The Joy of Six 1134

Tom McTague argues that Keir Starmer is adopting the Tory tactic of accepting past change and promising to curb the agitation for more: "Will it work this time? It worked for Peel and, eventually, for Disraeli after he reluctantly accepted free trade. It also worked for Churchill and Eden and Macmillan when they accepted Labour’s welfare state. Each reform was popular. Today, the big difference is that Brexit no longer is."

The Conservative Party in West Sussex was hit by a political earthquake, says James Walsh.

"The DWP’s messaging ... is part of a wider pattern of anti-welfare rhetoric that has a long history in the UK. The idea that benefits claimants are 'scroungers' or 'cheats' makes it less likely that people will access the resources they need (and are entitled to), resulting in even higher levels of poverty." Leo Woodend on the government's revival of the scrounger stereotype.

Peter Simons discusses research into the way the concept of ADHD is presented as a disease rather than a description of behaviour.

"Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighbouring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests - a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks." It's a lovely story but, ask Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema and Justine Karst, is any of it true?

A London Inheritance takes us to Bread Street near St Paul's Cathedral, which was devastated in the Blitz.