Society

During the election campaign, Tory MPs were queuing up to be snapped with Theresa May and the Prime Minister’s face was plastered all over Conservative party leaflets up and down the country. Now, though, it seems May has become something of an embarrassment to the Tories. The Prime Minister might be just about managing to stay in office but her photograph has been wiped clean from the party’s website – a fact pointed out by Labour MP Toby Perkins during PMQs today: The Conservative website prior to the election result: The Conservative website after the election result: Much to the embarrassment of Damian Green – who was standing in for the

Oh dear. This morning, Rebecca Long-Bailey risked alienating the three million people who use the Uber taxi app, when she said that it was ‘morally unacceptable’ to do so. While the shadow business secretary cited concerns with the gig economy as her reason for doing so, it seems not everyone in her team agrees. Somewhat embarrassingly, Long-Bailey’s shadow business minister Chi Onwurah has just appeared on All Out Politics on Sky News, where she revealed that she was a user of Uber – and, actually, thought there were plenty of positives to the taxi app which allows drivers to choose when and how they work: CO: These services bring real benefits to

You know a Man Having Baby story really would be a story if it were true. But the latest Man Mother story is only true if you accept the notion that the mother in question really is a man. And that depends on whether you go down the whole notion that being transgender involves biological reinvention, rather than hormonal/surgical intervention plus credulity and the creative use of language. Two people with wombs, ovaries and XX chromosomes, conventionally known as women, have had babies. As it happens, one of them has taken drugs to suppress lactation on the basis of an unwillingness to breastfeed, but, you know, it took drugs to

In the early hours of this morning, the tired-looking Secretary General of the UN took to the stage in Switzerland to announce the first major failure of his tenure. “I’m very sorry to inform you that despite the very strong commitment and engagement of all the delegations and different parties, the conference on Cyprus was closed without an agreement being reached,” said Antonio Gutteres. The week-long talks in the mountain resort of Crans-Montana were the culmination of two years of negotiations to try to stick Cyprus back together. It is a daunting task: although tiny, with an area less than half the size of Wales and a total population of

Who would want be a member of Generation Z? Having your every youthful screw-up tracked and recorded on social media, facing the robot job apocalypse and without a lolly’s chance in hell of ever owning a home in London – even if medical advancements allow them to work until they’re 200. To top things off, they’re saddled with years of student debt after their three years learning about Whiteness and Privilege at university. As the Guardian puts it: Students from the poorest 40% of families entering university in England for the first time this September will emerge with an average debt of around £57,000, according to a new analysis by a leading

This year’s Grand Chess Tour started in Paris, continues in Leuven (Belgium) and will go on to St Louis and then London. The Paris and Leuven legs are speed events, while St Louis and London revert to chess played at classical time limits.   In Paris world champion Magnus Carlsen won the rapidplay section, fell back in the blitz but eventually triumphed in a tie-break to be the overall winner against the French grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. He netted $31,250 for his efforts. The first extract this week shows the decisive phase of Carlsen’s play-off decider.   Carlsen–Vachier-Lagrave: Paris tie-break 2017 (diagram 1)   The white rook keeps the dangerous black a-pawn under