politicians admit there are serious problems with Pride?

Someone threatened to put a bullet in my head last weekend. My offence? Questioning whether a local Pride event was suitable for children.

At Medway Pride in north Kent, I saw photographs of men in leather fetish gear, a placard reading ‘Trans rights or I bite’, and a young child posing beside an inflatable shark carrying a Progress Pride flag. The shark has become an unofficial mascot of the trans community, while the Progress Pride flag incorporates colours representing trans and nonbinary identities, alongside the traditional rainbow. Most parents I know want their kids to be kids – not introduced to bonkers ideas like there are 100 genders or that some people are ‘born in the wrong body’.

Medway Pride looked relatively tame compared with some. I’ve seen photographs from Pride events of adults wearing puppy-play masks, collars, chains and harnesses. It’s not uncommon to see stalls selling sex toys. Or hear of sex acts being performed in public. Adults are free to do what they like consensually, of course. But surely adult sexual subcultures don’t belong at daytime events marketed as family-friendly.

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I posed a reasonable question on X: ‘Do men in fetish gear belong at Medway Pride?’ I tagged in local Labour MP Tris Osborne, who had been raving about the event on his socials. Osborne responded to suggest that if I was making an ‘allegation’, I should contact the police, before wishing me a ‘relaxing weekend’.

When a gay friend asked whether Medway Pride actually recognised homosexuality, Osborne was similarly dismissive. And when another constituent objected to the Progress Pride flag being flown from Rochester Castle, the MP replied: ‘Sure they’ll miss you’, before suggesting he move to North Korea.

Meanwhile, among the online responses to my tweet were ‘cunt’, ‘Nazi’, ‘dangerous nut job’ and ‘don’t breed’. One man called me a ‘fucking bitch with zero brain cells’ who needed a ‘bullet in my head’.

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Osborne is far from a one-off. Plenty of politicians seem determined not to look too closely at Pride. Take Sadiq Khan, whose City Hall positively embraces Pride. In July, central London streets were eerily lined with neat rows of giant Progress Pride flags. Luke Pollard, Plymouth’s first openly gay MP, recently celebrated Pride with a video warning that ‘hate is growing in our society’ and that people are trying to ‘turn our community on each other’. Southend MP David Burton-Sampson has meanwhile attacked Reform UK’s moves to stop Progress Pride flags being flown from council buildings in Essex. Local women tell me he is far less willing to discuss women’s rights – dismissing that debate as a ‘toxic culture war’.

I can’t decide whether MPs who reject the idea that anything could be wrong with Pride are actually ignorant – or just pretending to be. Osborne, Pollard and Burton-Sampson are openly gay and might be expected to understand better than most how much Pride has changed.

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Over the past few years, a number of people with organisational links to Pride groups have been convicted of, have pleaded guilty to or have been charged with serious child-sex offences. The most notorious was Stephen Ireland, co-founder of Pride in Surrey, jailed for 24 years for raping a 12-year-old boy and other serious offences. He was no fringe figure: he was reportedly described by a former chief constable as ‘a friend of Surrey Police’ and accompanied officers into schools for Pride engagement work.

But even without those cases, surely it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Pride is no longer simply about acceptance of gay and bisexual people. It now also encompasses gender identities and the wider QTIA+ umbrella, which is a different set of ideas altogether. And once Pride becomes a vehicle not just for gay rights but for broader ideological and sexual subcultures, you get a blurring of boundaries.

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This is how you end up with men in fetish gear, on leashes and wearing gimp masks, marching through high streets on a Saturday afternoon alongside the cashiers from Tesco or nurses from the local hospital. But if you object to men in fetish gear hanging around your kids, you’ll be accused of hatred or bigotry – rather than seen as an adult concerned about child safeguarding.

Acknowledging Pride has a problem is not the same as saying Pride causes paedophilia, nor that everyone involved in Pride should be regarded with suspicion. It means organisations that actively involve children and families should expect safeguarding scrutiny – just like everybody else.

Ofcom is currently investigating GB News after more than 12,000 complaints about comments made by Caroline Farrow linking Pride with paedophilia, bestiality and other sexual subcultures. Her comments were challenged on air by the presenter – but apparently that still wasn’t enough for those who believe Pride should be beyond criticism.

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Whatever you think of Farrow’s formulation, Pride clearly deserves scrutiny. The photographs exist. The videos exist. Anyone can look. Yet our political class appears strangely incapable of saying that perhaps not everything conducted under the banner of Pride is suitable for children.

So what exactly are they afraid of? Being called homophobic? Or transphobic? Losing the approval of activists? Admitting that a movement they have spent years enthusiastically endorsing may have developed serious problems? Pretending not to see them won’t make them disappear.

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Tim Curry: the immortal shapeshifter

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Tim Curry: the immortal shapeshifter

Tim Curry was a shapeshifter. Notoriously media shy, he let his fans delight in his wild array of acting roles without really ever knowing him at all. When his more persistent admirers formed an emotional bond with the Tim Curry of their imaginations, he would sometimes be forced to set them straight. ‘I’m just a person’, he would say, ‘and I’m not your person’.

