Rowan Pelling
@RowanPelling
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38
Statuses
1,701
Writer, dawdler, escaped eroticist, liberal, lifelong barmaid - still listening. Editor Perspective, former editrice The Erotic Review.
Cambridge
Joined May 2014
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From Alan Duncan's diaries: “Apparently Carrie Symonds, head of press in Conservative HQ, is due to become a SPAD in the FCO. It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
@jonlis1
@PeterPhelpsPers
@gavinesler
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I had the privilege and joy of talking to the economist Dr Victoria Bateman about her new book Naked Feminism: Breaking the cult of female modesty at Blackwells in Oxford this evening. There may have been a naked stroll beforehand.
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Why are the public footing the bill for a minister's libel? Surely this is misuse of public funds? Great clear thread from
@poppyeh
for anyone who's missed some of the finer detail.
Want to know why Michelle Donelan was forced to make an extraordinary apology to two academics earlier today?
It's a bizarre tale involving Policy Exchange, a secret government dossier and a libel case paid for by the taxpayer
A short thread (1/10)
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Every now and then you need to rock out antlers, a foliage garland, a cobweb dress and a stuffed cobra. En route to a Midsummer Night's Scream ball at the Chelsea Arts Club.
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@suzanne_moore
Such a British thing, this demand for gratitude to institutions that have shortchanged you - often over many years.
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The casting is the best thing about the new
@BBC
Agatha Christie,
#murderiseasy
. Love David Jonsson. But everything else is dire: the pace, implausibility, panto poshos, the direction. It's the drama equivalent of painting by numbers. I've turned it off in a great big sulk.
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This makes me furious. Utterly predictable and socially and economically disastrous, many warned in vain, I see it all over - a friend of one of my sons has never returned. Heartbreaking piece by
@HarrietSergeant
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@shockproofbeats
I've frequently been told I'm a self-loathing man by readers of the Telegraph, enraged by my feminist-supporting claptrap and the fact I've slipped past the Grand Viziers of the patriarchy.
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@lea_ypi
Men who mistake creepy for gallantry/funny; quite a few in the UK media. I'm always amazed they didn't get the 2017 memo, especially since it's been sent around a billion times.
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In any just world River Action would triumph - and the Environment Agency would have to eat shit. Power to the protestors
@Feargal_Sharkey
@RiverActionUK
It’s all going off in Cardiff this morning I have to tell you.
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1/ Well worth reading this brilliant interview with
@doctor_oxford
by
@jonlis1
from
@Perspective_tw
- the moving ITV drama Breathless is based on her covid frontline experiences. Unbelievable there's been political sniping over it - I have many issues with the govt's covid
.
@doctor_oxford
is a deeply humane and insightful thinker who, when I interviewed her last year, almost brought me to tears. It doesn’t surprise me that there are people who want to bring her down, but they won’t succeed.
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@soniasodha
This makes my blood boil. There was a family in the hamlet where I grew up who had two beautiful boys with haemophilia - both died because of the contaminated blood scandal. One was a contemporary of my older brother. I can't even...
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This is bollocks
@Cambswater
- my teenage son and half his friends have had terrible stomach bugs from swimming in the Cam because of sewage and the abstraction of water is at crisis levels. Everyone knows it.
TRANSLATION:
According to the
@EnvAgency
@Cambswater
over abstract local chalk streams to the tune of about 20 million litres of water per day.
Not a single chalk stream in their service area is in 'Good' ecological condition.
So much for kingfishers and water voles eh.
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Been following this story for some while, as so many people have told me over the years that SSRIs have drastically reduced their libido. It should certainly be part of the prescribing story - especially with the young. Informed choice is key
@PSSDNetwork
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I'm nicking it too.
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Do other doctor friends have any clue what's going on here? I can only begin to imagine the bloodcurdling frustration if you knew this treatment might cure your cancer, but you couldn't access it.
New FOI figures reveal the appalling NHS rationing of Proton Beam Therapy, a life-saving cancer treatment.
It is an unequivocal failure, with British cancer patients paying the price.
NHS leadership must be asked why they are deploying such brutal rationing.
Read more:
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Important thread. There has been almost criminal misunderstanding of the reasons for ever-rising absenteeism in schools. Parents cite SEND and chronic anxiety, ramped up by the pandemic. Many in power closed their ears. Better, kinder, more supportive provision needed.
