Rest well, Caroline

As ever, whenever a celebrity dies, especially when they die young, suddenly and tragically, the internet comes alive with the inevitable public grief, hand-wringing, assumptions from people who claim they knew exactly what happened in that unfortunate person's final sad weeks, days and hours, and there is a rush to apportion blame. 

But with the news only breaking last night about the suicide of Caroline Flack, we only have certain facts available. We know she took her own life, we know she was due to face trial for the assault of her boyfriend, Lewis Burton, we know the CPS alleges that she hit him with a lamp while he was asleep, we know he didn't want to press charges, we know that she pleaded not guilty, we know that a condition of her bail was that she was not to contact her boyfriend. 

And there is plenty we do not know. 

We do not yet know what the post-mortem or inquest will reveal. And there are things we will never know, such as whether this story may have had a happier outcome if she was allowed to see her boyfriend before the trial, or indeed what the outcome of the trial would have been. We won't know of a not-guilty verdict or find out how she could rebuild her life after an acquittal - or what would follow for her and Burton in the event of a guilty verdict. 

The only thing we can be sure of is that if she was found guilty, she'd become the anti-poster-child for the "See? Women can be abusers too!" brigade. That brigade had already come out of the woodwork, shitting on the whole concept of presumption of innocence. Nobody is saying that women cannot be the perpetrators of domestic violence - of course they can - but everyone accused of this dreadful crime has the right to a fair trial. 

This brigade of (mostly) angry men was emboldened by pictures published by The Sun of a bloodstained bed at Flack's flat, pictures which, horrifically, were still on the newspaper's website at the time of writing. The publication of the bloodied bed was, at best, in poor taste and, at worst, not in the public interest, particularly before her trial had taken place.

There is a rush to blanket-blame "the media" for Flack's death - and she has long been an object of tabloid obsession, particularly after she dated a 17-year-old Harry Styles when she was 31. No age of consent laws were broken, but eyebrows were raised when Styles was photographed leaving her flat. It didn't take long for her to be pigeonholed as a "cougar", a sexually aggressive and adventurous seducer of younger men, a woman who is seen as a threat to the ideal of a demure, compliant woman. 

She became an easy target for hate and it wasn't restricted to the usual tabloid suspects. Everyone with a Twitter account and a misguided sense of moral righteousness could pile in. 

And the public lapped it up. If there wasn't a market for these sort of salacious stories, they wouldn't be written or broadcast in the first place. We feed the beast when we click on the links. Entertainment journalists are often quick to defend their profession, to point out that it's not an easy job (it's not) and they are obliged to constantly seek out the stories that will get the clicks and the sales (also true). But it is unfortunate that in the quest to keep eyeballs on screens and papers, fingers furtively scrolling or turning pages, that not only does accuracy often fall by the wayside, but public interest tests fall short and there is little time to pause and contemplate if a story is kind or even necessary.

Advocating the end of entertainment journalism or holding "the mainstream media" solely responsible for Flack's death is reductive and simplistic, ignoring the role of social media in this complicated story, especially as that was the only way Burton was able to communicate with Flack since December. However, it shouldn't preclude entertainment journalists from pausing to think about how they cover stories, especially those involving celebrities who may be vulnerable, may have mental health issues, may be struggling with addiction, or may simply be going through a tough time, as can happen to any one of us. 

The guidelines for reporting on suicide, issued by the Samaritans, are an excellent resource - it is not a restriction on press freedom to report responsibly.

Ultimately, gossip is part of human nature. That's never going to change. We devour gossip about our friends as readily as we devour celebrity gossip. Hell, I have an episode of The Bachelor burbling mindlessly away in the background as I write this and I just rolled my eyes as a doe-eyed blonde used her one-on-one time with the prized Colton, the hot, virgin bachelor, to call her mother for the first time since her release from prison. I'm not going to pretend I'm immune to taking a pervy interest in the lives of beautiful people I'll never meet. Of course, with every celebrity death, there's always one sneering blowhard who feels the need to comment "Who?" under a tweet or Facebook post, as if not knowing about a figure in popular culture is some form of moral superiority. 

But the truth is that none of us are superior. We're all flawed and farty and prone to awkwardness, even those who, on the surface, appear to have everything under control. And any one of us could end up in as dark a place as Flack found herself in her lonely final hours. May we all pause to be kind to each other and to ourselves.

Photography by Alex Borland.

Wanting young people to suffer: the new sadism

It starts out as a seemingly harmless thing that most of us have heard from our parents or grandparents: "Young people today! They don't know they're alive! They know nothing of the suffering we went through as kids..."

Hell, as I become an increasingly old hack, I'll roll my eyes at journalism graduates when they baulk at having to make a phone call or look aghast at the days of heavy reliance on fax machines or dial-up internet only being available on one computer in the office. But I'd like to think that I'm not a bitter sadist, mercilessly wishing we could all go back to the paste-up era of newspaper production, or wanting to deprive young journalists of the convenience of fast internet to teach them a lesson.

But the cries of young people not knowing true suffering now go beyond the jocular overtones of the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch or laughing at trigger warnings supposedly demanded by the snowflake generation. There's a nastiness, a disdain for comfort, a yearning for good old days that were actually terrible, a desire to see young people have as hard a life, or harder, than previous generations, rather than wanting to see the next generation be more successful, more comfortable and more prosperous.

Misplaced nostalgia for WWII is a good example of the new sadism, and it is particularly embarrassing when it comes from people who were not alive during the horrors of WWII or have never served in the military. Someone who courageously tweets anonymously as Brexit Stonking Majority Tory tweeted the following miserable nonsense:

In 1941 teenage RAF pilots were flying old MK1 Hurricanes & putting their life on the line against Luftwaffe veteran pilots in the brilliant ME109F.
Remainer teenagers today.... #marr

The image is a still from a video of a pink-haired teenager dancing joyously in support of the UK staying in the EU rather than spending his youth bombing neighbouring countries in a war that we won with the help of European allies (but don't tell Brexit Stonking Majority Tory that...).

We've had almost four years of Brexity blathering along the lines of: "We got through two world wars, we'll survive Brexit!" to jolly people along in the face of evidence of a forthcoming recession, increased prices, bending to US standards to get a trade deal with Trump, job losses and anything else that indicates that the leave campaign's grand promises turn to dust upon any contact with reality.

The reality is that leaving the EU will most likely lead to hardships - because Brexiters can't refute this, they are instead revelling in the possibility of suffering, getting their pitiful excuses in early, saying it'll be a price worth paying for some intellectually bankrupt notion of sovereignty, rather than preparing to take any responsibility for any hardships which might come as a result of their vote.

Wishing another war on young people to somehow harden them up is appalling. There are already plenty of young people across the world suffering the horrors of war on a daily basis. Adding more young people to their number won't make anything better for anyone. 

