Sara Lawrence writes in today’s Daily Mail that 2009 has been an amazing year for chick-lit. She says some of it is awful, but a lot of it is magnificent, and that it’s a pity commercial women’s fiction is ignored so resolutely by the literary snobs.

This is a subject that’s been on my mind since first uploading Daisychains of Silence to authonomy. I originally tagged it as chick-lit, though I knew it wasn’t a light, feel-good read – I just thought (because it has a happy ending) it might broadly fit the genre. Fellow writers soon told me it wasn’t really chick lit, and that I should tag it as literary fiction, which I quickly did and it flew up to number twelve – apparently the fastest rising book on on authonomy.

I’m still not sure, athough I know Daisychains appeals to men as well as women because many wonderful reviews have been from male readers. But Daisy’s journey will  appeal to women of all ages, and it does end happily. I still wonder if the literary fiction tag is the right one for what is simply a story of a girl coming to terms with a choatic early life. The love of a good man saves her, and she learns to forgive herself along the way – and him, when he has a mid-life wobble. I hope it fits the ‘commercial women’s fiction’ tag, which authonomy doesn’t list as an option.

Certainly, Hilary Johnson’s Advisory Bureau described it as a ’sensitively and intelligently written story’.  I would really love an agent or publisher to guide me!  Are you out there, listening?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231150/Mapping-strain-NHS-243-sick-babies-treated-London-hospital-ward—just-18-mothers-born-UK.html#comments

Of all the disgraceful articles the Daily Mail has ever published throughout its miserable existence, this piece of awful journalism, that basically tells us nothing at all, is probably the worst. Congratulations on reaching a new low. The comments on the article are especially worrying (see below).

This is RUBBISH. I am an immigrant in Greece, I have to pay for any treatment I receive, I don’t expect the Greek tax payer to pay for my treatment like the immigrants in the UK.
– Roly, Corfu, 27/11/2009 6:28

Just maybe that’s because Greece doesn’t have an equivalent national health service. It’s hardly that Roly is paying more for treatment than his/her Greek counterparts. It’s not some racially-based two-tier system of payment, which appears to be the favoured choice for most Daily Mail readers.

We are not talking of Europeans who get reciprocal care as we would in their country, or those who live here and pay taxes, or those with insurance.
It is commonly known that some women from Africa and some countries in Asia treat London maternity units as their own.
– Jennifer, Yorkshire, 26/11/2009 19:43

Oh. So Jennifer is clearly fine with white people using our health services as long as no dirty ‘darkies’ do. Blatant racist.

English is our national language and it is the only language that should be in offical print. Our fight back has got to start somewhere, with our lanuage.
– Fed up with it all!, Lancashire, UK

Not only is this comment massively irrelevant but also just a little ironic. I somehow doubt that Fed up with it all! will be leading such a fight back.

There are British infertile couples on a very long waiting list that are turned away because there’s not enough money in the kitty to treat them but there’s enough to treat the fertile ones from overseas

- Sally, Ibiza Spain, 26/11/2009 18:59

That’ll be because IVF treatment is far more expensive than the care needed in a routine birth Sally (clearly one of the many Daily Mail reading expats who have bizarrely ended up living away from the motherland. Probably getting some kind of neo-colonial kick from it though).

The comments continue in this predictable, tedious way. All seemingly assume that these ‘foreign’ mothers are scrounging from UK taxpayer money, as though nobody born overseas can work and pay tax in the UK. Pretty weird really. Homogeneous white populations outside of the major British cities have clearly led to a country riven with ignorance and racism. Solution? More immigration please.

Lamb dressed as mutton... Suri

Marks and Spencer’s are once again demonstrating the kind of advertising nous that other companies can only dream about on MailOnline. Right next to a story on three year old fashionista Suri Cruise wearing kitten heels is an advert for a surprisingly similar shoe only with a platform, rather than kitten heel.

Apologies for terrible print screen, was an Microsoft paint job.

Have an M&S Christmas

From: http://blog.zap2it.com:

For the second year in a row, “Sex and the City” star Kim Cattrall bared it all to keep a classic Renaissance painting on display in the U.K.
For the second year in a row, “Sex and the City” star Kim Cattrallbared it all to keep a classic Renaissance painting on display in the U.K.
Cattrall will again pose nude as the goddess Diana for a reenactment of Titian’s famous painting “Diana and Callisto,” according to Contact Music.

he reenactment will hopefully raise awareness (and money) to keep the real painting in an Ediburgh gallery, after the Scottish government has refused to pay for the work to stay there.

