The Joy of Six 1492

"It’s a well-worn tactic: Say something obviously offensive and watch as the media debates whether you were right, actually. The result is that the state of general discourse moves further to the right, the ratchet effect in action." Don't fall into the Nick Timothy trap, warns Mic Wright.

Helen Maguire exposes planners' failure to consider women's safety: "Simple issues like lighting dictate who feels able to use public space after dark. Many women plan their routes based on lighting, avoiding dark shortcuts or taking longer paths home simply to stay on well-lit streets. Some pay for taxis to avoid walking along unlit roads altogether, a luxury that not everyone can afford."

"Quietly, our country is moving, state by state and executive order by executive order, towards policies that all but dismantle the rights of those deemed mentally ill. In the US, both Republican and Democratic legislators have applauded the trend toward seemingly humane policies that lower the threshold for involuntary psychiatric commitment and assertive, non-consensual treatment in the community." Nancy Burke on mental health and the assault on autonomy in Trump's America.

Georgina Brewis and Sam Blaxland consider the long history of student finance: "It is hard to see successive campaigns against repayable loans or fee increases as anything other than a series of failures. But it is also clear that many of the support systems students today take for granted arose out of such activism, from student discounts to subsidised canteens to union shops and hardship funds."

Emily Temple tells how J.R.R. Tolkien stopped W.H. Auden writing a book about him.

A run of Japanese films released around the millennium, and bracketed together as 'J-Horror', gave new life to the ghost story. In 2026, says Ray Newman, they’re still exciting.

Ed Davey: Brexit has been a disaster and Starmer must find the courage to change course

Ed Davey has a comment piece on the Guardian website this afternoon, which will presumably be in tomorrow's paper:

Brexit isn’t working, and the British people know it. Poll after poll, including that unveiled this weekend by More In Common for the Sunday Times, shows that people are feeling the terrible damage caused by the deal forced upon us by Boris Johnson, Kemi Badenoch and the rest of the Conservative party, and want something different. The latest shows less than a third of Britons would vote to leave the EU if a referendum were repeated. 

There’s no doubt that fundamental change is needed. There’s no doubt the public will is there to make it happen. The question is: will Keir Starmer seize the moment and deliver it?

This is just the line he should be taking. The sad thing is that Starmer does not appear to be one for seizing moments.

Johnson's name is still poison, and it's good politics to associate Badenoch with the Brexit disaster. But what really did the damage was Theresa May's insistence on leaving the Single Market, which she justified with the mindless slogan "Brexit means Brexit".

That speech was written for her by Nick Timothy - it's arguable that no one alive has done as much to damage Britain. How did the Conservatives reward him? By selecting him as their candidate for a seat that, even in the rout of last year's general election, they could not lose.