Liz Kershaw joined in the sadistic idiocy last month in an awful attempt to squash the notion of period poverty, that anyone in the UK was suffering from a lack of access to sanitary products. She tweeted:

Sorry if this is gross.
But #periodpoverty FFS?!
My mum had to use old rags which my grandma boil-washed and she re-used.
How did she ever manage to get a scholarship to grammar school, go to Uni or become a headteacher without free tampons???

The most charitable reading of this tweet is that Liz Kershaw is an eco-warrior, calling for more widespread use of reusable sanitary products, but she's really just advocating a time when things were harder, especially for girls and women. There are certainly very good reusable sanitary pads on the market today but they are not cheap and they do rely on access to good laundry facilities. A return to shoving any old rag in in your pants is a return to, at best, the risk of a humiliating bloodstained accident and, at worst, the risk of infection. Liz mindlessly generalises from the example of one person and glorifies suffering as a result. She is the same woman who twisted the 430 job losses in East Anglia as a result of the closure of the Philips factory as some kind of Brexit benefit so you'll have to forgive me if I fail to see any altruism in her sadistic period tweet.

Still, the good news for anyone crowing about the possibility of young people suffering or wishing hardship on them all is that their sadistic dreams are coming true. There are measurable examples of things getting worse rather than better for the next generation.

Last year, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries reported that life expectancy in the UK is declining and it is a trend rather than a statistical blip. Compared with 2015 figures, the institute now expects men aged 65 to die at 86.9 years, down from 87.4 years, and women aged 65 are likely to die at 89.2 years, down from 89.7 years. While this is not on par with Chad, with a life expectancy of 50.6 years, it's not something we should be celebrating either as it reflects a decline in healthcare, living standards, individual affluence and the overall economy.

The Learning and Work Institute projected last year that the UK will drop four places in world literacy and numeracy rankings by 2030 - so the good news for the sadists is that we're apparently less healthy and less educated.

Housing is becoming less affordable too, even if those pesky kids quit spending their deposit on avocado toast. A report released by the Office of National Statistics last year revealed that on average, full-time workers could expect to pay an estimated 7.8 times their annual workplace-based earnings on buying a home in England or Wales in 2018. The figure was 7.6 times annual earnings in 2016 and 3.6 times earnings in 1997. And these figures are based on people in full-time employment - this does not take into account the gig economy or people languishing on zero hours contracts when they would love job stability.

This is not catastrophising or being what Boris Johnson, a man who cares little for facts, stats, details or nuance, would call a "doomster and gloomster". This is modern reality.

So, well played, sadists! Take a fucking bow. You're achieving your dream of the next generation having it worse than you did. If this is what you need to do to feel proud, I feel sorry for you - but I feel even more sorry for the young people who are genuinely suffering, even if you're deluding yourself that they're all pampered softies living a life of luxury.




Photography by kai Stachowiak

Childhood memories up in flames

In 1982, I was six years old and we lived in a cul-de-sac called Nicholi Crescent in Wagga Wagga, Australia. Everyone knew each other - we used to play tennis on a makeshift court painted onto the road by a neighbour, safe in the knowledge that no cars would ever speed through. At the end of the dead end, there were acres of long grass - we played there too, never thinking of the possibility of a snakebite, in pre-nanny state Australia. These days, the long grass has been replaced by houses, the cul-de-sac bulldozed into a street, although it's still called Nicholi Crescent. A snoop on Google Street View shows that our old house still has the terrible yellow 1970s glass on the front, although the magnificent Nicholi gum tree, the one in which I got stuck in 1986, is gone.

One warm Thursday night in 1982, we got home from late night shopping to find the end of Nicholi Crescent on fire. Everyone was staring from their front lawns as the fire brigade went to work. I even remember what I was wearing - pale blue pedal pushers and a blue floral shirt handed down to me from close family friends with slightly older daughters. My photo ended up in the local paper, the Daily Advertiser. It was a picture of me, my mother and the old lady next door with concerned expressions on our faces, but nobody was hurt and nobody lost their home.

It was terribly exciting. 

Being in the paper was akin to being famous for a few days in Wagga Wagga in the 1980s. The next day, I got to wear my pink dress to school - unafraid of burglary, the windows were left open when we went shopping and my uniform, lovingly, nerdishly laid out for Friday, reeked of smoke. I had a great story for class news that day - a fire, the newspaper photographer, my pink dress in a sea of blue and yellow checked school uniforms - I loved the attention.       

But that was 38 years ago. I can't remember what caused the fire at the end of Nicholi Crescent but neither can I remember any discussion of climate change. Throughout my Australian childhood, serious bushfires across the country made the news in summer, there were long, hot days, and droughts. But this summer's fires and temperatures have gone to the next level. This time, bushfire season started in September, which is still spring in Australia. 

It has been relentless. For many farmers, droughts have become the norm rather than the exception, and yet still, Scott Morrison refuses to accept that the climate is changing, that it cannot be ignored as a factor in these horrific, destructive fires. 

In 2013, the CSIRO (Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) released a report which found that Australia can expect higher temperatures, more extreme heat and longer fire seasons. Then, in 2014, the CSIRO released a report that found since the beginning of the 20th century, average annual temperatures have increased and, crucially, in the 50 years leading up to 2014, temperatures increased at twice the rate than in the previous 50 years. Alongside this increase, rainfall has decreased. The data is real and there was a time when it wasn't being ignored.

In 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced a carbon tax - in three years, this tax helped reduce carbon emissions but in 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott repealed the tax and ramped up coal production and carbon emissions have been increasing ever since. The summers keep getting hotter, the coral of the magnificent Great Barrier Reef is suffering a visible extinction event, and this year's bushfires have, at the time of writing, destroyed more than 900 properties, killed nine people with four people missing, and burnt more than 5.1 million hectares. Oh, and funding for the CSIRO has been cut by the federal government, which should surprise nobody who knows about this wretched government's anti-science, anti-environment agenda.

 It is no longer terribly exciting. 

The fire at the end of my street in 1982 happened at a time when there was limited awareness about the human impact on climate. It all seemed so innocent at the time but we had no idea that we were contributing in ways big and small to the situation we have today. 

It's easy to mock Greta Thunberg for saying her childhood has been stolen. It is easy to say that she should be in school, that she is being manipulated by powers bigger than her, but she is right to suggest that economic growth is meaningless if it comes at great environmental cost. Instead of directing ire at a teenager (and in some vile cases, expressing a desire to inflict physical violence on her), that energy would be better spent finding solutions.

Unfortunately, I can't see the Australian government stepping up any time soon.

_________________________

If you're feeling powerless to help Australia, especially from other countries, here are some links where you can make donations, although it would be nice if the federal government stepped up and ensured adequate funding made its way to the states. If this summer is any indication, Australia will not be able to continue to rely on volunteers to back up the full-time firefighters. Scott Morrison's thoughts and prayers can, with all due respect, get in the bin.

