Society

It’s a fact of life that at any given time, a woman’s social media messages will be filled with three things. Young Ponzi schemers asking if you want to earn £500-a-month from the comfort of your own sofa; an unknown jewellery brand with 15 followers begging you to be their new ‘brand ambassador’; and blurry photos of a man’s penis. The men who send these pictures are weirdos, obviously. But if the government gets its way, soon they’ll also be criminals. The Online Safety Bill, going through parliament today, makes so-called ‘cyberflashing’ a criminal offence. According to the government, the new law will mean that: ‘Anyone who sends a photo or film of a person’s genitals, for the

It had been, for a change, a good few days for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Not only have they managed to make an atypically low-profile and successful visit to Windsor Castle for an air-clearing meeting with the Queen – which, unlike virtually ever other appointment they have had in recent years, appeared in the media after it took place – but they have now headed to The Hague for the Invictus games. The games remains one of the most successful endeavours that Prince Harry has ever associated himself with. After months of negative publicity, there has been the potential for the much-maligned duo to re-establish themselves in good standing

A world away from the stupendous horror perpetrated by Russian forces in Bucha and Kramatorsk, a parallel conflict is being grittily fought in quite other theatres. La Scala and The Metropolitan Opera are two of them. Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Putin’s most favoured conductor, is at the heart of the crossfire. His overseas contracts went up in smoke at the start of the invasion after he failed to recant his long-standing admiration for the Russian president. On one side of the lines are those who would support him, and who charge that Gergiev’s detractors are ‘cancelling’ Russian culture wholesale. Chief among such is Putin himself: ‘The names of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and

If you take any interest in social media, Silicon Valley, or the culture wars — which all seem to be the same thing these days — you will be aware that the world is currently ending. At least, that is the impression given by those reacting to an attempt by Elon Musk to buy Twitter. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former labour secretary, inveighs against Musk’s ‘libertarian vision’ for the internet as ‘dangerous rubbish’ and intones that it would be ‘the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth’. (He also seems pretty peeved that Musk blocked him.) Professor Jeff Jarvis, TV Guide reviewer turned Supreme Arbiter

It’s only been two weeks since the Ockenden report on the maternity scandal at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust came out. That report criticised – among many other things – a focus on ‘normal birth’ and a low Caesarean section rate which had harmed some of the mothers and babies in the cases it had investigated. Job adverts give the impression that some sections of the NHS aren’t prepared to learn the lessons from Ockenden Since then, though, there have still been job adverts going out from other NHS trusts for midwives who are interested in ‘normality’ – the common term for a vaginal delivery, preferably without instrumental