The Critic

DOES THE QUALITY OF MEMBERS OF Parliament matter? How can it not? We live in a parliamentary system. Most ministers are drawn from the elected House of Commons, rather than the appointed House of Lords. And we must believe that ministers make some difference to the way government departments perform. If, then, MPs become less able, the system will be worse run. So how do we produce MPs? In a party system such as Britain’s, we get them care of the processes parties use internally to select their candidates in safe or target seats. If the calibre of MPs has indeed diminished, and our government is steadily poorer as a result, it follows that we must first look to the process of how we selected them. The current Conservative government…

The EPATH conference opened with a remarkable statement: “We respect everyone’s freedom of speech, but we choose not to listen to it.” “THAT EXPLAINS THE BARNEY!” EXCLAIMED the taxi driver taking me from Kerry airport to a conference in late April in Killarney, a popular Irish tourist destination. The previous day had been unusually busy because my conference coincided with another, and taxis had doubled and tripled up on passengers. One group he ferried had included delegates to both events, he said, and the conversation had got pretty heated. That may not have been precisely what the organisers of the event I attended were hoping for — but sparking debate was certainly their aim. They are Genspect, a group of health professionals dedicated to challenging the excesses of gender medicine.…

RED, WHITE — AND BLUE Stephen Daisley (PART OF THE UNION? MAY) hits the bullseye when he notes that the SNP’s current problems are entirely self-inflicted rather than the work of their visionless political opponents. If readers want an insight into the complete absence of an alternative narrative offered by Scotland’s Unionist parties then they could begin with Lord McInnes of Kilwinning, for 18 years a Scottish Conservative Party director, strategist to Ruth Davidson, and constitutional issues special adviser to Boris Johnson. In April, McInnes told Fortnight magazine that whilst unionists “must be able” to express “their sense of Britishness”, the government trying “to enforce a false Britishness on people … would be counterproductivity at its best. The Union, he suggested “is not to be saved by even more red,…

IN JANUARY, TRUCK DRIVER Fabian Greco pled guilty to assaulting another motorist, dislocating his jaw and leaving him unable to work for weeks. The judge was minded to send him to prison for 18 weeks, but imposed a suspended sentence instead because the government had asked judges to “relieve the pressure on the prison estates” because “the prisons are full”. The government denied having issued such guidance, a stance rather belied by its activation of contingency plans to lock up sentenced prisoners in police cells because of the lack of prison space. Meanwhile, at the other end of the country, Danny Weatherson, who was convicted of attempted robbery when he was 17, was still in prison after serving 18 years of a 15 month minimum sentence. He did not hurt…

WHEN I HEARD THE TWITTER blue ticks had disappeared I was at a party in the British Library, talking to three good friends, all of whom I met through Twitter. Twitter has been significant to me: it’s hard to imagine how I could have built a professional network in journalism from outside London in the absence of social media. But often, it’s been significantly unpleasant. The blue tick system was one of the ways Twitter attempted to limit harassment, and it worked to a degree. Now Elon Musk has rolled it back, impersonation is rife. Along with other Musk-era tweaks, it’s helped to make Twitter feel not just unpleasant, but — horror of horrors for a social media platform — unengaging. There’s a drug that’s prescribed to alcoholics called Antabuse. It…

“Sayonara!” says Rishi cheerfully, walking into the study. He’s just got back from a big trip to see lots of other leaders in Japan. “That’s a traditional Japanese greeting, apparently. Everywhere I went, people were shouting it to me.” In the corner James, who used to write nice things about us in The Times and now spends all day on a website called LinkedIn, puts his head in his hands. “I’m not sure it means exactly what you think it means, darling,” says Akshata, gently. “But I’m glad you had a nice time.” “I had a great chat with the local mayor. He said he’d heard about the local elections, and that people round there knew just how I felt, which was so kind.” “Where were you again?” “Hiroshima.” James…