Red Cross Bushfire Appeal 

New South Wales Rural Fire Service

Victoria Country Fire Authority

St Vincent de Paul

The Lions Club appeal for the north coast of New South Wales

Port Macquarie Koala Hospital

  

Photography by Kim Newberg

What next after the Johnson triumph?

"Get Brexit done!" That's what cut through at this election as swathes of once-safe Labour seats fell to the Conservative Party, particularly in the north of England. Just as "Take back control!" was an appealing, simple message during the EU referendum campaign, after three years of abject incompetence in trying to leave the EU, "Get Brexit done!" sounded very appealing.

It doesn't matter now that plenty of useless architects of the Brexit negotiation shitshow have kept their seats in parliament, or that if the spectacularly self-serving Boris Johnson and others had voted for Theresa May's still-terrible-but-better-than-Johnson's-deal, we'd be out of the EU by now. That's all completely irrelevant.

It doesn't even matter that "Get Brexit done!" - as if it's going to be quick, easy and painless, and then we can just get on with other things - is a massive, simplistic lie. It worked. It resonated with people. Labour wasn't able to compete on that playing field, even if it would actually make sense for Corbyn to stay neutral during a second referendum campaign and then implement the result untainted by how he campaigned - that was a major stumbling block for Theresa May. Corbyn's Brexit stance became irrelevant. And, ironically, he has always been a Brexiter.

Jeremy Corbyn has to resign. He should have resigned in his concession speech, clinging to a few shreds of dignity. Labour has lost two elections on his watch.

It doesn't matter what he promised in his manifesto. Out on the doorsteps, especially in the north of England, the Midlands and South Wales, he is not appealing to voters. It doesn't matter how deeply you analyse his manifesto. Out on the doorsteps, the feedback is that he's too far to the left, he's an overgrown student protester, he comes across as being happiest when he's churning out pamphlets on a creaking old Gestetner in an Islington basement rather than leading a country.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, was able to get away with puking out endless, easily disproved lies, promises that will be impossible to keep even with a healthy majority, hiding in a fridge, pocketing a reporter's phone, refusing to be interviewed by Andrew Neil and running away from small groups of protesters for bullshit security reasons, mostly because people cut him some slack. He's a truly terrible human being, a self-serving, over-promoted charlatan and a pathological liar, but people still fall for the contrived lovable rascal act.

And let's not forget anti-semitism in Labour. It is there and it is real. It is still not being properly addressed and this was not lost on large numbers of Jewish voters, as well as non-Jewish voters who are not prepared to throw their Jewish friends under a bus. There is plenty of racism and bigotry among Conservative Party ranks and it would be naive to deny that, but it's never a good look for anyone to resort to whataboutery when their own issues with racism are called out. It's not good enough to dismiss charges of anti-semitism with a wave of the hand and a sniff or to minimise anti-semitism as somehow being a lesser form of racism. Labour needs to deal with this issue properly as part of its process of renewal.

If Labour can't work out what has gone wrong from the top down over the last few years, it will not be an effective opposition in the days, months and years to come. It will not be in a position to hold a Boris Johnson government to account. A strong, credible opposition is essential for a functioning democracy in a civilised society. We do not have this right now, and at this moment, we need this more than ever.













Photography by DPP Business & Tax/Flickr

Leaving women alone should not be a big deal

This blog post should be filed squarely under "I cannot believe this even needs to be said" but here we go... Yesterday, Mallory Hagan, a former candidate for Congress and Miss America 2013, tweeted the following truth which should be self-evident:

Dear every man in America, I’m sitting at the bar by myself because I want to. Please be self-aware enough to know when we are simply not interested in carrying on conversation. Sincerely, 

All women

Sadly, it should come as no surprise that this tweet triggered men far and wide and soon Mallory had to deal with an online pile-on from overgrown, entitled toddlers throwing testosterone tantrums (with apologies to the perfectly adorable and polite toddlers I know). And there were, depressingly, a few women joining in - generally the "but I love being chatted up!" brigade.

Let's go through some of the asinine responses to break down why they're tweeting utter horseshit, shall we? *rolls up sleeves, has bottle of brain bleach at the ready*

Of course Stefan Molyneux piped up. Any opportunity to be a misogynistic dick, eh Stef? He tweeted:

"Drinking alone in public with a hostile and entitled attitude. RUUUUUUN!!!!!"

I see you, Stef. I fucking see you. You think that if you say something rude about a woman and then imply that this makes her unattractive to men everywhere then she'll realise the error of her ways and go out of her way to make sure next time a man talks to her, she'll fawn all over him whether she wants to or not. You big hero, Stef! Look at you speaking up for the men who feel entitled to conversation from every woman they meet, claiming that you're actually helping them rather than telling women what to do. Because that's not at all creepy...

And now for a tweet from a guy who, without irony, claims to know why all women do the things they do:

"No woman goes alone to a bar/club if she is not looking for attention. She goes with her girlfriends."

Sorry, but you clearly don't know any women who travel regularly for work (or indeed women who have gone out on the pull with a few girlfriends - and that's perfectly fine too). I am a woman who travels for work. Sometimes I want to have a quiet drink after a long day working. Inevitably, I've been talking to people all day, I'm possibly jetlagged and the last thing I feel like is a conversation with a stranger. But I might want a glass of wine and some time alone. I might use the time to lazily scroll through the news on my phone, check emails, write up my notes or I might just want to have a drink and watch the passing parade. Whatever the case, it's nobody's business but mine.

If someone tries to talk to me under these circumstances, I quickly and politely let that person know I'm not interested in a conversation - as I'm sure Mallory does too, judging by her patient replies to the idiotic tweets. Usually I am then left in peace. Sometimes I feel the need to flash my wedding ring and let it be known that I am married - but I shouldn't have to do that, just as a single woman shouldn't feel obliged to invent a husband or boyfriend to be left alone. But if someone is persistent and you're alone, especially if you're far from home, that is the kind of thing that women often feel they have to do to feel safe without causing offence. 

We are conditioned to not cause offence, to always be polite and demure, even if we're receiving unwanted attention and don't feel safe. That is how fucked up things still are for women. 

Then there's the tweet from the guy who assumes that a woman who wants to be left alone will suddenly change her mind when an Adonis appears at the bar:

"Translation: “Unattractive Beta males should know their place and not approach me. If you are attractive it’s your duty to approach me.”

This guy would be stunned to know that there are women who don't want to be approached at a bar by anyone, regardless of where they might fall on the scale of attractiveness, conventional or otherwise. Of course, it could be that a good-looking man might enter the bar, the lone woman may spot him and it could be one of those love-or-at-least-lust-at-first-sight moments and if she decides to have a conversation with him, that's her right just as it is to ignore him - except that LIFE IS NOT A GODDAMN MOVIE! There are myriad reasons why a woman might be drinking alone in a bar and for many of us, it wouldn't matter who walked through the door, we'd still like to have a drink in blissful solitude. 