A moral tale: On 23rd May 2023 the education select committee finished a hearing of its inquiry into persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils. 🧵1/10
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Crikey. Looks like I'll be reading Fanny Hill aloud on Newsnight (lolling on sofa) as end credits run. A lifetime's ambition fulfilled.
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@Andr6wMale
I was a Booker judge that year and argued that it was a masterpiece and managed, with the help of one other judge also rated it (if not as fanatically as I did) to get it onto the long list, despite the faeries.
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I can't help wondering if that gold Lulu Lytle wallpaper will be stripped from the apartment walls, cut into pieces, and sold as a memento of divided times, like bits of the Berlin Wall.
@PeterPhelpsPers
@gavinesler
@jonlis1
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@Natasha_Walter
Totally agree - wrong charge and wrong sentence. I despair of people in the criminal justice system who seem to have no sense of the many ways in which teenagers can properly lose the plot.
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I'm in deep mourning for Vivienne Westwood, Queen of my wardrobe, pirate of my heart, greatest British designer of the past 50 years. The only person to design the kind of taffeta cocktail frocks you can shoot hoops in (I also own hiking Westwood).
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@Feargal_Sharkey
@AnglianWater
Regulators not regulating, same old story. The muscle comes from Friends of the Cam. Tony Eva's film Pure Clean Water a must see.
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Trying to decide what Vivienne Westwood dress/shoes to wear tonight in memory of the Pirate Queen. Some options from my lockdown crazy frock lady series on instagram,
@FollowWestwood
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One of the UK's greatest scandals. My older boy nearly died at birth in 2004. Errors were made at one of the UK's better hospitals. I made a documentary in 2005 for Channel 4 and predicted at the end if there weren't BIG changes things would worsen. They have. Drastically.
The Sands/Tommys joint policy unit today published their now annual report on the state of maternity care.
Here are the key stats - including the absolutely chilling, terrifying, horrible finding that 800 babies died when better care could or would have saved them.
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This isn't an article about Harry and Meghan, so much as one about how best to deal with in-laws who take a violent dislike to you. My father-in-law was a beast to me, but I tried to make sure he did not become estranged from his only child.
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Really worth reading this thread if you are scandalised by the ever-increasing flow of sewage into our waters. All outdoor/wild swimmers should prepare cases. My son was sick as a dog after swimming in the Cam
@RiverActionUK
@Feargal_Sharkey
@sascampaigns
A water company released sewage into the stream that runs into the beach where we were holidaying. I didn’t like the idea of swimming in the sea after that, so I tried to sue to water company for spoiling our holiday. This is what happened…
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@juliahobsbawm
Excellent post Julia. We can't have this debate if we insist sex work is never a choice (I've talked to many sex workers over the years), just as we can't have it without discussion of trafficking, coercion, poverty and abuse. And why does no one ever mention male sex workers?
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@brokenbottleboy
Big contender for most heinous "dodge the blame" of the year: “The arresting officer was from Lincolnshire Police and the complaint has therefore been passed to the relevant force to investigate."
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Seems many investors missed the early warning siren. Thanks
@tds153
for this gem.
This, from an interview with Sam Bankman-Fried (whose crypto exchange has just imploded) is very funny. That loser Tolstoy. Think of the time he could have saved.
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Let's all rally behind
@Feargal_Sharkey
and
@RiverActionUK
on October 26th - Labour must grow a spine on this.
“Feargal Sharkey to lead mass London rally over Labour’s failure to tackle water pollution.”
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Very strong letter critiquing the assumptions and limited parameters of the covid inquiry - the most expensive public inquiry to date, but not fit for purpose. We need a proper informed debate on decisions that likely caused more long-term harms than benefits.
@toby00green
An open letter to Baroness Hallett, Chair of the UK Covid Inquiry:
The Inquiry must urgently address its apparent biases, assumptions, impartiality, & lack of evidence-based approach
We, the undersigned, are a group of UK public health scholars and academics in related
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Always remembering and loving Hazel Pelling, who died twenty years ago leaving a gap nothing can fill. Here with baby Dorcas, who has just seen something nasty in the bushes...
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We at
@Perspective_tw
worship Victoria Bateman and her brilliant new book Naked Feminism. Such a great column for us.
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@LucyGoBag
And a lot of those viewers not knowing how tirelessly
@PrivateEyeNews
worked away at the PO story over two decades, seeking justice for the victims. Shocked by how little credit I've seen given to the Eye.