This is the second time Cattrall has posed as the goddess Diana for this purpose. The first time was a year ago, when she sat beside many nude twenty-something art students and actors to recreate Titian’s “Diana and Actaeon” (above) to raise money to keep the painting in the National Gallery in London.

The Duke of Sutherland, who owned the painting, told the gallery that it would have to buy the painting from him for £50 million or he would sell it on the open market. The fundraising effort was successful, however, and kept the painting in the National Gallery.

The reenactment will hopefully raise awareness (and money) to keep the real painting in an Ediburgh gallery, after the Scottish government has refused to pay for the work to stay there.

Cattrall was born in England to British parents and has visited the National Gallery many times. She told the Daily Mail, “Viewing this painting is like being in the presence of genius, it would be a tragedy if it were not on public view.”

Cattrall is no stranger to shedding her clothing on “Sex and the City,” but still… well done, Ms. Cattrall. You make a beautiful Diana.

“Sex and the City 2″ is in theaters May 28, 2010.

Twitter has had quite the month. Its ascension from mere social-network to a serious apparatus of democracy and free expression has been a slow one, but the last five weeks may prove catalytic in this transformation.

First there was the Trafigura incident. Carter-Ruck, the libel-law firm, imposed a super-injunction on The Guardian preventing the paper from reporting a parliamentary question – temporarily revoking this ancient right of freedom. The blogosphere lit up. Twitter, too, was soon alive with complaint. Carter-Ruck bucked; the injunction was lifted.  It was The Guardian who celebrated. But they too saw this as a victory for Twitter – and, more importantly, the masses on Twitter.

Continuing in this trend, attentions were turned to Jan Moir in The Daily Mail. Her – at best – questionable column concerning the death of Stephen Gately attracted a record 22,000 complaints to the PCC, after outrage spread across the net. Charlie Brooker, the ever-popular columnist, no doubt played a part in channelling this outrage into coherency, but Twitter and the blogosphere had once again played a crucial role in dictating the media’s agenda. The fact the PCC’s website crashed under the sheer volume of visitors is part-testimony to just where the mob came from.

Just this week, The Guardian was once again gagged and a case was brought against the Evening Standard. The latter had revealed the name of a former Mi5 agent who was set to release their memoirs. And the Standard’s defence? The information was already in the public domain – where it remains. It is too late not to report the details, they argued. Twitter and the blogosphere had hold of it, and they weren’t letting go.

On each occasion, Twitter and the blogosphere impacted massively on the media, and on politics. Yet the press too can manipulate. The Standard’s defence probably used Twitter, above all else, as an excuse. Twitter is being used by the press to gage public opinion: it’s the lazy-man’s poll. The question is, however, whether or not this poll is self-sufficient. If Twitter is starved of publicity by the mass media, and thus not in the public domain, does it become useless? Twitter made a ripple, the press made the wave.

Twitter’s ability to impact politics, or indeed society, can be overstated. Without sensible reporting on its trends in a widely-circulated newspaper, it can become a thousand voices shouting into nothingness. However, with the blogosphere, Twitter could succeed without the traditional mass-media. If the blogosphere analyses and reports what the masses on Twitter are saying, we’re essentially witnessing democracy at its purest.

The power of the blogosphere, after the past month of activity, has convinced the PCC, under Baroness Buscombe, to consider bringing it under their jurisdiction. The New Statesman was first to rebuff these suggestions, slamming the PCC. It isn’t fit to regulate the press, never mind the free and vibrant web, they argued.

Yet her considerations represent the power which the media perceives the blogosphere and Twitter to possess. It may too represent fears over their potential to render the traditional press redundant. Whilst Britain’s strict libel laws already mean the blogosphere must regulate itself to extents, if serious regulation is implemented, it may cease to be so special. Its raw, organic nature is its appeal.

And whilst there are already bloggers who have achieved fame – or infamy – the finest working in journalism will always work in a commercial sphere. As soon as the blogosphere becomes commercially driven, it will defeat itself. In an age of uncertainty surrounding the media and its future, the blogosphere and Twitter should be welcomed, not only, as revolutionary but as a refreshing take on the way information is circulated. This golden age of free comment should be celebrated, never feared.