And there were plenty of tweets mansplaining bars to Mallory, such as this genius:

"People go to bars to SOCIALIZE. It's that kind of place."

The use of capital letters always makes a point more valid, right? And sure, the majority of people in any given bar probably are there to socialise. But that doesn't mean that people who want to have a drink by themselves should stay away. If a solo individual wants to buy a drink, whoever owns the bar is hardly likely to stop them give they're in the business of making money through selling drinks. Anyone who tweeted this sort of tripe while claiming to be a free market capitalist is, with all due respect, an idiot. 

And here we go with one Dr Saad. He's a professor of evolutionary biology, according to his Twitter bio. But here he proves that having a PhD does not exempt a man from being a dick:

"If you are sitting at a bar, it is perfectly reasonable for people to think that you are open to social interactions. It takes a lot of courage for most men to approach women. If they do so politely, act kindly rather than as a smug schmuck to half of humanity. Dr. Saad- A man"

No, Prof, it's not "perfectly reasonable for people to think you are open to social interactions". You have no idea why that woman is alone in the bar. Maybe she has just received some bad news and wants to process it over a drink. Maybe she is there to get away from a pesky man in another bar. And sure, you won't know unless you approach her - but if you approach her with the assumption that she is "open to social interactions", you're already being an entitled twat.

And, yes, I get it - it takes courage to approach a woman, just as women may need to summon up courage to approach a man - or just as any of us have to summon up courage to have any number of difficult conversations in this life. But even if it took every ounce of courage you possess to talk to a woman in a bar, she still does not owe you her time or a conversation. You do not get to assume that she really wants a man to insert himself into the situation or into any other part of her life or anatomy.

At no point did Mallory suggest that women shouldn't "act kindly" if someone approaches them politely so to go straight to accusing her of being a "smug schmuck to half of humanity" is a rather un-nuanced escalation for someone who claims to be an academic.

This tweet is just the academic version of the common man-whine of "How are men and women meant to get together if men can't talk to women anymore?". Sit down. Nobody is saying men can't talk to women. We are simply saying we don't owe you anything if you talk to us and if we make it clear we're not interested, back off. Men and women are still getting together, and if they are doing so in a more mutually respectful manner these days, that's a good thing. 

And then there is the patronising oversimplification from a man:

"Try this simple hack: “Nice to meet you, I’m not interested in talking right now.” Works every time"

No, it doesn't work every time. If a polite response worked every time, it wouldn't be a problem for women. How the hell would a man know if it works every time anyway? He is only speaking from his own experience. If he can accept that a woman is not interested, good for him but he can't assume that every man who is politely turned away will take no for an answer. 

There were plenty of responses to Mallory's tweet along the lines of  a sarcastic "the struggle is real", as if she is detracting from what a bunch of men on the internet have decided to deem as genuine oppression against women. The struggle is real. We know the struggle is real because conversations where women have told someone they're not interested have ended up in their rape or murder. That's why it's a struggle and that's why we have the right to be angry about this issue along with the thousands of other reasons from around the world for why feminism should still exist.

And here are a few terrible responses from women, such as this one:

"Well Mallory, there are many of us women out here who adore men. In fact, take me as an example: I quite prefer conversation with a man over a self-absorbed puppet propaganda female."

Thank you for perpetuating the myth of the man-hating feminist. It is possible to "adore men" and expect these adorable creatures to show us respect if we want to be left alone. You are perfectly entitled to talk to men instead of women. Literally nobody is stopping you from doing this.  

And just as there are patronising men, there are women who are not above patronising other women:

"Dear men, Not all women are like this. If you speak to me, I’m perfectly capable of being polite. I’m often blessed by the stories/people I meet when I don’t close myself off. A brief conversation never hurt anyone. And listening is a valuable skill to develop. Sincerely, me."

Oh yawn. Any civilised adult is "perfectly capable of being polite". The problem is that a polite refusal is not always respected. Good for you that you've been "blessed" by the strangers that you've met because you don't "close yourself off". But nobody should be expected to be permanently open to chatting to strangers, no matter how fascinating they may be. As for the patronising guff about listening being a valuable skill to develop, it is precisely because I've spent all day listening to people that I might want a drink by myself when I'm off duty.   

"Dear Men, when I was single, I was mature enough to carry on a conversation with men, and when their attention was unwanted or inappropriate, to let them know that I wasn’t interested. PS, you all responded as mature humans as well."

And this is the terrible female equivalent of the "simple hack" man. Just as he has never seen an example of a bad situation as a result of a woman rejecting a man politely, this lucky woman is here to tell us that when she politely rejected men, 100% of the time they "all responded as mature humans". That's great but extrapolating from the example of one is stupid. 

If you refuse to recognise that not every polite refusal ends in a civilised manner, you are denying the real experiences of real women than happen all over the world every day. When these interactions go sour, at best, it might result in an awkward conversation - but, hey, nobody ever died of embarrassment, right? Or it could escalate to an angry conversation. Or it could end in unwanted touching, which could be an insistent hand on the arm, hand or thigh or it could be rape or murder.   

Because men who feel entitled to a conversation from a woman can easily be the men who feel entitled to our bodies.

I stand with Mallory.

Photography by Frederic Poirot/Flickr

Britain: the spoiled toddler of Europe

We got home in the early hours of this morning from a brilliant holiday on the Greek island of Rhodes. Everywhere we went, my Australian self and my British husband did not have to trouble ourselves with knowing a word of Greek, apart from "Yamas!" when the beers arrived. 

Waiters, bar tenders, hotel receptionists, hotel cleaners, the woman in the mini market, people urging us to have fish pedicures and walk through a giant lion's mouth to enter a club in Faliraki, the guys who take the money for the sunloungers on the beaches, the cheerful car hire bloke - they all spoke good English. Better than good. Way better than anything I could burp out in Greek. And then you'd see them talk to other people and effortlessly swing from Greek to French to German to Italian and back to English for the monolingual people.

Because that is what Brits (and Australians and Americans...) have come to expect - that everyone will speak English. 

I couldn't sneer at the Greek waiter who said "Lovely jubbly!" as he took our order at a beachside taverna, even though I find Jamie Oliver chronically irritating. After all, he took the time to learn a popular English catchphrase for our benefit. If I was waiting on tables in London and that waiter turned up, I wouldn't be able to muster a single Greek catchphrase to welcome him. I could manage some schoolgirl German, maybe some French and Italian babble that would make me sound like a reject from 'Allo, 'Allo, but I'd be flattering myself if I thought I could hold entire conversations with our nearby neighbours in their own language.

But the cliche of the British tourist expecting to be pandered to, coddled and pampered like an obnoxious toddler is true. You do see British holidaymakers talking loudly and slowly, creating halitosis mirages in the faces of bemused Europeans. It's embarrassing (and I'm only British by presumption and association when I travel with my husband) but it's a microcosm of how Britain expects to be treated by the European Union.  