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@wmarybeard
No idea what happened, but support you to the hilt as ever. Part of the Mary Massive.
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@jonlis1
Radical reform would be better - of both the Lords and the honours system. Political appointments, donors and hereditary peers booted out. And people with proven public service should have their names passed to an all-party committee for debate, with minutes available to public.
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Farewell David McCallum. Everyone will bang on about The Man From UNCLE, but can I just put in a fond mention for Sapphire and Steel?
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The very best of Christmas messages from the wondrous, wise Rowan Williams in
@Perspective_tw
Tarry a while, it's worth it.
@PeterPhelpsPers
@gavinesler
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Coming up weekend after next, the wonderfully languid
@idler
festival. I'll be in conversation with the brilliant naked economist, author of Naked Feminism, Victoria Bateman:
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I cannot recommend this more highly - I was transported and delighted from the first page. Utterly beautiful writing for anyone who finds the life of the imagination is truer than reality.
@SallyBayley1
is an inspiration.
We are in an Arts Emergency. I've written a manifesto for a life lived through the light of the imagination. A book about teachers/ spirits of place; Mother Nature; suffragists & poetry: Blake, Stevie Smith, Shakespeare, listen here:
@RowanPelling
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@suzanne_moore
@HadleyFreeman
Just read the interview, excellent piece - fair, but vigorous. I enjoyed it because it was admiring, but not genuflecting, which interviews with Atwood often are - I bet she enjoyed that too.
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@Hanifkureishi
Thank god, or the fates, or whatever entity suits you - and, of course, thank Carlo. These twitter updates are as vital to us as anything you've ever written. Love from your fans, the Cambridge Spice Girls.
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My 2021
@perspective
interview with Alan Duncan: "I was also left intrigued by the brief diary entry on Sunday 22nd April 2018 when Duncan notes: “Apparently Carrie Symonds, head of press in Conservative HQ, is due to become a SPAD in the FCO. It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
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I loved the fact my Cambridge road had five or six people standing out watching quietly, in awe. And cyclists going by shouting, "Isn't it wonderful!"
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Campari, Venice and a saucy mag. There are some pleasures in life, money CAN buy.
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@hannahfearn
I signed up to be a Booker Prize judge before Scobie was born, thinking I'd have a lovely calm 9 months of reading novels while cuddling my first bambino. I was insane.
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The sorely missed joy of a local - here I am, blathering on again about my parents' pub, The Fox and Hounds Toys Hill. Photographed outside the smashing Blue Ball, Grantchester (which opens tomorrow)
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@RogersHistory
@naomicfisher
Tom, I follow you and Naomi. I've very interested in these topics as a parent (one son had a miserable time at secondary school), a journalist and a former pupil. My big sister is a TA in a state primary. These discussions are surely round table? We do all have skin in the game.
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Poor Cambridge. Doomed to dreary old Nobel Prizes.
University Education of UK PMs since the war.
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Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
None
Oxford
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Oxford
Edinburgh
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
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Latest edition
@Perspective_tw
looking at TRUST; cracking interview with
@SadiqKhan
by
@gavinesler
and great pieces by
@JoshAppFilm
@brokenbottleboy
@Helen_R_Brown
@BareReality
@susie_alegre
@Natt
@rosielanners
@soniasodha
and interview with
@katemosse
and
@Zandra_Rhodes
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@soniasodha
I'm so sorry Sonia. I thought it was a measured, thoughtful piece - a timely call for empathy. It feels like we've gone back four or five centuries, people constantly demanding heads on pikes.
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The Amorist - fresh from the printers and smelling sexily of ink.
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@gavinesler
I still remember the Easter our childhood Airedale Bosh got up onto the sideboard and demolished all the Easter eggs, before vomiting them (tinfoil and all) back on the floor. Ah, happy days!
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@AnnalisaB
Loads stayed with me. Skin (I think it was called) for starters. Royal Jelly. I can hear the opening music just writing this.
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Wow, the Tories really do love gifting the London mayoral elections to Labour. Sadiq (this month's cover boy on
@Perspective_tw
) must be delighted.
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@jonlis1
@doctor_oxford
It was a brilliant interview and we were so proud to run it - depressing that some are determined to belittle the sacrifices made by those on the frontline of health.
