The next general election could bring not only a new government but also a new political party headed by Dominic Cummings.

Back in August, the former Downing Street svengali laid out a plan to "divert energy and money away from 'how to revive the Tories' to 'how to replace the Tories'". Now, he's revealed his goal of launching a new party, currently referred to as The Startup Party, that will be "completely different from the other parties", he told the i news site.

What's the new party?
First, it's not actually going to be called The Startup Party. Cummings wrote on Substack that "a new party is a startup and it's a good way to think about this project", but the name is a "place holder".

Cummings wants this party to be focused on cutting immigration, closing tax loopholes, investing in public services and dramatically reforming the civil service. It will be "ruthlessly focused on the voters not on Westminster and the old media", he told i news, and "friendly towards all the amazing talent in the country" in both the "private and public sector".

But "he has not released any details about important factors such as its funding, membership and governance", said the site.

How has the media reacted?
Cummings "seems to believe that the startup party he envisages will magically arise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old Westminster parties", wrote Nigel Jones in The Spectator. But he forgets that even with Nigel Farage's "dynamic presence", it took Ukip more than 20 years of "patient work" before "it harvested enough support" to become an "existential threat" to the Tories.

Cummings "may be too tarnished to upturn British politics again" as a public figure, wrote Will Lloyd for The Times. But he "may also be the prophet who seeds these ideas among British conservatives", so his detractors "would be unwise to laugh too much".

Indeed, said Tom Harris in The Telegraph, even if his ambition stretches no further than "contributing to the sense" that Rishi Sunak's government is "on its last legs", Cummings "can consider his latest intervention a success".

"The girlboss era is decidedly over," Vanity Fair declared last year. And this reported demise has coincided with a growing trend of young women ditching their careers for more leisurely pursuits.

Videos of so-called stay-at-home girlfriends (SAHGs) "narrating their day while twinkly music plays in the background" are gaining millions of views on social media, said Cosmopolitan. But "the life of a SAHG is risky, to say the least". 

The good
TikTok shows SAHGs "puttering around modern high-rise apartments, pushing Dyson vacuums and spoiling small dogs", in a conscious rejection of the "mid-2000s 'girlboss' hustle culture", said Rory Satran in The Wall Street Journal.

These women's days are packed with "elaborate skin, fitness and food routines", said The Washington Post's Monica Heese, and not just for their own pleasure but also that of their boyfriends, "who are, after all, funding the whole shebang".

At the centre of it all is "the concept that liberation is overrated". Today, "women are allowed to have successful careers", but when domestic responsibilities still disproportionately falls on women, "who wouldn't dream of feminine leisure".

The bad
The "seemingly harmless" charms of soft girl living "blend a little too easily into old-fashioned manifestations of gender", wrote psychologist Vanessa Scaringi for Time. SAHGs "are pretending they have agency over their choices", author and campaigner Eve Rodsky told the news site, but they are "taking huge economic risks". 

While stay-at-home spouses generally get financial support if a relationship ends in divorce, SAHGs don't, financial expert Farnoosh Torabi told Cosmopolitan – so "what happens when you go from being a stay-at-home-girlfriend to just a stay-at-home girl"? 

The reality 
Even if a lot of SAHGs say that they are living the good life, these "tales of fulfilment, relaxation and empowerment" must be balanced against "stories of breakups, professional struggles, boredom and insecurity", said Satran. 

In reality, "life isn't effortless", Scaringi told Time, "and if we want to be fulfilled, it can't be". It's true that "whenever we are too invested in our careers, we lose out on so much life". But "the extreme pendulum swing in the direction of 'soft girl' also lands us in troubling waters".

Eat, drink and be merry at these culinary-centric fiestas.

Taste of London
Billed as a "food-fuelled garden party", ToL is celebrating its 20th anniversary and brings together epic London restaurants, artisan producers and entertainment, with more than 55,000 visitors expected this year. 
12-16 June 2024: Regent’s Park, London

Yorkshire Dales Food & Drink Festival
This popular family-friendly festival in the Yorkshire Dales will feature chefs including James Martin and Si King of The Hairy Bikers, plus live cookery demonstrations, other entertainment and street-food vendors. 
19-21 July: Funkirk Farm, Skipton, North Yorkshire

Smoke and Fire
The UK's largest barbecue festival experience is heading to Ascot for its first hot-ticket event of the summer. Blending family fun and gourmet barbecue cooking from the US, highlights include live demos on the coals, award-winning street food and cool kit to buy.
20-21 July: Ascot Racecourse, Berkshire

Rock Oyster Festival
This food and music festival on the banks of the Camel Estuary has a jam-packed menu of live acts, chef demos, open-fire cooking and pop-up restaurants. Musical headliners for 2024 include Sugababes and The Human League.
25-28 July: Dinham House, north Cornwall

Isle of Wight Garlic Festival
The Isle of Wight's popular festival celebrates garlic and garlic-flavoured produce. A favourite of the island's summer season since 1983, it hosts celebrity chef demonstrations, live bands and kids' shows.
17-18 August: Isle of Wight

A person's colour is no clue to their opinions
Tomiwa Owolade in The Times
Online critics have been "denouncing" Zadie Smith as an "apologist for Israel" and "stooge of the establishment" after she argued that Jewish students should not be made to feel unsafe on university campuses, writes Tomiwa Owolade. The "most striking" responses were from those who claimed Smith "had betrayed her racial identity", but "no one should be a poster girl or boy for left-wing ideology, or any other kind of politics, simply on the basis" of their race.

Climate change doesn't have to be a culture war issue
Frances Lasok in City A.M.
There are some issues in politics that are "inevitably tribal because they benefit one group and disadvantage another", says Frances Lasok, such as triple-lock pensions. But there are "other questions that should unite us into one tribe, where the costs and benefits are automatically shared". Climate change is one, because "on environmental issues, we all win or we all lose", and we need policies that "focus on the collective challenge".

A Trump dynasty will swiftly implode
Malcom Kyeyune on UnHerd
"With Oedipal drama never far from America's political consciousness, it was only a matter of a time before Donald Trump's youngest son, Barron, was thrust under the spotlight," says Malcom Kyeyune. Donald Trump Jr has long been "active politically", and his sister Ivanka was "rumoured to be angling" for a senatorial seat. But the "emptiness of those seeking to create a political dynasty out of Trump's family" is "plain" and exudes "political helplessness, just as a child crawls to his mother when he's scared".