Lottsathoughts

If you are still looking up facts about the EU or our membership of it, you are fighting the wrong battle. We won that argument months, possibly years ago. It did us no good of course – for who is listening? Brexit is more a symptom than a cause. Sure, there are no doubt a few crazed ideologues who genuinely have strong feelings about the minutiae of cooperative government in a global twenty-first century, but the majority of the population whose votes made Brexit even possible, don't really care. They can't possibly be distressed about the EU and its governance because on the whole, like 99% of the population pre June 2016, they don't understand it. Most EU-related issues for which they profess disquiet are actually products of fake news and misunderstandings, some accidental, many deliberate. No. The bigger debate is the changing face of society and social interaction within it. What do we aspire to look like as a nation? How do we want to define ourselves and ea...

We have to avoid a witch-hunt. That's what I keep reading. It's been said by many about the sex-scandal in Westminster. It's been said in response to the Toby Young fiasco. Catherine Deneuve and Liam Neeson have both used the term this week about the Hollywood allegations. No doubt the indignants will be saying it already about John Humphrys. And it makes me madder than ever. Ironically, the term itself - “witch-hunt” - has links with misogyny in this country. It may historically be the case that worldwide, men as well as women, have been persecuted as witches, but in the British Isles it was traditionally women. Difficult women. Argumentative women. Intelligent women. Women who refused to submit to normal sterotypes. Women healers. Call them a witch and burn them. How the tables have turned. Now women are gaining the confidence of solidarity , largely through the power of social media, to draw attention to the various forms of sexis...