The Joy of Six 1172

"Short-form social content is great for punchy superficial gesture, but just terrible at containing any form of complex nuanced context. The volatile nature of the provocative issues embedded in this conflict are barely containable even face to face among close others with whom we disagree. Exchanging with strangers online is not only impossible, but tends to result in the hardening of positions and may even contribute to radicalisation." Aaron Balick explains why social media amplifies hatred in a time of unspeakable horror.

"There is too much emphasis on what connects with 'Middle England', and the blue wall in particular. How does that connect with someone in Caernarfon or Caerfyrddin? Through the consequences of Brexit, we have seen what appealing to strong feelings of Unionism can do and are doing. We need to move away from all that." Cheryl Williams says it's time to reinvent the Welsh Lib Dems.

Matthew England and Ruth Fox ask what the HS2 fiasco means for Parliament: "The Prime Minister’s decision to cancel the next stage of HS2 has given rise to criticism that once again the Government has ridden roughshod over Parliament. Just over 1,300 hours of legislative time have been spent on four HS2-related Bills over nine Sessions in the last decade."

Over half (58 per cent) of prison sentences given to women in 2022 were for less than six months, reports the Prison Reform Trust, despite a widespread recognition that short sentences are harmful and ineffective.

Daniel Callcut looks at the moral philosophy of Bernard Williams: "Williams had little time for the idea, associated with postmodernism, that all of reality is a cultural construction. Humans have dramatically reshaped the Earth but they didn’t create the planet they live on. Ethical reality is constructed via interaction with ‘an already existing physical world’ that is not a cultural product."

Alwyn Collinson on the extraordinary life of Johnny Smythe: "One of the first black airmen in the Royal Air Force. The man in charge of the historic voyage of the SS Windrush. A Krio who said that his skin colour saved his life when he was captured by the Nazis."