menu_open
Zoe Williams

Zoe Williams

The Guardian

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

I’m glad Laurence Fox is off the ballot for London mayor. But I’d love a Jammie Dodger with his canvassers

While I was out, a canvasser came to the door and asked Mr Z to sign a nomination form for Laurence Fox to get on to the ballot for the London mayoral...

latest 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The greatest mystery of modern politics? Liz Truss’s self belief

Liz Truss’s memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, first penetrated the nation’s consciousness with her reflections on the death of Queen Elizabeth...

yesterday 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on Donald Trump and a total eclipse of the sun – cartoon

09.04.2024 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Yes, total eclipses are very nice. But have you ever smelled bacon?

The total solar eclipse, visible in parts of Mexico, the US and Canada yesterday, was experienced in the UK only as a “small grazing” (that’s...

09.04.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

My 13-hour holiday was a glimpse of the world before Covid. I’ll be going back

In a series of deft manoeuvres that remain fascinating to me, my 16-year-old son managed to barter me down from a four-day trip to Devon to 13 hours...

08.04.2024 8

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Of course the ‘revolving door’ for departing MPs has jammed shut – who’d hire them?

“My heart would sink a bit,” said Alex Gordon Shute, a headhunter of 23 years, when I asked her how she would feel if the 66 (and counting)...

04.04.2024 5

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Martin Rowson on the sharp rise in UK household bills – cartoon

02.04.2024 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Just when you think Trump can’t get any weirder … he launches his own version of the Bible

Donald Trump’s Bible costs $59.99, which puts it at the more expensive end of the King James editions, but it does have extra content: it’s called...

02.04.2024 40

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Wags are back – but I miss the carefree days of Posh and Coleen

It raises all kinds of sad questions to hear that the England footballers’ wives and girlfriends are heading to Euro 24 with £100,000 worth of...

01.04.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on the Princess of Wales: she has the right to heal privately

A cancer diagnosis is shocking for anyone, but particularly for younger people, in whom cancer is much rarer. In the UK, adults aged 25 to 49 account...

26.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Gwyneth Paltrow is letting her hair down – but she has a lot to learn

New wisdom has just dropped from Gwyneth Paltrow. Now that she has turned 50, she “doesn’t give a fuck”, and allows herself one slovenly day a...

26.03.2024 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Why is the right at war with cyclists? We’re not ‘wokerati’ – we’re just trying to get around

Getting my bike nicked was like losing a pet. I didn’t want a new one; I wanted to go back in time and not lose my old one. But, in the end, an...

25.03.2024 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Few want it, and even fewer think it will succeed. So why in the world is Sunak clinging to the Rwanda policy?

Nobody knows exactly how the first red fire ants were imported to Australia, but it happened – and now these vicious and destructive creatures are...

21.03.2024 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Who are ballet flats really for? At £890, people with more money than sense

It’s the shoe that spring has been waiting for: the new Alaïa ballet flat. It is studded with clear crystals, giving the not displeasing impression...

19.03.2024 2

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory in the Russian election – cartoon

18.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

If I give away a kidney, will it make me a better person?

It’s great giving blood when you’re O negative. I do absolutely nothing to produce this stuff, I don’t even drink water very often, and yet I...

18.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The one thing we’ve learned from the Kate photo scandal? There’s no such thing as a fairytale life

Kensington Palace, which remains in its private quarters the London residence of Prince William and Kate (for ever to be known as) Middleton,...

15.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

It’s natural to freak out about kids and mobile phones. But a ban is not the solution

I got a message from an ex-colleague who used to be fun and is now an agitator preaching “alt-right” nostalgia to the gerontocracy. Whatever it...

12.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

How did I mark Mother’s Day? With a dream about putting mine in a home

There is usually a bit of space between International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day, which means we don’t have to run straight from the swill of...

11.03.2024 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Why I got it so wrong on GB News – the flailing TV juggernaut that’s too rich to fail

I almost never worry about things I got wrong, unless the error was so egregious that every day brings fresh evidence of how wrong I was; so, hello,...

09.03.2024 100

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Nicola Jennings on Jeremy Hunt’s upcoming budget – cartoon

05.03.2024 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

I’ve spent decades loving a band you’ve probably never heard of. But there are 199 others who get it

About a thousand years ago, I was really into a band called My Life Story. It was 1996: Britannia was about to be very cool and everything that...

05.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Why does Rishi Sunak talk down the UK? I blame David Cameron

The worst thing you can do with a Rishi Sunak speech is think about it too hard. The words won’t make any more sense and they’ll just come down...

04.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Who will miss the manual car when it’s gone? Only the very smuggest drivers

You can do whatever you like when you’re reviewing a car, because the cultural standard was set by Jeremy Clarkson. You’re almost expected to ding...

04.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on the mess Lee Anderson has created for Rishi Sunak – cartoon

27.02.2024 50

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

How fast can a menopausal cop run? Now we’ll never know

The British Transport Police have axed their annual compulsory fitness test, on the basis that it is discriminatory. Women were more likely to fail...

