Society

Thousands of social media users have taken to their keyboards to express shock and surprise at the death of Shirley Temple. Almost everyone, it seems, thought that the film star and diplomat had passed away many years ago: Shirley Temple – dead at 85. I had no idea she was still alive. — Gvac (@WMGvac) February 11, 2014 So shocked to read that Shirley Temple, the Academy award winning actress and former child star, was still alive. — John Johnsonson (@JohnJohnsonson) February 11, 2014   Shirley Temple was alive? — Mr Eugenides (@Mr_Eugenides) February 11, 2014 BREAKING NEWS: Shirley Temple was still alive until this week. — Hugh Armitage (@hugharmitage)

What next after Luciana Berger’s victory from the opposition benches on smoking in cars with children? Yesterday MPs were making all sorts of dire warnings in the House of Commons about what might happen next and supporters of the ban are dismissing them as trying to find a slippery slope when this is just a sensible public health issue. But a precedent has been set here of the Prime Minister initially saying he’s ‘nervous’ about what passing laws on what people do in a private space, then being forced to fold when legislation is thrust upon him by a member of the opposition. He made last night’s vote a free

Shirley Temple has died in California at the age of 85. She was known as America’s little darling after she appeared in her first film at the age of three. Later in life she moved into politics, running for Congress and joining the diplomatic corps. Henry Kissinger, she said, was surprised she knew where Ghana was, but she became ambassador to Ghana and later to Czechoslovakia. As for her films, Graham Greene, reviewing Shirley Temple’s latest performance in August 1936, was rather shocked: Captain January, the latest Shirley Temple picture, is sentimental, a little depraved, with an appeal interestingly decadent… Shirley Temple acts and dances with immense vigour and assurance,

When it emerged that there was horsemeat in cheap burgers, some people thought it might spark a revolution in the British meat industry. Now that the public are more aware of the ins and outs of it all – the complicated and murky supply chains, the potential drug contamination, the images of badly-wrapped frozen meat – perhaps cheap meat would lose its attraction. But it doesn’t seem to have done so. Despite the stories about sales of game meat soaring and of people going back to basics and cooking from scratch, sales of processed meats such as sausages and burgers are still booming – both in the UK and abroad.

I’m in Wythenshawe and Sale East today with Ukip’s by-election candidate John Bickley. I’ll have a full report of the party’s exploits later, but for the meantime, here’s a chat I had with Bickley about the campaign. listen to ‘John Bickley: ‘If there was an Olympic medal for hypocrisy, Labour would win gold’’ on Audioboo

Talking to Barbara Taylor about her new madness memoir this week, it’s clear that Britain does not have a glorious history when it comes to dealing with mad people. But The Spectator has always stood up for them, arguing in 1844, for example, that ‘the custody of lunatics ought to be like that of children – of sick children; and the guardians, who stand to those adult in body but infantile in mind in the place of parents, should be at all times open to their applications, ready to aid, comfort, and sooth.’ The magazine has often made a point of reporting on the horrors that have gone on behind