1. Sarah Everard’s disappearance is a horrifying reminder that women live in fear of violence
Alona Ferber in the New Statesman
on male violence
Yesterday, women on social media “shared their rage at the brazenness of the violence” towards missing 33-year-old Sarah Everard, writes Alona Ferber in the New Statesman. “They shared their chosen methods of protecting themselves against attack” and they told of the “mundane, ever-present possibility of violence that looms over women’s lives”. Newspapers reported that police in Clapham, south London, had warned women to be careful going out alone. “As if women need reminding to be careful,” Ferber says. By the time her daughter has grown up, hopes Ferber, “maybe the onus will no longer be on women to protect themselves. Maybe by that point, the male violence that is a clear consequence of misogyny will be effectively policed and prosecuted.”
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2. Johnson acts like a recruiting sergeant for the nationalists
Alex Massie in The Times
on saving the union
“For many unionists, the best thing Boris Johnson could do to strengthen the UK is to lose the next general election,” writes Alex Massie in The Times. “The prime minister is the kind of polarising figure the SNP would have to create if he weren’t already such a good recruiting sergeant for their cause.” The prime minister’s enthusiasm for a tunnel connecting Northern Ireland and Scotland displays “the impoverishment of what passes for pro-Union thinking in Downing Street”. “With friends like Johnson,” adds Massie, “it’s a wonder that Welsh and Scottish nationalism isn’t more popular than it already is.”
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3. White collar workers, beware: climbing the greasy pole from your kitchen table won’t be easy
Ross Clark in The Telegraph
on post-pandemic work
As Covid begins to recede, a “new idea is in vogue”, says Ross Clark in The Telegraph. That idea, he says, is the “Goldilocks working week”. After the pandemic we will work two days in the office, and the rest of the time from home. But that routine “is not going to be best way to attract ambitious staff, nor to get the best out of them”, Clark warns. We could see the emergence of two classes of white-collar workers, namely the “working-from-home” brigade and the “always-at-work” brigade. “It isn’t hard to work out which will become the officer class – the latter, who will have grabbed the best, most-visible hot-desks for their own.”
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4. Squandering trust is no route to a ‘Global Britain’
Philip Stephens in the Financial Times
on Britain's reputation
“As a significant power with far-flung global interests and too few gunboats to enforce its will alone, Britain is in the game of persuading others to play by the rules,” writes Philip Stephens in the Financial Times. All of which renders Boris Johnson’s efforts to renege on the Northern Ireland protocol “inexplicable”. “The collision between vaulting ambition and economic reality is a familiar British story. But the UK has been well respected as a reliable ally. Johnson is squandering that reputation.”
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5. What Piers Morgan’s exit tells us about the future of impartial broadcasting in the UK
Jane Martinson in The Guardian
on new news
“When the next history of the British media is written, there should be a chapter seeking to explain why it so often ends up being about Piers Morgan,” writes Jane Martinson in The Guardian. Morgan’s departure from ITV’s Good Morning Britain has stirred up a row over the meaning of impartiality in broadcast news. While the row “may be tempting to ignore”, it requires our attention. If we do not “reassert the principles of impartiality” we may succumb to the partisan TV media common in the US, Martinson warns. But the fact is that Morgan will likely be back soon, she adds, because “outrage sells”.
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