27.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Is Sadiq Khan a good mayor of London? Let’s not pretend the far right cares

My kids have this stunt that I fall for every time: they ask me a question they know I’ll answer in an incredibly long, unbroken monologue, and they...

26.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Shamima Begum ruling proves it: some UK citizens are less equal than others

The court of appeal ruled this morning that Shamima Begum had been lawfully deprived of her British citizenship. The 24-year-old’s citizenship was...

23.02.2024 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on celebrating working-class memory: a way of looking to the future

For admirers of a venerable progressive tradition in academia, it is proving an uplifting start to the year. The idea of “history from below”,...

22.02.2024 8

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

YouTuber Ruby Franke’s chilling story shows us that internet culture has given child abuse a new place to hide

When I first started working in the mid-90s, there was a big furore when a US evangelical church produced a leaflet about child-rearing that included...

21.02.2024 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on the deaths of Vladimir Putin’s opponents – cartoon

20.02.2024 5

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

From starving students to emaciated pets: why are hunger and poverty the UK’s new normal?

Even before the endless years of Tory immiseration, there was a steady buildup of language around poverty that was depressing because it wasn’t...

20.02.2024 70

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Prince William is very rarely relatable – except when he’s at the Baftas

‘Love” would be a strong word, but I like the Baftas, hard. I don’t care especially who wins, I could take or leave the acceptance speeches...

19.02.2024 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

I would mourn The Body Shop – it was a gateway to politics for animal-obsessed teenagers like me

‘This is a bit rubbish,” my 16-year-old said as he handed me a Christmas present. I love it when that happens. It gives me the chance to be the...

12.02.2024 8

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

British abortion law is a medieval nightmare

When it emerged last year that six women had been prosecuted in Great Britain for procuring abortions, that was a little more than a blip: it was...

06.02.2024 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Work until you’re 71? It could be time to echo the French – and get angry

The retirement age creeps up in jerky increments. By 2026, it’ll be 67; from 2044, it’s expected to rise to 68. But do we know that for sure? Or...

05.02.2024 50

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Remember Brianna Ghey’s name, not her killers’ – and confront the transphobia that dogged her

Brianna Ghey’s father, Peter Spooner, had no wish for his daughter’s killers to be named in the media. He wanted them “forgotten about and...

02.02.2024 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Should a wee in the woods get you fined – or dumped by your partner? A penny for your thoughts

Wild weeing – outdoors, wherever the mood takes you, rather than in some tiled facility designed for the purpose – is not like wild swimming. It...

30.01.2024 3

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

My decades-old bike has been stolen – and I feel bereft

My bike got nicked last week, which initially presented itself as an experiment in consciousness, a magic realist problem: it had to be there, because...

30.01.2024 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Why Boris Johnson – and other men like him – love the idea of conscription

Every morning, unless someone’s vomited in my path, I walk between two war memorials. One is extremely fancy and timeless: a clocktower of Portland...

29.01.2024 9

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on the ongoing tragedy in Gaza – cartoon

23.01.2024 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Worried about AI voice scams? Luckily, I have one foolproof solution

A friend recently got duped by a scam text purporting to be from his middle daughter, and transferred £100 to an account to cover some baffling yet,...

23.01.2024 80

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

How Winston Churchill became a mascot for anti-woke warriors

‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts,” Ron DeSantis said, as he pulled out of the race to lead...

22.01.2024 8

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

An internal Tory drama engulfing our politics? The Rwanda policy feels like Brexit all over again

It seems like only a week ago that Lee Anderson and Rishi Sunak were all smiles, videoing themselves having a bromantic conversation about the news....

17.01.2024 9

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

We prepare for Christmas, Easter, Halloween and even Bonfire Night. So why are we so terrible at planning for January?

Yesterday was Blue Monday, officially the most depressing day of the year, according to an idea that has long been debunked by everyone, including its...

16.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

A Labour landslide is in sight – so let’s prepare for the biggest party of our lives

The pollsters are predicting a Tory wipeout, the rightwing press are doing their nut and Labour grey beards are warning us not to count our chickens....

15.01.2024 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Jennifer Aniston’s Proustian haircut – a portal to a happier time

Jennifer Aniston arrived at the Golden Globes sporting the same haircut she had when she played Rachel Green, in the earliest years of Friends. It...

09.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Kate doesn’t want Prince George to go to Eton – and for once I agree with her

The Prince and Princess of Wales are at an unusual impasse about their son George’s secondary school, according to rumours. A regular, incredibly...

08.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Luke Littler was glorious in defeat, in a sport the snobs hate – what could be more British than that?

There’s a great video montage of Luke Littler, made by his sister Lisa, with his first dartboard. You can hear his mum in the background, modelling...

04.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Guardian Opinion cartoon Martin Rowson on Rishi Sunak, his asylum policy, his election chances … and a defibrillator – cartoon

03.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

5828917bb44cf3745a61c4b3290e16f6