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Zoe Williams

Zoe Williams

The Guardian

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Why are trans rights in prison so rarely defended?

On Tuesday, Prof Kathleen Stock did a media round, following a fresh row about her appearance at the Oxford Union that day and a Channel 4...

01.06.2023 40

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on carers: those who do the caring deserve care themselves

W estminster rarely serves up good news, so let us celebrate when it does. Millions of employees are about to get a new statutory right: they can...

25.05.2023 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Covid inquiry The country stopped caring whether Boris Johnson broke the rules – thank goodness the civil service didn’t

What could Boris Johnson possibly have done in Chequers to make the Cabinet Office refer his diary to the police? Obviously we couldn’t speculate,...

24.05.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

What’s the difference between a baby and a puppy? I know how to behave when friends get a baby

I always assume that when a person gets a new dog, the household lives for a period in new-baby territory. That is to say, anyone is allowed to...

23.05.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Fretting about your speed awareness course, Suella? You’re anxious about the wrong thing

M y Mr and I waste a lot of argument capital circling around the probable consequences of politicians’ misdemeanours. He thinks we’re in...

22.05.2023 5

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on Thailand’s elections: can the country move forward?

C areful what you wish for. The Thai royalist-military establishment has spent years attempting to suppress the political forces that swelled around...

17.05.2023 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Is Martha Stewart’s Sports Illustrated cover a diversity breakthrough? No, it’s just window dressing

M artha Stewart, at 81, this week becomes the oldest cover star ever to grace Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. With her tousled beach hair,...

16.05.2023 7

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

I’m an inspiration to my sister. Unfortunately, what I’ve inspired is a standup routine

T wo years ago, my sister was about to turn 50 and I called her spouse to see what he was getting her. He rattled off a number of ideas so...

16.05.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Why enjoy the sunshine when you could torment yourself in a shopping centre?

I t was the first beautiful day of 2023 and everyone in the country was in a park, except for me. I was in Westfield’s west London outpost, in...

15.05.2023 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

This year’s Eurovision was a political statement – whatever the organisers may have wanted

T he European Broadcasting Union, which organises Eurovision, is like the European Central Bank: whenever it’s called upon to make an important...

14.05.2023 8

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Can you pull your weight in a pub quiz? Congratulations – you’re welcome in the UK!

J ust before the new king appeared on the balcony, I got some wonderful news: my Bolivian friend had passed her UK citizenship test. The fifth time...

09.05.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Nepo babies have never been bigger. So why are the Windsors and the Roys so unhappy?

P oor King Charles. And yet, on the other hand, daft King Charles: he’s served a 50-year apprenticeship for this gig. You’d think he’d have...

08.05.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Women-only housing for Britain’s new class of handmaids – how is that progress?

B ritain’s first women-only tower block, 15 storeys of 102 units, has just been given planning permission in Ealing, west London. Women’s Pioneer...

04.05.2023 100

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The best way to improve your relationship? Bond over your bad behaviour

I n further Dispatches from Universities Proving Things You Already Knew, academics in Zurich have shown that couples who do unhealthy things...

02.05.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The pledge of allegiance to the king is nonsense – and seems designed to incense everyone

T he problem with the royal family is that there is no “don’t care” option. The default, I believe, is to love them. Monarchists always give...

01.05.2023 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on the electric car revolution: targets are not enough

W hen the government controversially scrapped its discount on the purchase of electric cars last summer, the move was justified on the grounds that...

26.04.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on hopes for Yemen: a long road to peace

H ope has been hard to find in Yemen. After more than eight years of war, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, many of them civilians, the...

25.04.2023 3

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

As Prince Harry battles the press, why have the other royals given up the fight?

P rince Harry has long alleged that the royal family – “the Institution”, as he calls it – is locked in a trap of appeasement with the...

25.04.2023 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

How do you put a new lover to the test? See how they react when your dog bites your mother

Two-thirds of people would dump a partner or forgo a second date if their dog or cat didn’t like the person, according to a poll by Pets at Home....

25.04.2023 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

It’s Raab’s rightwingers versus the Blob, the wokerati and the snowflakes – and you’ve been drafted

W atching the right’s line take shape around Dominic Raab, the former deputy prime minister and justice secretary, over the weekend was almost...

24.04.2023 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Great news, a contraceptive pill for men without side-effects! Now how about one for women?

T he arrival of a male contraceptive pill is imminent. Scientists at Washington State University have identified the gene responsible for normal...

19.04.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Pity the coronation chefs – theirs is a thankless and debasing task

I thought the most thankless and debasing task in the country, where royal events were concerned, was poet laureate. You have to be medium...

18.04.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

What prompted my U-turn on LTNs? I realised I was on the same side as Laurence Fox

I revised my opinion once in 2007. I went on the radio to vigorously protest against the smoking ban, which was just about to come in, and was...

17.04.2023 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

If the lid snaps shut on Tupperware, we’ll all be sorry

W hat Covid did to various businesses will never make total sense to me. But it appears to have both saved Tupperware, briefly, and now scotched it,...

13.04.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

A month after she died, Mystic Meg is still promising readers they will find love – even my husband

F or as long as we’ve been married, Mr Z has started the day the same way. He says: “Do you want to know what’s in your future?” and I say:...

11.04.2023 9

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Rishi Sunak as a paedophile-protecter? Attack ads are back - and they’re as daft as ever

I have no strong views about Keir Starmer’s attack ad, in which he accuses Rishi Sunak of letting paedophiles walk free. I have managed to keep...

