Society

Newly returned from the best ever New Year in Scotland, I walk down Portobello Road and waft through nostalgia. All those felted hats in primary colours and Mongolian knits with floral patterns. The smell of frying falafel, dodgy hash and second-rate coffee. It takes me back to Hull fair, seven decades earlier, with my gloves dangling from elastic on the sleeves of my nap coat and a scarlet face full of vinegary, newspapered chips. I realise it is the first time in a while that I have moved slowly in a crowd without carrying a banner saying ‘Bring them home’ and shouting: ‘Shame on Hamas.’ I read that Rachel Riley

I have a question. What’s more ‘dangerous’ and ‘disgusting’ – a footballer sounding off on social media or a government minister threatening to clamp down on speech that he personally considers to be ‘not acceptable’? For a government functionary to decree that some opinions are unacceptable, and therefore might have to be hushed, is the stuff of tyranny It’s the latter, isn’t it? People saying zany things online is par for the course in a free society. But for a government functionary to decree that some opinions are unacceptable, and therefore might have to be hushed, is the stuff of tyranny. This is the case of Joey Barton, the ex-footballer

Joey Barton – the Pied Piper of disaffected football fans – has had a busy week. He began by comparing female football commentators to Fred and Rose West, the serial killers who murdered 12 young women. He then went on to imply that female commentators had slept their way to the top. It would be unwise to take Barton too seriously. It’s long been the chosen road of the deeply insecure man to attack confident women. I’ve worked in sport all my life. And throughout it I’ve faced opposition from the small-minded, although never from the stars themselves or the people who matter. It’s always the man in the county

For inadequate men scared by self-willed women, by the start of the 21st century, things were getting dangerously out of hand. The old right-wing ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ method of corralling and controlling us had been woefully discredited with the second world war. (Like the old brand of anti-Semitism, coincidentally, which was also looking for a new angle – and found it in the fresh’n’funky Islamist kind.) A ‘caring’ and ‘progressive’ way to thwart uppity women was needed, but repeated and risible attempts at ‘men’s rights’ movements were rightfully mocked. So how could men abuse women while not being accused of sexism? Simple, say: ‘We’re women too. How can we be misogynists?’ And so the shock-frock-troops of transvestism formed a pincer movement with the aggressive masculinists embodied by Andrew Tate to assault the gains

Walid Sharks is taking a nasty beating at the AO Arena in Manchester. It’s the second round of his fight against ‘Deen the Great’, and he has just been knocked down by a punch to the face. ‘His eyes are rolling right now,’ says a commentator. ‘He doesn’t know where he is!’ But Sharks doesn’t mind: he’s fighting before a sell-out crowd, with a million people livestreaming at home, and they’ll be loving the drama. ‘Hit ’is jaw off!’ someone in the stands shouts to Deen The Great, wishfully. Sharks isn’t a professional boxer, but a social media ‘influencer’. Being used as a punchbag is worth it to grow his internet

Armando Iannucci is a bit of a mystery to me. With shows like The Day Today and The Thick of It, he created some of the most astute political satire of the 1990s and 2000s. And yet put him in front of a microphone now and the man will display all the political insight of a draught excluder. Iannucci regularly pops up in the media to promote his new projects and dispense milquetoast Guardianista opinions. Trump? He’s so mad he’s beyond satire! Brexit? What a mess, eh? Now, inevitably, he’s weighed in on wokeness – and spectacularly misunderstood what it actually is. On Newsnight last night, Iannucci was asked about wokeness and whether it led comedy writers like him