And we have been treated very well as members of the EU. We are not compelled to have multilingual road signs. Our driving distances are measured in miles, not metric. We can order a pint rather than 568 millilitres of beer. We have kept the pound as our currency rather than adopting the euro. We are not part of the Schengen zone. We have the power to deport Europeans for reasons of security and if they are a burden on the welfare system. We would have had even more rights in terms of deporting EU citizens under the deal David Cameron negotiated before the referendum - if we'd voted to stay in the EU. Ironically, he did a better job of negotiating with the EU than any of the lazy, low-information charlatans who have turned up to Brussels since the referendum still expecting special treatment.

It is pitiful to see Brexiters whine about the EU being mean to them when all they are doing is enforcing what it means to leave the EU. The four freedoms are indivisible - if you voted to leave the EU, you literally voted to give up those freedoms. You can poke your bottom lip out and wobble it all you like, but that is what you did. At least have the courage and awareness to own your shit.

If we do end up leaving the EU on October 31, we don't yet know the level of chaos that will ensue. Only a masochist would want things to go badly. But there are some things that will become more difficult, things that many of us haven't even considered. There are no cheaper, smoother alternatives for British companies who benefit from supply chains through Europe - and this is not just for exporting to the EU. Anyone with a map of the world can see that the port of Antwerp offers an easy route to Africa, for example. 

There is a world of crap facing the travel industry too. Trust me, I report on it for a living. Bus drivers who drive in Europe will need EU-approved certificates of professional competence as UK certificates would become invalid in a no-deal Brexit. Insolvency protection for UK retailers selling to EU customers and vice versa will become way more complicated, such as those who sell travel products. UK travel companies will need to take out insolvency protection for each EU market into which they sell. EU-based tour operators will need to be ATOL members. UK travel agents will need proof that non-UK organisations they work with comply with separate UK regulations.

But supply chains and ease of working for bus drivers and insolvency protection for the travel industry and Antwerp - that's all boring, right? If anyone read the paragraph above in its entirety, I'd be stunned. Here's the link to a story I wrote on it if you can be arsed.

No matter what I write, there are still plenty of people who are fetishising any possible hardships, spouting tedious bumper sticker slogans about how we survived two world wars and we just need to invoke the Blitz spirit. Except WWII ended 74 years ago. People who have never fired a shot in defence of anything are carrying on as if they were there, underneath Luftwaffe bombs and enduring rationing. It was a bloody awful time. 

We survived? My arse, we did. We didn't have to do anything because most of us weren't yet born or we were too young to really remember - and for that we should be grateful for the generations before us. But in the online peanut galleries, it is the Brexiters who are claiming a monopoly on respecting the sacrifices of our largely long-dead soldiers. That's bullshit.

The desire in particular to see young people suffer post-Brexit is particularly vile. When did people stop wanting the next generation to have a better, easier life?  My grandfather, who saw the horrors of WWII up close in Papua New Guinea and Japan, was always grateful that his son and daughter and my sister and I did not have to go to war. He did not want us to see what he saw and he did not want our young adulthoods blighted by war and suffering because he was decent and rational.

And as the days grind on, ever closer to October 31, it's obvious Boris Johnson, our wretched joke of a prime minister, has nothing to offer. He has no real desire or ability to negotiate anything with the EU. All he has is meaningless arse-waffle about "believing" and "getting on with it" and "clean breaks". It's the Brexiters who are all about the feelz, even when the attempts by the government to negotiate a deal that won't damage the economy collide with reality and dissipate into a fine powder of delusion.  

This country is behaving like a spoiled toddler. I hope we're not the poorer for it. If the Brexiters prove me wrong, fine. So be it. But spare me the WWII analogies - they're historically ignorant and you're embarrassing yourself like a prime minister who runs away from a bunch of middle-aged protestors in Luxembourg.

   

Photography by Eyesplash/Flickr

Of dead cats and trial balloons...

Dead cat: Apparently coined by political strategist, Lynton Crosby, it is something said or done to draw attention away from unpleasant news.

Trial balloon: A project, scheme or idea that is tentatively announced to test the reaction. 

There is nothing particularly new about dead cats or trial balloons, but in the last few months, we've had enough dead cats dropped on us to fill a Stephen King novel and the sky is so full of trial balloons, everyone has received an online petition about it from Greenpeace.

Basically, the government wants to know how far it can go, exactly how strong is our appetite for assorted populist, right-leaning policies and how loud and effective are the dissenters. And when something awful is happening, a diversion will be created.

The two most obvious trial balloons of recent months were flown by the chronically misnamed Centre for Social Justice,

A think-tank, led by Iain Duncan Smith, floated the idea of increasing the age when the state pension can be accessed, to 75. The CSJ put the proposal forward and it wasn't long before it was howled down by many. It was a bold move for a conservative think-tank led by a Tory politician, considering the reliance by the Conservative Party on older voters.

IDS himself spluttered out a tweet which made a valiant attempt to put a positive spin on a policy that would make many a tired, overworked voter furious:

"Removing barriers for older people to working longer has the potential to improve health and wellbeing, increase retirement savings and ensure the full functioning of public services for all."

Never mind that this policy would lead to many people placing further strain on public services, such as the NHS, because they've worked long after their bodies have started begging for a rest. As if he cares about that - it's all about saving money on the state pension, the biggest proportion of the welfare bill.

A 75 retirement age was never government policy and may never happen, but the reaction to the balloon was probably very instructive for the government.

The other trial balloon from the CSJ was to urge Home Secretary Priti Patel to make the minimum wage for visa applicants £36,700, effectively eliminating people from coming to work in the UK in most nursing, teaching, hospitality and aged care jobs. Despite the obvious labour shortages that such a policy would create pretty quickly, particularly with an ageing population (but, hey, maybe we can look forward to a country where the average care home worker is over 70...), this idea seemed to be a bit more popular, particularly with anti-immigration voters who are being courted by the Conservative Party, lest the Brexit Party parks too many more tanks on the manicured Tory lawns. 

I'm sure it has given Priti Patel much food for thought - and I wouldn't be surprised if she finds it rather tasty indeed.

Of course, both trial balloons caused insta-outrage across social media, even though neither was actually government policy. That said, awful ideas should be challenged loudly because complacent acceptance can be taken as consent.

Meanwhile, dead cats have been distracting us particularly in recent times. The two most obvious dead cats are the ridiculous Jacob Rees-Mogg issuing a ridiculous style guide for his staff to use in written correspondence, and Boris Johnson absurdly claiming he paints wooden buses as a hobby.

While the country was generally united in saying "What a dickhead!" in regard to the Rees-Mogg style guide, Boris Johnson was getting his arse handed to him in Brussels over his delusional rhetoric about negotiating a whole new deal before Halloween. It was probably around then that he realised he had all the negotiating power of a kitten trying to wrest a zebra steak off a lion and started investigating proroguing parliament - or asking Dominic Cummings to look into it for him, because Johnson is essentially a lazy bugger. Negotiation has never been his strong suit.