10.04.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Misogyny is a mighty force on the right – just look at the fate of Finland’s Sanna Marin

C ompetent, reasonable, functioning government doesn’t get much spotlight on the world stage, particularly when there are wars and pandemics going...

04.04.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Why do so many romcoms go wrong? It’s down to a problem I call ‘the Minnie Driver’

W hen I was 12, I did Guys and Dolls for a school play. It didn’t leave some massive, psyche-reshaping mark – I don’t fly to it like a homing...

04.04.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Dover jam is not a Great British Queue. It is a Brexit-sponsored circle of hell

I t’s become such a cliche to complain about gaslighting in politics that it’s hackneyed now even to complain about other people saying it. Yet...

03.04.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

My sister has become a great gardener – and I have never felt so betrayed

I left a houseplant outside, not because I didn’t know it was a houseplant – I had been told: “This will look nice in your kitchen” – but...

28.03.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The men-are-trash narrative is back. But what if women are also trash?

M y millennial friend was explaining the trajectory of the men-are-trash narrative. It fell out of fashion for a bit, but now it’s very much back....

27.03.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Taking drugs with your children? Gen Z won’t even want to share a beer with us

“S ay nothing, she’s going to use it,” my 13-year-old daughter said to my 15-year-old son, like a Miranda warning. It was the week after the...

24.03.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Ham-fisted but humane: the BBC’s podcast about Shamima Begum raises vital questions

I n Wednesday’s final episode of Josh Baker’s gripping documentary about Shamima Begum, he visits a camp where the young woman from east London...

22.03.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

A woman marrying for the fifth time at 92? Just imagine what Murdoch’s newspapers would say!

“W e’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” said 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch of his planned summer...

21.03.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

I learned a lot from making kimchi – about fermented shrimp, and about myself

L ike all bad ideas, this enterprise started with me thinking: “I bet I could make this myself.” It was kimchi. Everyone really likes it: one kid...

21.03.2023 40

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

My mother was as salty as ever on Mother’s Day – but at least she didn’t compare anything to a vagina

M y mother hates sentimentality of any sort, but especially the mandated, socially coordinated kind: Christmas (yuck, families); Halloween (American...

20.03.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

It’s a good time to think again about Paula Yates. She was the other Diana: hounded by the press for being herself

T here’s a story about Paula Yates bumping into Diana, Princess of Wales that Yates’s friend Belinda Brewin recollects in the documentary Paula...

15.03.2023 6

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Gary Lineker row isn’t about impartiality – it’s just the latest attempt to discredit leftish decency

I ’ve been in the Gary Lineker defence business for ages, since way before it was cool. In 2017, the Daily Mail attempted a hit job on his tax...

14.03.2023 100

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Michelle Yeoh is right – a woman is never ‘past her prime’

‘L adies, never let anyone tell you you are past your prime,” Michelle Yeoh told a rapt audience as she accepted her Oscar on Sunday. She made...

13.03.2023 30

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on refugee rights: a warning from history

B ritain did not sign up to the 1951 United Nations refugee convention by accident, nor was the country bamboozled into the European convention on...

09.03.2023 80

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on Macron’s pensions reforms: a potential gift for the radical right

A s Emmanuel Macron sought radically to reform France’s pensions system in 2019, one of his senior lieutenants warned that intense opposition in...

09.03.2023 100

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The lesson from Matt Hancock’s WhatsApps is this: these clowns can’t govern, their only skill is covering tracks

W hat is the public interest value of Matt Hancock’s huge cache of WhatsApp messages? They tell us a fair amount about him and his vanity. He has a...

08.03.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

An old video of me is on the school curriculum! Unfortunately, I am shocked by my own arguments

“Y ou were in our PBE video,” my youngest said, when she got home from school. I find it hard to disaggregate the acronym lessons in the...

07.03.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

I thought my opinion of Boris Johnson couldn’t be lower. Then he nominated his father for a knighthood

A h, Boris Johnson – such a safe pair of hands for any eventuality or crisis, national or international, but where you can really rely on him is in...

06.03.2023 100

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

My husband predicts a general election this year – and he’s always right

M r Z has this habit of being generally right in his political predictions and it’s annoying for two reasons: first, his hunches are always bad;...

28.02.2023 70

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Nine tomatoes for £15? How the very basics became more expensive than oysters

I don’t even like tomatoes, especially, but I seemed to have nine in a paper bag, and had picked them up with my own hands – this detail will be...

27.02.2023 10

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The Guardian view on Rishi Sunak’s Brexit fix: PM risks a Tory war he may lose

R ishi Sunak’s shuttle diplomacy – which took him from Belfast to Munich over the weekend – was an attempt to seize the moment over the...

21.02.2023 20

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

I gatecrashed a party for young people – and have never been less welcome

S o the scene was a set of railway arches, and there was a different party in each one. In retrospect, it was really easy to tell them apart: it went...

21.02.2023 70

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

The carnival of hysteria over Nicola Bulley shows us the very worst of modern human nature

N icola Bulley’s family now has a fresh agony to endure, now that the body found a mile from where she was last seen has been identified, seemingly...

20.02.2023 4

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

Tory MPs don’t take buses – they just destroy them for the rest of us

I n Stoke-on-Trent, bus services were cut by 37% in the five years to March 2022. Things are worse in Hertfordshire, where they are down by more than...

20.02.2023 9

The Guardian

Zoe Williams

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