Society

‘But what must it be like for the fish?’ We’re talking about cormorants, Neil MacGregor and I, and the spectacular way they dive for food, when he pauses to consider the situation from the perspective of a fish. ‘I mean just think, there you are swimming along with lots of chums and then suddenly there’s this great whoosh and the chum next to you has just disappeared! He’s vanished! And of course you can’t see the cause of it.’ MacGregor tilts his head. The sunlight in the offices of Penguin on the Strand seems to condense to a point in his eye. ‘Can you imagine it?’ he says. I can’t.

There are some things that pretty much everyone in politics and public life agrees on. Ask any politician about any contentious, heated debate and they’ll immediately talk about the need for respectful debate, for all views to be heard calmly and in a civilised manner. They’ll say that there is no place for harassment and abuse and bullying and threats, because this is Britain, a mature democracy where everyone gets to express their views about things like politics and the law without fear. Except that’s not entirely true. There are some people who aren’t allowed to speak freely, who cannot express their views about things like politics and the law without

Fixed rate bonds can allow you to earn interest at a set rate for a certain amount of time. Here are some of the best two year fixed-rate bonds on the market at the moment, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

The fact that Naked Attraction is still being broadcast after a year or so strikes me as proof that there is something very wrong with our culture. In a healthy culture it would have been howled offstage after a few weeks, and the moral babies who made it shunned, and firmer procedures put in place to ensure that this sort of thing is not inflicted on us.  This show, in which people peer at the private parts of potential dates before meeting them, is not funny or daring or witty or brave or ironic or cheeky or iconoclastic or anything else. It’s just wrong. Why is it wrong? It is

Myth 1. The UK economy could shrink by eight per cent in a single year under no deal (Project Fear, Bank of England version) You will have read about this. The Bank of England now sheepishly claims that this was never meant to be a forecast, only a worst-case scenario. Mark Carney surely knew the headlines it would generate. Doubtless he was shocked – shocked! – to see the newspapers treat scenario as a forecast. Whatever. But in case there is any doubt, the idea that a no-deal Brexit would cause a crash of such proportions is nonsense, pure and simple. An eight per cent reduction in GDP in one

There’s a moment of realisation that comes to all parent’s post-baby: the flash back to those thoughts we all have that ‘having a baby won’t change us’. I wasn’t going to let my kids watch TV, eat sweets or be ‘that mum’ who cracks open a snack mid shop. Then it came, that thought at the check-out as I handed over an empty pack to the woman with a knowing smile: some elements of parenting are simply not understood until they are lived. The biggest of them all is how on earth we balance parenting and work. I loved my job, and having consciously moved to a 4-day role pre-baby,