And Johnson's own dead cat - the admission that he makes model buses from old wine crates for fun - was possibly a work of evil genius. Anyone who seriously thinks Boris Johnson paints model buses in between his busy schedule of shagging, abusing exclamation marks in official letters, farting, spilling red wine on sofas and bellowing bumper sticker slogans instead of answering journalists' questions properly, is either naive or stupid. There is a theory that he was advised, possibly by a digitally savvy member of his team, to confess to this dorky hobby so that whenever someone Googles something like "Boris Johnson bus", the demonstrably dishonest red bus of the EU referendum campaign drops off the search engine's top results. 

Sure enough, I just Googled "Boris Johnson bus" and the first page spat out three model bus stories and three videos on this story at the top. The image search results still lead with Johnson standing in front of the bus promising an extra £350 million a week to the NHS if we leave the EU, but the search results are certainly less embarrassing than they were before that story broke.

As a bonus for Boris Johnson, while everyone was saying: "Model buses? Really?", the heat died down around the story about his row with girlfriend Carrie Symonds, in which the police were called to her flat. 

Johnson is not afraid to look silly. Indeed, his ludicrous persona has helped him get so far with minimal challenge, so pretending to make buses from wine crates is a minor example of buffoonery compared to his litany of contrived wackiness. His whole manufactured eccentric schtick is possibly the biggest dead cat of them all.

And the biggest trial balloon of them all? The one that could rival the movie Up for its house-lifting properties? Proroguing parliament, of course. This is a classic example of Johnson, with the able assistance of Cummings, seeing what they can get away with. It was so easy. He knew the Queen was not going to tell him to fuck off. 

A much-longer-than-average prorogation of five weeks may only mean a few less sitting days in the House of Commons, because of the party conference recess, but for Johnson, it reduces the time for proper parliamentary debate, and further scrutiny is shut down as the House of Lords and all select committees must close under prorogation. This is sinister. If Theresa May tried to do this to force the passing of her EU deal, there would be outrage across the political spectrum, no doubt with plenty of sexist abuse thrown in for good measure. If a Labour government pulled this stunt, the accusations of Stalinist tactics would fly thick and fast.

But already Brexiters are accusing remainers of panicking over a little shut-down and gleefully celebrating the fact that the prorogation makes a no-deal Brexit on October 31 more likely. The trial balloon is having the desired effect. Dominic Cummings is playing a blinder and we'll probably all be poorer for it.

On being told to go home

                                     

I'm an immigrant. I was not born in the UK, my passport says I'm Australian. But I have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, I am married to a British man, I work here, I pay tax here, I vote here. I am a privileged immigrant - I have not been subjected to horrendous racism in the eight years that I have lived here. Of course, I have been told more than once that I'm "the kind of immigrant we like", which is usually code for "white skin, native English speaker, not a Muslim" - that is obviously racist too - but I have never been subjected to the sort of racist abuse that leaves people fearing for their personal safety.

Only once have I been told to go home. It happened a few weeks ago on Twitter (where else?) when I had the temerity to express an opinion on the sorry state of British politics. Some faceless, nameless, gutless individual felt the need to reply to me, saying that if I don't like it here, I can always go back to Australia. The tweet was accompanied by a picture of an angry bloke holding a blue passport. (Spoiler alert: I've had a blue passport my whole life and they're not that exciting...).

But plenty of people get told to go home all the time. It's tiresome, it's repetitive, it's wearing and, above all, it's racist. When the president of the United States uses the "go home, go back to where you came from" rhetoric, it's still racist. The two men who are vying to be the next prime minister, however, were unable to say that Trump's words were racist.

In a particularly pathetic display on BBC Breakfast, Jeremy Hunt said he wouldn't use "the r-word". The r-word? Really? It's one thing to say "the n-word" rather than lower oneself to use a particularly vile racial slur against black people but to reduce a word that was entirely accurate in the context to "the r-word" is pitiful. He then went on to say that he was the father of two half-Chinese children, as if that made everything OK. It doesn't make anything OK. If anything, it makes things worse - if some cretin told Jeremy Hunt's kids to go back to where they came from, would he condemn that person as a racist? Or is it only people we're seeking trade deals from that get a leave pass to be a bigot?

Of course, that was everyone's defence of the mealy-mouthed responses of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to Trump's awful comments. It's the Special Relationship! They're our closest ally! We need to do a trade deal after Brexit! Ilhan Omar's a racist too!

A few things: the special relationship predates the Trump administration and it will long outlive his presidency and the premiership of either Johnson or Hunt; trade deals take years to negotiate and a negotiation with the US will almost certainly go on for longer than our next PM is in office; and if a trade deal is done in a hurry, it will not be a great deal for the UK. Trump means it when he says "America first".

And in regard to Ilhan Omar, it is possible to disagree with her position on a number of issues without resorting to one of the oldest racist insults in the book. We should be better than that, but it seems that, increasingly, we are not.

We've reached peak whataboutery when it comes to accusing people of racism, particularly in the Labour and Conservative parties. Anyone who dares call out anti-semitism in Labour is guaranteed to have someone yell "But what about Tory Islamophobia?" at them and vice versa. How about we aim to reach a place where none of it is OK? How about we stand up against racism without trampling on another group which also experiences racism and ensure our own houses are in order before we start deflecting attention to the house across the street?

This is how we've ended up with Katie Hopkins using her supposed support of Israel and Jewish people as sticks with which to bash Muslims, even though she is not above making anti-semitic comments herself and making allusions to a "final solution" or using dehumanising language when it comes to migrants. Hopkins merely picks on a group of people for her own self-promotion and profit. If it's not Muslims, it might be poor people or obese people or people with tattoos or any other group she seeks to demonise in her desperate quest to stay relevant. Any one of us could be her next target and her loyal band of haters will gleefully wave their pitchforks and join in the pile-ons.

It's no coincidence that Trump and Hopkins are in bed together, at least in the online world, with their cosy, bile-laden circle jerk of mutual tweeting.

Trump's comments matter on this side of the pond because many people over here look to him for inspiration, to legitimise their own awful views. We do need to maintain a relationship with the US but it is possible to do this without lowering ourselves to Trump's level. Britain must be better than that if we are at all serious about remaining an influential country, if we are serious about setting an example to the world, if we care about our standing in the global community and, above all, if we truly love this country and the people who call it home.


Photography by Jim Larrison/Flickr 

When the news became a great big trigger warning...

The news cycle since last Thursday has been more unedifying than usual. Perhaps it is naive to expect that people would largely agree that the correct way to deal with a peaceful protester at an elite dinner is not to push her into a pillar and frogmarch her out, grabbing the back of her neck. And perhaps it is naive to expect that if a couple is having an argument so loud it can be heard in the street as well as in neighbouring flats, a reasonable response would be to knock on the door to see if everyone is OK and, if there is no response, call the police.