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Thrilled to have the food goddess
@sanjanafeasts
in the Christmas/winter special food edition of
@Perspective_tw
coming soon - subscribe now on to get this issue which also features
@KitchenBee
and
@johnmitchinson
and
@DrChrisVT
and
@HenryDimbleby
The goddess awakens. Excited about
@Unbounders
@sanjanafeasts
and her game changing veggie 🇬🇧🇮🇳 fusion cookbook out Sept 24. Nothing quite like being there at the beginning and knowing stardom awaits. Sanjana's has pieces
@Perspective_tw
&
@guardian
this Xmas. DM for more info!😋
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So this happened
@Sothebys
today with
@pamfoundation
pulse-quickening talk about art, eroticism and dating.
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Hats off to
@idler
for staging a glorious festival in a gorgeous garden (Fenton House) and a sweeping curtsey to Jarvis for singing the first song he composed, Shakespeare Rock, and sharing his teen manifesto for a band to be called... Pulp.
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@wmarybeard
I think it’s Anne Taylor’s from our side of Oxford Rd. She’s reported a lost tabby - I’ve told her of your sighting. (International Cat Rescue)
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@JohannaTC
So many by Arnold Bennett: Anna of the Five Towns, the Clayhanger trilogy, Riceyman Steps. Exquisite Corpse by the late Robert Irwin. Alms for Oblivion series by Simon Raven. W Somerset Maugham... The Moon and Sixpence, Of Human Bondage. Mary McCarthy the Company She Keeps.
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@HarrietSergeant
He's ceased to attend school or go out, sits at home gaming, the only contact he has with friends. Meanwhile, my older son reports how many contemporaries are unable to deal with exams and study - the generation who didn't sit GCSEs. Both boys are at local state schools.
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@TherealNihal
I can't believe how grim the response has been to your perfectly reasonable comments. Couldn't support you more.
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In a world of lies, the truth is our most precious commodity. That’s why
@praddenkeefe
‘s journalism is so important
@perspective_tw
@PeterPhelpsPers
@RowanPelling
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Meant to tweet this excellent article in the Int Women's Day issue of
@Perspmag
by
@DrJessTaylor
weeks ago. Not that she needs it, her book is now a huge best seller. I have definitely seen too many young women medicated for trauma
@DrProudman
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@LucyGoBag
I logged on to BBC Verify today, which had a piece dismissing the theory that the police were chasing the two boys who died in Cardiff – shortly before the Mail somehow recovered footage of a police van pursing two boys on an electric bike. We don't know for sure yet, but...
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Ducklings making their way from Corpus Christi to the Cam
http://t.co/DJXoePSbzx
http://t.co/Jp71MfA0pS
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@sarahditum
I've been wondering about this too. My particular bugbear is "Why does no one tell you how hard breastfeeding is?", when it seems to me every woman columnist who's ever had a baby (yup, me too) has been making that point for decades and every other mum warns you.
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@JohannaTC
The Go Between, The Shooting Party. And what about early Hilary Mantel - A Change of Climate is a masterpiece, was discussing it with Rowan Williams on Friday. Hits you in the solar plexus.
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Why women should always dress to damn well please themselves
@Perspmag
- which in my case may mean a goat-horn headdress.
"People talk about 'dressing to impress', but that’s almost impossible if you’re a woman" says
@RowanPelling
in her latest column:
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Well played Macron.
Worth reading The French president’s statement about Elizabeth II.
Remarkable.
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Excellent, insightful column from
@SamFowles
on all important issue of trust. Hope that
@Perspective_tw
is becoming required reading for all questing minds.
In this month’s
@Perspective_tw
- Knowing Who To Trust: When much of what we hear from politicians and the media is misinformation, how do we know who to trust? Featuring
@katemosse
@SadiqKhan
@jonlis1
@RowanPelling
and me!
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Ever felt your government is gaslighting you? Brilliant piece by
@gavinesler
in new edition of
@Perspmag
out now.
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There is no greater pleasure than reconnecting with a great writer and finding that - yes - they will write a superb piece for your new magazine. I had a suspicion that
@j_mcconnachie
would share my fondness for homegrown prophet Joanna Southcott.
Feeling that heady new-paper feeling when you write for someone for the first time. Especially heady when it’s
@RowanPelling
’s superb Perspective magazine
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@PNPhelps
@GeorgeMonbiot
@brokenbottleboy
went to London to cover these arrests. Everyone I know - left, right, centre, green - thinks this was an outrage.