‘I screamed, but there was nothing to hear’: Man trapped in 23-year ‘coma’ reveals horror of being unable to tell doctors he was conscious.
A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.
Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them – but could make no sound.

Read further at the Daily Mail

Flying the flag

Although we cannot flick through the paper itself, us expats are able to find out what is happening back home on the Belfast Telegraph website before even most people living at home know.

With Sky TV being able to pick up the regional BBC broadcasts, I have watched the Schools Cup final each St Paddys Day for years in Scotland with a choice of bars showing the game.

Ever since Tesco and Sainsburys started stocking Paul Rankin Soda Bread a fantastic bacon sandwich, Ulster Fry, or N.Irish pizza is only a grill away.

Although these developments have made it more bearable for us Northern Irish to move away from home there is still one item that we crave for above all others – a bag of Tayto crisps.

Taytos are part of our national psyche, with that yellow bag filled with cheese and onion flavoured crisps being as much part of our heritage as wine is to the French, pasta is to the Italians, and barely concealed racism is to Daily Mail readers.

According to a recent book*, Tayto crisps are the item most missed by us expats who are living away from home. There is nothing more satisfying when returning from any amount of time away from home to be greeted at the airport shop by a selection of Tayto crisps.

Tayto invented the best cheese and onion flavour. The strength of flavour in each bag gives eating the crisps a satisfaction which other crisps can only dream about. Tayto iheart you!

*Ok – bit of a cheat reference here as the is a book itself is about Mr Tayto

Why do they do it? Read this description of X Factor contestant, Danyl Johnson, in today’s online Daily Mail:

“Johnson, a bisexual drama teacher from Kent, left rehearsals for the ITV talent show after demanding that his song for this week’s programme had to be changed.”

To demonstrate how gratuitous and plain ridiculous that reference to his sexuality is, let’s just swap things about a bit:

“Johnson, a heterosexual drama teacher from Kent, left rehearsals for the ITV talent show after demanding that his song for this week’s programme had to be changed.”

There’s a sentence that would never see the light of day. The first one shouldn’t have either.

Read a no-nonsense guide to politically correct writing.

Those who have not been catching Dominic Sandbrook’s What if … alternative histories for the New Statesman immediately should. Previous pieces have gently mused on topics such as:

• what would have been the consequences of the 1975 Euro-referendum going the other way (Britain … its entrenched social democracy and its taste for meatballs, is all a bit dull … a small price to pay for trains that run on time, redistributive taxes and the world’s leading whaling industry)

or

• what if Thatcher had lost her  desperate Falklands gamble (her principal assassin, an obscure young MP called John Major …)

The series continues to be superficial, provocative, but — above all — fun. That’s not a notion casually linked to the New Statesman of recent years.

This week’s effort, What if … Hugh Gaitskell had lived, though, does not strike Malcolm as one of Sandbrook’s stronger efforts.

Sandbrook’s essential problem is that he is a historian, born a decade and more after 1963. Malcolm, and those of Malcolm’s generation, lived that period. We are history. Indeed.

19th January 1963

This was one of those days fixed in the memory, when one recalls exactly where one was.

Malcolm was in the house of the Copleys, Uncle Ernest and Aunt Kit, at Worksop Road, Netherthorpe, Aston, Sheffield. Don’t go looking for the house: it’s long gone. A lorry loaded with detergent took it out, prompting the headline Tide comes in at Aston. The loss of his beloved garden promptly killed Cop. Today, sandstone foundations may lie under the grass roadside embankment. Ernest Copley was a Labour man: he had been President of the Waleswood NUM Miners’ Lodge, and had fronted the stay-down strike of 1948. For no accountable reason, Cop’s morning newspaper was the Daily Mail (this had not greatly worried the infantile Malcolm, because he could read the Teddy Tail comic strip).

Now, that morning Malcolm was about to continue his ride back to Dublin, TCD, and the Hilary term. His aged but worthy Lambretta 150LD had brought him to Aston the previous freezing day of that bitter winter. Then ensued a heavy night, among the dominoes school in the Yellow Lion. So Malcolm, a trifle the worse for wear, was further taken aback by Saturday’s headline that Gaitskell was, suddenly, unpredictably, dead.