Yet here we are, arguing all over the internet about all this. I can only imagine how horrific it must be for so many women who have been victims of physical violence or domestic abuse, which can be physical, emotional, verbal or psychological - or an awful combination of these types.

On Thursday night, Janet Barker, a Greenpeace campaigner, along with a group of fellow activists, managed to barge into the Mansion House dinner just as Chancellor Phillip Hammond was about to give his speech. She was dressed in a red cocktail dress and heels, she carried a small bag, a phone and a bundle of leaflets, and she wore a Greenpeace sash. Her fellow protestors were similarly dressed - red cocktail dresses and sashes for the women and tuxedos for the men - and the obvious question is how did they get as far into the building as they did? It is astounding in these paranoid times, that they were not stopped at the entrance, bags X-rayed and leaflets inspected. I've been to events at the Houses of Parliament and Portcullis House and the security was on par with catching a plane.

But get into the dinner they did. And when Janet Barker walked towards the front of the room, Mark Field MP took it upon himself to stop her - which would have been fine if he'd handled it almost any other way other than the way he did. 

He could have been a true class act and defender of free speech by stopping her, asking her to tell the room why she was there, and then handed her leaflets around the room. Or he could have steered her away by the arm rather than push her into a pillar and grab her by the scruff of the neck, his face magenta with instant rage.

For so many women who have been attacked in that manner, whether in public or private, the endless repetition of the footage for a solid two days cannot have been easy. The pushing into a wall, the grabbing of the neck, instantly weakening defences - it's appallingly familiar for too many. It gave me a brief flashback to the time I was pulled off a footpath in Dubai and pushed into a bush in an attempted sexual assault. And I managed to get away, albeit with laddered tights and a scratch on my chest. I can only imagine how much worse this footage would be for women who have suffered worse violence at the hands of men, especially over a sustained period of time.

Field's defence was that he "acted on instinct" but if that was his instinct, he really does need to take some time away to reflect as to why his immediate reaction was rage and excessive manhandling of a woman who was clearly representing a group known for peaceful protest. Please note that "peaceful" in this context means "non-violent", not "quiet" or "non-disruptive". The Greenpeace protesters who woke me up one morning in Durban in 2011 to protest a gas industry event in my hotel made a racket but nobody was in any danger. They were allowed to sing, bang drums in the street and chant unimpeded. One activist managed to get into the hotel business centre and change the wallpaper on the computers to the Greenpeace logo. There was no harm done. I giggled to myself when I went to the business centre to write up my notes from the gas event on one of the altered PCs - it was excellent mischief.

And nobody was in any real danger last Thursday night. 

Nobody else at the dinner felt the need to react so disproportionately. Plenty of people who were at the Mansion House dinner were at the Conservative Party conference of 2017 when Simon Brodkin, a "prankster" (read: overgrown schoolboy who is about as funny as burning orphans), barged in and handed Theresa May a P45. On that occasion, no male MPs felt the need to be a Billy Big-Balls hero and push Brodkin into the wall or frogmarch him out by scruff of the neck, Theresa May was the very model of British good manners when she took the P45 form in the same way that many a Brit is too polite not to take a leaflet from someone at the tube station, and the security guard who escorted Brodkin out did so with a single, gentle hand to the back.

Following on from the usual suspects defending Mark Field, news broke of a noisy row at Carrie Symonds' flat, which would not be newsworthy except the argument was with her partner, one Boris Johnson, the man most likely to be the next prime minister. He has been staying there after his second marriage broke up. God forbid he rent a place in Uxbridge, his actual constituency, but that would require him to show some sort of commitment to his job as an MP.

But I digress. As with any argument between a couple, only the couple knows the full story, but we do know this argument was loud enough to be heard on the street and through walls, Ms Symonds was heard saying "get off me" and "get out of my flat", Mr Johnson was heard saying "get off my fucking laptop" and smashing sounds were heard. It's the kind of language and sounds that are familiar to many a victim of domestic violence.

The ethics of the neighbours giving a recording of the altercation to the Guardian newspaper is being furiously debated - along with the ethics of other newspapers making hay from it all while spouting fauxrage at the neighbours who recorded the argument and claiming Ms Symonds is "furious" based on what "friends" have apparently said, rather than anything she has directly told a journalist. There is definitely an intelligent debate to be had about media ethics here, especially in regard to whether this endangers Ms Symonds' safety. The Daily Mail, in particular, should remove from its website a diagram of the apartment building, including a floorplan of Ms Symonds' flat - that invasive crap goes way beyond the public interest defence.

However, it is stunning that anyone says the police should not have been called. The ire has been directed at "nosy neighbours" and their own politics have been thoroughly dissected in today's papers. But in this sort of situation, where an argument can be easily heard outside a flat, where it sounds as if there are people in distress and possibly in physical danger, calling police is absolutely the right thing to do.

It is pretty common for police to arrive only to be told everything is fine, but there are plenty of occasions where the arrival of the police has saved someone's life or is the turning point for an abused partner to leave a dangerous relationship. In the wake of the Johnson-Symonds row, people have spoken up about how they were grateful for the neighbours who called the police, or how they would have left an abusive relationship sooner if the police were called earlier or, tragically, how people were left badly injured or killed because nobody picked up the phone.

I have been the "nosy neighbour". In 2005, I called the police multiple times on the couple in the flat across the hall from me in Sydney. They were drug addicts who would have noisy and violent fights that would spill out of their place and carry on outside the door to my flat, usually in the middle of the night. This went on for months. On one occasion, after I knocked on their door telling them to be quiet because I was trying to sleep, the woman bashed on my door when I was back in bed, yelling that she would "kick my cunt in". Then there was the day when I burst into tears at my desk, crying frustrated tears of distress and exhaustion because I was too sleep-deprived to do my job properly.

That story did not end happily. The parents of the woman called me, desperate for information about their daughter, particularly as they were caring for her child from a previous relationship. One night, the woman knocked on my door to tell me she was pregnant and too scared to tell her boyfriend - I told her she would have to start taking better care of herself if she was serious about continuing the pregnancy and that she should end the relationship. I let her know that her parents were very worried and would take her in. She told me it was too hard to leave him and scuttled back to her flat. The good news is that ultimately she did leave the toxic relationship, but not long afterwards, her boyfriend committed suicide in the flat - by this time I'd moved to Dubai and a friend who lived upstairs told me the sad, sorry story.

I don't regret calling the police. The police officers' interventions could have defused life-endangering situations, even if they always sent the police away and said they were fine. Calling the police several times was still the right thing to do. And it is the right thing to do, regardless of whether the couple is a wretched pair of drug addicts or a privileged couple who are on the verge of being the most powerful twosome in the country.

The more we argue about the morality pushing women into walls and grabbing their necks or whether we should call the police if we overhear a nasty argument, the less safe women will be. Why the hell is anyone who professes to be decent tolerating this?

