Bad to the Bone: is this the sleaziest parliament of all time?
Andrew Grice in The Independent
"Why is the current parliament so sleazy," asks Andrew Grice in The Independent. Partly it's down to an independent complaints system for staff, introduced in 2018. But "it also reflects the calibre of those who become our not-so-honourable members". As a wave of misconduct claims since 2019 shows "even lowly backbenchers can think they are a god to be worshipped by their staff and abuse their positions".
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I love the British Museum, but what I've learned about the depth of its crisis fills me with dread
Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian
The British Museum's decision to accept £50 million from BP is "remarkable in its tone-deafness", says Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian. "Put this calamitous decision together with the story of the thefts, and what transpires is an institution gone dangerously off the tracks." Chair George Osborne deserves some credit, but "functioning institutions operate with their trustees in the background, quietly supporting and challenging. Not, like Osborne, becoming the story."
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Mahmoud Abbas Must Go
Samer Sinijlawi in The New York Times
Mahmoud Abbas's leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has "failed to deliver democracy to his people… and failed to ensure they can live a dignified life", writes Samer Sinijlawi, chair of the Jerusalem Development Fund, in The New York Times. The PA could bring unity back to Gaza and the West Bank "only if there are fundamental changes in the authority's structure – and that includes removing Abbas and his cronies from power".
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French feminism is being corrupted
Dora Moutot on UnHerd
"Having raged for years in the UK and US, the transgender debate has finally hit France," says Dora Moutot on UnHerd. In the Sixties, French philosophers challenged the idea that there is a single innate meaning in anything. But in the US "activists like to apply theory to the real world". Now "that language and ideology is seeping into French culture and taking hold of young imaginations".
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