Until that moment Gaitskell had been something of a bogeyman for Malcolm: the Clause IV debates and the anti-CND rhetoric mattered then. Yet: de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Among the real Labour men of South Yorkshire waiting for the bus for the Wednesday or United game (whoever was at home and if the pitch had thawed out), there was a feeling of sorrow and regret, and — as Sandbrook would appreciate — of what might have been. Clause IV, among the pitmen, was a shibboleth, but — for heaven’s sake, nobody of any sense or reason could contemplate de-nationalising the mines, or the railways: good grief, look the mess that was steel!

The 1964 Election

In one respect, Sandbrook correctly reads the runes. The Tory Government, in power since 1951, was doomed to defeat in 1963-4. Despite the Sandbrook tabloid of history, that was not just because of the sexual shenanigans of the Profumo affair. The peasants, we ordinary folk, had no illusions about the doings and morals of them as wuz above us. No: it was the economic climate, and the mood which had changed, a wind of change that would blow hard for the next three decades. And only then briefly relent.

It took two General Elections to complete the deed, to be rid of the Tories for the moment. Like all vermin, they keep coming back. The other side take the same view: Malcolm remembers the Daily Telegraph promising the faithful, on 10th October 1959, that Labour in defeat was finished for a decade — if not a generation. That, in itself, convinced Malcolm that next time round would be different. Similar prophecies were made in 1970, 1979, 1983, 1992 and — heaven help us — may be in 2010. So: watch this space.

Probably with Gaitskell the 1964 campaign, Thirteen wasted years, would not greatly have differed in theme. We might even have more easily believed the white-hot heart of technological change. Whoever the leader and new Prime Minister, the new stars in the political firmament would have been, as Sandbrook suggests,  Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland and Anthony Wedgwood-Benn. To which Malcolm would add Barbara Castle and Douglas Jay and Denis Healey and George Brown and Richard Marsh …

Where Sandbrook’s fantasy goes wrong is the assumption that the Profumo event could have been re-enacted in the context of “swinging London” (© Time, April 1966 – see right):

…in 1967 came the final blow. Amid the hoopla surrounding You Only Live Twice, the new James Bond film, Private Eye dropped the bombshell that the prime minister had been sleeping with the wife of Bond’s creator for the last decade.

Sandbrook’s misconstruction there is to be a Beatles, rather than a Stones man.

Yes, in Britain, in 1967, Let’s Spend the Night Together was acceptable for prime-time family television. Only on the US networks, and for the Ed Sullivan Show, was bowdlerising needed.

Sandbrook, though, is correct in his essential conceit: Gaitskell could not have survived the 1960s. He would, presumably (after his principled stand on Suez), have been as reluctant to get involved in the Vietnam mess as Wilson was. That, in itself, required an expert balancing act (not often celebrated) by the Foreign Office, keeping the Atlanticists, the graduates of the CIA schools of patronage, in play but not in the driving seats.

Where things would have gone sadly adrift is the terminal failure of Butskellism. The economic consensus of the 1950s was past any sell-by date. Macmillan, with or without that 1959 mis-quotation, had stoked up a consumer demand which the state of the economy could not afford. British metal-bashing industry was totally out-classed in the new dispensation. The right-wing of the Tories was going rogue: witness the proto-monetarism that emerged at the 1970 Selsdon conference. Heath could not resist the inevitable, which was then presented to the British electorate as wolf-dressed-as-lamb.

What would have been different is that Gaitskell (in, say, the aftermath of a 1966 landslide) would have been supplanted by a leftist, more socialist Labour administration. Doubtless Harold Wilson, cannily positioned in the left-centre, would have emerged. That would have left the “loyalists” to be bought or to go into the wilderness. In 1970 the British electors could have have a more positive choice. None of which would have prevented the dire, drear sterility of the 1970s.

• With the situation in Northern Ireland ripe for explosion.
• With the European debate still to be had.

Which leaves just two thoughts

1. Malcolm has been here before. When one passes up Church Row in Hampstead, one passes the  grave and memorial of Hugh (“Fortitude and integrity”) and Dora Gaitskell. It’s a nudge to do what Sandbrook does: to consider the numerous “might-have-beens”
2. Malcolm’s Pert Young Piece was one of Sandbrook’s pupils at Sheffield. It would seem that Sandbrook left the History Department at Sheffield in a puff of sulphuric smoke. He had been offered a contract for a populist history, a development frowned on by his superiors. He merely shrugged his shoulders, cited the money, made no apology, and left..
   