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Please read William Mellor's piece in the new issue of Perspective, few seem aware of the grim resurgence of the Marcos family in the Philippines. Bongbong Marcos is likely to sweep to power on May 9th - watch Lauren Greenfield's The Kingmaker
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@LucyGoBag
Oh god, me too. I think it's a disastrous idea and likely to undermine faith in the BBC. Why can't we all admit that most scenarios are complex and decades - even centuries - after events people are still arguing about key facts and motivation.
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In praise of erotic rapture. I haven't tweeted for ages, but I did so enjoy writing this one for
@unherd
@Chattysalerton
and hope to do more in the future. .
#sublimesex
#passion
#rapture
#sexeducation
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Headline piece in this month’s mag,
@Perspective_tw
the brilliant (and debonair)
@jonlis1
on why we can’t trust any of our major institutions and need to overhaul the voting system, the Lords and the honours system. Well worth subscribing for Lis alone
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Courtesy of Backlisted, allowed to jaw on about favourite erotic novel.
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Top wireless fun. Am a guest on tonight's
@Curiositwitty
, Radio 4 6.30pm, presided over by comedy god John Lloyd and the sublime Sally Phillips. Fellow guests
@Sindhuvee
and
@SirPaulNurse
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@LucyGoBag
It's not a scoop. It's in Alan Duncan's dairies published last year I interviewed him for
@Perspective_tw
22nd April 2018: “Apparently Carrie Symonds, head of press in Conservative HQ, is due to become a SPAD in the FCO. It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
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How are Farage and Tice not part of a privately educated, hugely wealthy exploitative minority elite? It's easy to tell angry citizens simple narratives of blame - hard to explain the complex reasons for the UK's doldrums, including Brexit, covid and hangover from 2007/08 crash.
The entire national "debate" in Britain is built around the values and voice of a minority elite. That is why Nigel Farage is cutting through. He says out loud what many are thinking
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Everyone MUST read every word: "To prevent a future Grenfell, the government needs to create something that doesn't exist: a government with the power and ability to separate itself from the construction industry & corporate lobbying... people before profit"
@LucyGoBag
Our response to today's publication of the Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 Report
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Excellent column for
@Perspective_tw
from
@brokenbottleboy
who's as good at twitter as I am utterly rubbish (which is why he met and wooed his wife
@drkatedevlin
here).
@PeterPhelpsPers
"Musk is like a rich kid in high school who believes he can become the most popular boy by holding the biggest party, not understanding he can’t force people to respect him".
@brokenbottleboy
fears the demise of Twitter
@RowanPelling
@PeterPhelpsPers
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Always been mesmerised by Vivien Leigh, so was wonderful to see the Cecil Beaton photos of her at Sotheby's (sale on 26th). Plus her bed.
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@jonlis1
In fairness, I work hard to suppress a degree of grim glee at the UK sinking into exactly the economic chaos that those of us who voted remain predicted. Which is pretty sick.
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With
@jessphillips
every step of the way. You cannot have women MPs endorsing this kind of toxic pond life.
Today I have written to the Prime Minister about the conduct of one of his members of parliament, ex-PM Liz Truss.
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Last week
@jessphillips
stood up in the Commons and read out the femicide list, so every name of every woman murdered by a man (almost always known to her) went on the record in Hansard. It is gut-wrenching, necessary and a rallying cry for change
@Perspective_tw
@PNPhelps
.
@jessphillips
, the Shadow Secretary for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding talks to
@RowanPelling
about the shocking UK statistics for aggression towards women and children. Full interview here:
@PNPhelps
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@soniasodha
@TheNewEuropean
Looking forward to introducing you to Sam for the purposes of vigorous debate. He and I often don't agree, but he always listens.
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Slightly worried that the Michelle Mone panto of venality and almost comedic mendacity will distract from the fact there are other profiteers who used the VIP line - or other means - to plunder the public coffers. Let's hope they're fully exposed, one by one.
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@ClarkeMicah
@Femail
Thank you Peter. I've been sitting on this story for a long time – until my sons were old enough to understand it. It was a very painful rejection to live through, but it would undoubtedly have been worse for Angus to become estranged from his father.
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Hauntingly brilliant essay on Berlin by my old mucker
@Susanna_Forrest
excellent way to kick off Sunday.
“You cannot skim the surface of a place and expect to belong to it”
Totally beautiful by
@Susanna_Forrest
on crow and loneliness and the search for self in Berlin:
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@Melissa_Benn
@MichaelRosenYes
Growing up in Kent, so many people I know devastated by being failed at 11. Bonkers to bring that back.
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