Photography by George Hodan

The curious tale of Alexandra Pepper

Alexandra Pepper has led a charmed life of immense privilege. She was born into a large, lively, wealthy family and never really wanted for anything. Academically, she was bright and won a scholarship to study at Badminton School - not that her parents would have struggled to pay the fees - but it was nice to have her intelligence recognised.

School was fairly easy for Alexandra, although her report cards reveal someone who was easily bored and not gracious in defeat during games. She didn't need to study too hard and it was no real surprise that she sailed her way into Cambridge.

It soon became clear that Alexandra was able to get through life easily and breezily. She was never the prettiest girl in school, a bit scruffy even, and she was never going to be a revered beauty but that didn't matter - when you're wealthy, white and privileged, a modicum of charm, charisma and humour makes you attractive, magnetic. You grow up to be the kind of young woman who is frequently described by posh people as "good fun". Yes, that's it. She was jolly good fun, our Alex.

Never short of a boyfriend or two, university was mostly a boozy hoot for Alexandra. When you are the privileged life of the party, when you don't have to hit the books that hard to pass exams, when your essays are dazzlingly verbose, it's easy to become entitled and a bit lazy.

But would this mean the wheels would fall off for Alexandra any time soon? Probably not. When you're a cheeky lass from a "good" family, whatever that means, it's astounding what you can get away with.

After she graduated, Alexandra fancied herself as a journalist. She didn't particularly want to bother with the drudgery of learning shorthand or getting her NCTJ qualifications or how to type without turning her fingers into confused, pudgy pretzels. She assumed she'd just breeze into a job in publishing.

And, because journalism can be insanely nepotistic and all about who you know rather than what you can do, Alexandra slid into an entry-level job on a Vanity Fair-style magazine. You know the kind of magazine, don't you? It's stylish, it's slick, it has its serious side - and everyone wants to work there. And then you look at some of the people who do work there and wonder how the hell they got there, like the proverbial turtle on a post.

Of course, entitled little Alex didn't really want to bother with the mundane bollocks that most graduates have to do when they start out in the media. It was a bit of a shock to the system to discover that her first job would not be as editor, or doing glamorous things such as presiding over photo shoots for the cover with the likes of Meryl Streep, who was starring in The French Lieutenant's Woman at the time. She enjoyed the magazine parties, of course. Who wouldn't? But when it came to making the coffee, doing research tasks for senior writers, or returning soiled clothes from fashion shoots to PR companies, that wasn't really her thing.  

But did I mention she was fun and charming and charismatic? And connected. She was bored but convinced the editor that she could interview a few up and coming British artists. Or maybe an aristocratic BAFTA winner... These stories would be a piece of piss for her, a chat with the kind of people she hung out with on weekends. 

Before long, she was getting bylines on proper features. With her lack of shorthand, attention span of a kitten and low boredom threshold, her interview subjects weren't necessarily quoted accurately. Hell, if Alexandra found them to be truly dull, she'd throw in a few fake facts for her own childish amusement. There are still people who think a certain famous actress has a collection of terrifying china poodles in her bathroom and the handsome lead singer of a band that was big in the '80s had appalling acid reflux. 

Pulling these sorts of stunts would see most people fired on the spot, never to work in the media again, but Alexandra got away with her slapdash journalism for more than a decade. Sure, she was sacked once or twice, but she was the cute, goofy cat who always landed on her feet. She was such a laugh, her opinion pieces were hilarious apparently, even when they were full of or evidence-free assertions and awful views, particularly on the vulnerable. And opinion writers often get away with playing fast and loose with the truth - after all, it's an opinion, not a news report. Accuracy, schmaccuracy!

But what of Alexandra's personal life while all this was going on? She had plenty of fun at university and good for her. Like many a well-heeled young woman though, she "settled down" when she was 23, marrying a lovely young man she met at Cambridge. He had always been the backburner boyfriend and her parents were relieved when she looked suitably virginal in a lace-festooned '80s wedding dress for the ceremony in a village church not far from her parents' estate. It surprised nobody from her university days that marriage wasn't really a great fit for Alexandra. Her first husband's joy at discovering he was going to be a father was soured when she left him for the man who actually got her pregnant and promptly made him her second husband, albeit with a much quieter wedding.

Alexandra discovered that she was rather good at getting pregnant and proceeded to have four more children with her second husband, except one of them was actually the daughter of an art gallery owner - there was always talk in her social circles about the girl who was born nine months after rumours swirled around about Alexandra's sudden passion for arts funding.

Arts funding? Oh yes, by now, Alexandra was a Conservative MP, parachuted into a safe seat, after enough time had elapsed for people to forget about the scandalous end of her first marriage. It was all part of an Alexandra rebrand - she was able to charm the local Conservative association by presenting herself as a respectable, if a tad eccentric, barrister's wife and devoted mother who passed the time by writing Sloaney moany newspaper columns about assorted rich person woes. As a politician, she was very careful to vote with the Tories on any policy that would shrink state responsibility for the sick, the poor and the disabled - but she was able to appeal to people outside her world by flying the flag for causes such as the arts and animal rights.

And then it all came out. The whispers became howls about the true parentage of one of her three daughters. Then new rumours popped up about another affair, another two cuckolding pregnancies and this time, two abortions rather than giving birth to her sixth and seventh children by a third man. Alexandra's contrived persona fell to pieces. She was not able to charm and lie and deny her way out of this one. She was an ambitious MP, she was being touted as a future cabinet minister, maybe even Britain's second love-her-or-loathe-her charismatic female prime minister - but instead she was asked to resign from parliament. She had lied to her leader about her affairs. That was the end of her political career and her second marriage.

Sure, post-politics, Alexandra was going to be fine, at least economically - her family would look after her, she'd blag her way into some media work, as she left politics she was throwing herself into the era of the troll for hire, there would be a market for her terrible opinions.

But no woman in politics could survive the quadruple scandal of two affairs, a child as the result of one affair and abortions as the result of the other. And the stench that would surround this woman would be even worse if she was from a working class background or an ethnic minority.

But if you're a wealthy, privileged man with an equivalent track record to the fictional Alexandra's, both personally and professionally, your political career would be fine. If you managed to carefully cultivate an image of being a figure of fun, a scruffy eccentric chap, you could get away with saying all manner of hateful, horrible tripe and it would be brushed aside as bantz. You'd go on to do something high-profile, such as mayor of a major city, your multiple screw-ups and disgraceful wastage of public funds in that role would be overlooked, you'd blag your way back into another safe seat in parliament, you'd be bestowed one of the great offices of state, you'd find multiple ways to bugger up that job to the detriment of the country's international reputation and put a woman's life in peril in an Iranian prison.

And then you'd be the favourite to be the next prime minister.

Because it's still different for wealthy, privileged men.

Image credit: Maxpixel