Out there in the wider world, the last word on Ms Truss and the “Turnip Taliban” has come via the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. With Iain Dale lobbing in grenades, prepared by Tory HQ, from the side-lines.

Much more to the point, and closer to the ground, would be the Eastern Daily Press and Nic Starling, the LibDem Norfolk Blogger.

Go there. Get it from the fountain-heads.

As Malcolm has already posted to Norfolk Blogger, he feels that the essential point is being missed.

There is one factual statistic, which has to come from official Tory sources: Ms Truss was endorsed by 132-37.

So: after the most extraordinary few days in recent SW Norfolk Tory history, there were just 169 paid-up votes.

Not surprisingly, those who think in terms of political machines hit on the tension between centralizing power (in this case, Tory Central Office) and local activism (here, the “Turnip Taliban”). Malcolm remembers the reach and grasp of the Norfolk squirearchy half-a-century gone: so, he suggests that far more significant is the dynamised Tory membership in SW Norfolk being reduced to a couple of double-decker bus-loads.

Furthermore, we can reasonably extrapolate from that Association vote. A fifth of the core SW Norfolk Tories feel roughed up, put upon, and are sufficiently pissed off not to be too vigorous in supporting their “official” candidate. UKIP doubled their vote last time: next Spring they could erode another 3-5,000 Tories who have nowhere else to go (that could be half the notional majority).

Conclusion: SW Norfolk will need a substantial tranche of “Lord” Ashcroft’s dosh: after all, having imposed their chosen one, Central Office must regard this constituency as a “dare-not-lose” marginal. For any Labour or LibDem candidate, exposed to the inevitable metropolitan media glare, this one — win, or more likely, lose — is a real opportunity.

This is one of a multitude of reasons why I don’t read the Daily Mail.  I found this “sick foul mouthed tirade” bloody hilarious and pretty much spot on social commentary:

Ben Elton:

Then, when playing a word association game, he was given the phrase ‘the Queen’.

He replied: ‘She’s an ordinary woman. She’s a sad little old lady who lives in state sponsored accommodation, her husband is a mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war, three out of four of her kids’ marriages have failed – that’s very common.’

About her children, he added: ‘The eldest one is a disillusioned ex-hippy, the middle one a bit of a yob.’

He then made a gay reference to Prince Edward, before adding: ‘That’s a bog-standard British family in all its rainbow glory.

‘If she had a black one and a disabled one, she’d have the full deck. She represents Britain more than any head of state represents their country.’

Brilliant!  Anyone who disagrees should pull the stick out of their arse.

With few exceptions it is in fact most pages of the Daily Fail that are foul mouthed tirades.  Also, their spelling and grammar seems to be getting hideously worse.  Not that the general readership would notice.

From the comment’s section of the Daily Mail website.

Story: “Goth bride” attacked on wedding day

When I was a young child, I had a toy oven. This must have had some effect on me, as the only practical thing I have even the remotest talent for is cooking.

• Bleeding radiators? No!
• Changing a fuse? No!
• Knitting? No!
• Drawing? No!
• Keeping everything in strict alphabetical order? No!
• Cooking, as long as it is relatively straightforward? Hell yeah!

What I find quite amusing is that apparently a lot of friends of my parents had a bit of a problem with this: “He’s a boy, he should have guns and cars and balls and be punching people smaller than him and all the stuff boys are supposed to have.” Yet more amusing is the fact some of the people who said this were supposedly right-on and were now showing their true colours. Like they say, annoying a square is easy, it’s much more of an achievement to annoy someone who thinks that they’re hip.

This whole situation was bought back to me in sharp relief when I found this article in the Daily Mail:

Chemicals used in plastics feminise the brains of little boys ’so that they avoid rough and tumble games’

According to the article:-

Chemicals used in plastics are ‘feminising’ the brains of baby boys, a disturbing study shows.

Those exposed to high doses in the womb are less likely to play with ‘male’ toys such as cars. They are also less willing to join ‘rough and tumble’ games.