One of the joys of watching Curry on screen was that he was often unrecognisable from one role to the next. I have a childhood memory of the moment I learned that the demon in Legend (1985), the villain in Annie (1982), the butler in Clue (1985) and the cross-dressing alien scientist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) were all played by the same man. It was quite the revelation.

Curry died this week aged 80. The publication last year of his memoir, Vagabond, gave fans a tantalising glimpse of the real man, but even there he was determined to retain an air of mystery. Those who were hoping for salacious anecdotes about his love life were disappointed, because, as he rightly pointed out, ‘specifics about my affairs of the heart or the bedroom are – respectfully – none of your fucking business’.

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His vagabond status was well earned. As the child of a military father, he was forever on the move, and it is easy to see how these early experiences shaped his capacity to embody such a range of characters. His first accolade came early when he was awarded the prize for the ‘Most Beautiful Baby in Hong Kong’. His family relocated roughly every 18 months for the first 11 years of his life, meaning that he was continually exposed to new people and environments.

Little wonder that Curry saw mutability as the essence of his vocation. As he put it: ‘How can you trust somebody, or truly know somebody, who appears as a king one day and a jester the next? What does it mean when neither role is the true identity of the person, and when that very person might be gone the next day?’ In this, he might have been paraphrasing William Hazlitt’s essay on actors, in which he described them as ‘today kings, tomorrow beggars’ and wrote that ‘it is only when they are themselves, that they are nothing’.

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Curry’s key philosophy in life struck him during a gap year of travelling across Europe and north-west Africa with his schoolfriend, Richard Cork (later the art critic for The Times). Drunk on brandy one night in Marrakesh, the two friends made a pact to thoroughly explore all their contradictions and ‘see them through to their conclusion’. It proved to be Curry’s guiding principle throughout his life and career.

As he explained in his memoir: ‘Professionally, the lure of pursuing contradictions has drawn me toward complex characters or compelled me to make them more complex and nuanced: so, for example, a scoundrel who is also charming, or somebody rather abhorrent whom I can also play out as being quite irresistible. Those are the roles that have enticed me the most.’

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Few roles better embodied this combination of the abhorrent and the irresistible than Dr Frank-N-Furter in the West End musical, The Rocky Horror Show. This anarchic rock’n’roll homage to science fiction and horror B-movies enjoyed an immediate success when it opened on 19 June 1973 at the small venue upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, on a night that was suitably stormy and lightning-streaked. When adapted into a film in 1975, Frank-N-Furter was his breakthrough role. In spite of the movie’s initial failure at the box office, its subsequent cult status has ensured his legacy.

When I interviewed the show’s creator, Richard O’Brien, in 2013, he described Curry’s portrayal of Frank-N-Furter as ‘definitive’. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how his performance in the movie version, with its delirious energy and lip-smacking abandon, could possibly be bettered. As O’Brien told me: ‘We had one actor 20 or 30 years ago who said to me: “I hope you know, Richard, I’m stealing everything off Tim Curry.” And I thought that was an honest way to approach it.’

Curry later gave the very best advice on how to approach the role. ‘None of the characters in the show are in drag’, he said. ‘We’re all wearing what people normally wear in Transylvania.’ Most importantly, Frank doesn’t ‘camp around’ or pretend to be a woman. ‘He is a very strong, aggressive man… In other words, if you’re going to attempt to truly enter the character, wear your high heels like a man.’

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To make his feature-film debut in such an extreme part carried risks of future typecasting, yet the astonishing variety of roles that followed proves that he successfully manoeuvred his way through that minefield. He played Mozart in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus (1980-1981) and was nominated for a Tony Award. Other Tony nominations were to follow for his performances as Bill Snibson in Me and My Girl (1987-1988) and as King Arthur in Spamalot (2004-2007). It was quite the leap from such theatrical turns to his famous on-screen villains – Pennywise the Clown in the miniseries It (1990) and Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (1993) – but he made it seem effortless.

Even in these most diabolical of guises, Curry insisted that he was able to draw on his own life experience. Of Pennywise and Richelieu, he acknowledged that his ‘terrifying childhood memories’ of his mother – who possibly suffered from an undiagnosed form of bipolar disorder – informed his approach. And might it even be the case that he was thinking of his mother during his brutal axe murder of Meat Loaf’s Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show? ‘Well, between us, yes’, he confessed in his memoir. ‘Yes, perhaps I was.’

Those who tried to pigeonhole Curry were attempting the impossible; shapeshifters are not so easily categorised. It seems appropriate that one so protean and elusive was, at an early screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, mistaken for an imposter. A cinema manager tried to have him ejected for impersonating Tim Curry.

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In his essay on actors, Hazlitt quotes Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well: ‘The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.’ This could serve as a fitting maxim for any actor, for whom even the most traumatic experiences can provide material for the craft. The body of work Curry leaves behind is testament to how successfully he wove his many disguises from the mingled yarn of his own extraordinary life.

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