Alex Klaushofer is an author and journalist. She writes about the changing times on Substack at Ways of Seeing.
This summer I spent an afternoon, as I do every year, sitting with old friends in their garden a few miles from the Gloucestershire village where we grew up. Their garden adjoins fields, affording a clear view of the Malvern Hills. But this year, the view was different. We watched as trucks crawled across the
It’s been 80 years since CS Lewis’ remarkably prescient, That Hideous Strength, was published. The final book in a sci-fi trilogy, the novel recounts the battle for the soul of humanity in the heart of England. Even in 1945, George Orwell saw that: ‘Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that
The vexed issue of compulsory ID is, once again, on the cards. ‘BritCard’ is being billed as a ‘progressive digital identity for Britain’ by Labour Together, the think tank that put forward the scheme earlier this month. The digital ID card has been endorsed by dozens of Labour MPs, and No. 10 is said to be
Tesco has followed Sainsbury’s lead by installing cameras above self-checkouts to identify when shoppers fail to scan an item properly, using the footage to provide a live-action replay of their misdeed. Predictably, it’s not gone down well: a video posted on Instagram involving a can of tuna got more than 3.5 million views. When will the supermarkets learn to stop
Sainsbury’s is stepping up surveillance on its self-checkout tills. It’s hard not to laugh out loud. Not only will shoppers in some stores be recorded close-up by a VAR-style camera as they pack their groceries, but should anything appear amiss they may be shown a replay bearing the message: ‘Looks like that last item didn’t scan. Please
Does Britain have a ‘two-tier’ attitude towards policing? The Home Affairs Committee, made up of 11 Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MPs, is dismissive of the suggestion. ‘It was disgraceful to see the police officers who bore the brunt of (the) violence being undermined by baseless claims of ‘two-tier policing’, its report, published earlier this
At 3am last Thursday morning, council contractors and police descended on a Bristol neighbourhood to install roadblocks under the cover of darkness. Fadumo Farah was one of the residents who got up that night to see what was going on. She was shocked to see dozens of police officers and security guards with drones. It ‘felt like a
“See that?” my friend pointed to a pylon on the hill opposite the window. “That’s the dawla.” The dawla (pronounced “dowleh”) is Arabic for state, and my hostess was telling me about an essential feature of life in contemporary Lebanon: the ability to understand when there is electricity and who is providing it. If the
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Under leaden November skies, came news of what many have suspected: energy rationing for British households could be officially on the cards. The NESO-Miliband plan for a low-carbon future is going to involve a lot more than just waiting a while for a cup of tea The bearer of
Does Britain have a two-tier policing system? Accusations that some protesters are treated differently to others have emerged in the wake of this week’s riots and the various counter-protests that have taken place. But while the blame is being directed at Sir Keir Starmer – with Elon Musk tweeting about ‘two-tier Keir’ – questions over
On the day the election was called, I turned on the tap but nothing came out. The sudden stoppage was hardly a surprise: I live in a ‘Thames Water hotspot’ and can’t drive ten minutes in any direction without encountering at least one road closure as the water pipes are dug up. It’s got to
Sainsbury’s has long had a special place in my heart. The weekly shop at the Orange Store offered excitement to a child and a comforting familiarity that my adult self has found hard to shake off. But roll on the decades and I’m standing, dismayed, in my local Sainsbury’s. The boss of Sainsbury’s has claimed