(by the way, does anyone else hate the way when you copy and paste from the Daily Mail website it insists of copying across the whole link)

‘This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true “gender benders”. Clearly the boys who have been studied are still young, but reduced masculine play at this age may lead to other ” feminised development” in later life.

Probably one of the most intriguing and talked about articles of the year, Jan Moir excelled at low brow journalism. I find it quite disturbing that the Daily Mail allowed for such nonsense to be published. When reading the article, it’s hard not to gasp at the homophobic things she says – “Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.”

On the other hand it poses the question of press freedom. Is there too much liberty in Britain, when we allow articles like this to be published. Or is it just that we are too politically correct?

In my opinion, this column was not only inaccurate but also focused too much on sensationalism which tabloids feed on. The deep connotations of sexually perverted gay men only plays into the hands of bigots who wish to stereotype that community.

Moir, now at the hands of public outcry, may not be so ready to criticise next time. With the likes of Stephen Fry and Derren Brown fighting to end your career on Twitter, I would be worried.

However, what is ironic, Moir claims Tara Palmer-Tompkinson has sheer audacity. I wonder did Moir give her some tips?

Read article here…

The news that Elizabeth Truss has kept her selection is a positive result for women’s rights and common sense. Why the South West Norfolk Conservative Party felt that Truss should have disclosed such a personal matter as an affair in a selection process is quite outstanding. Why is it that Mark Field, the MP she had the affair with, has not been criticised in these debates? Well it links to the Conservative grass route traditional beliefs regarding women and men. The Conservatives still have central to their discourse the belief that men and women are fundamentally different, and that men ‘naturally’ have a higher sex drive, whereas women who have a high sex drive are ‘peverse’. This type of discourse seems to be apparent in the attitude of the local party association, despite Conservative HQ backing of the ‘A-list’ candidate.

A clear example of this discourse is shown by the classical Tory newspaper, the Daily Mail:

“Liz Truss had an 18-month relationship with married front bencher Mark Field, the Tories’ 41-year-old culture spokesman

Yesterday, as she pushed a pram carrying her two-month-old baby, 30-year-old Miss Truss refused to comment on the affair, which ended last June.

But Mr Field has told friends that the liaison with the married Miss Truss has cost him his own marriage. He and his wife are divorcing.”

I have highlighted the key words above. Look at how the first sentence makes out that it is the woman to blame by saying Liz Truss had the affair, not Mark Field. Look at how in the second sentence they play on how she has a child, oh what a bad mother she is. And look in how the last sentence they juxtapose her situation with his, making out that he has been hard done by, presumably because he has been meeting his own sexual ‘needs’.

It is amazing how little Cameron said about the incident. Whilst he provided her his backing, he didn’t state how fundamentally wrong the situation was in terms of women’s rights. Whilst i do not support affairs, it is important that Conservatives wake up from their back to basics dream, as they had to do in the 1990s when John Major the man who started the campaign was found to have an affair, and wake up to reality. Cameron may appear to have backed her, however, if you look at the Conservatives they are a party riddled in contradiction. The Conservatives seem to offer everything but the kitchen sink. Within this comes the central problem – a disjunctive between individual rights and their emphasis on the negative effects of indivdualisation causing the so-called ‘broken society’. Truss’s affair highlights how the Tories, including Cameron, have this backward looking view of society, where anything that happens that does not fit their nuclear family model is perverse and an exemplar of the ‘broken society’. Where this conflicts with individual rights is that one of the main causes they outline for this is increased individualisation, as we have seen a fragmentation around the family ideal. However, in order to have individual rights, you must have increase individualisation, thus, the contradiction occurs.

Truss, to many of them seems to have somehow defied the party by not telling them intimate details of her affair (on an aside, it was in the local press when it happened, thus, she wont have felt it upon her to tell them, nor should she anyway. They should have done their research like Malcom Tucker!). Her apparent defiance thus links to the contradiction outlined above. Her individual rights of privacy are constrained due to their views around the ‘broken society’. Further contradictions can be highlighted, as for example, John Major’s affairs shows that within their discourse around the ‘broken society’, they themselves, as a party, do not live up to this ‘ideal’.

Thankfully she has been selected, however it is worrying to see some of the ways that the affair has been talked about, making out that it is only Truss’ fault. The story also highlights the innate contradiction of individual rights and the ‘broken society’ rhetoric that the Conservatives preach…