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![]() Zoe WilliamsThe Guardian |
Very early in life, I perfected one skill: I can carry four pints at once. I put them in a straightforward quadrant; nothing dumb like balancing one...
Looking for a boost on a grey day full of awful news, I was trying to remember the last time I felt politically optimistic. Was it for a real reason,...
The classic argument for a first past the post (FPTP) voting system was that it kept the cranks at bay and delivered a stable, two-party system, with...
I’ve been racking my brain for all the things that have ever gone wrong, in the history of teenage train travel between me and my sister, because...
I didn’t have powerful 1997 vibes last week, and not because I was too busy grumbling; I also hit the ground complaining about Tony Blair. But one...
I have a stick up my arse about the difference between “less” and “fewer”, and women in the generations below have the same about “vagina”...
I remember when people thought the free world was in peril because its self-appointed leader didn’t have a big enough vocabulary. There were also...
Two cliches hovered over Wednesday night’s TV debate between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak – the first that the stakes were high, the second that...
It is true that election manifestos can’t be compared like with like – and in recent years, the variation of detail, trustworthiness and meaning...
However much you check yourself against groupthink, we all swim in the same ocean and meet the same fish. Between the sight of a triumphant Nigel...
When Just Stop Oil covered Stonehenge with orange cornflour last week, Keir Starmer was called upon to decry the act, which he dutifully did, even...
It was four weeks before election day when I spoke to one member of the constituency Labour party in Holborn and St Pancras, in central London, as he...
I’m sitting in a room with Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig, who founded the Women’s Equality party (WEP) nine years ago, and Caroline Lucas and...
It was Father’s Day morning, and my friend and I were comparing notes on whose offspring were the least prepared: if you thought children were...
“We can stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country,” declares Labour’s manifesto. With faith in politics at an all-time...
When our kids are small, parents flex at each other over things such as food (crisps or not?), toys (wooden or plastic?), screens (none or loads?) –...
Rishi Sunak’s claim that Labour would cost every family two grand was debunked almost as soon as it was out of his mouth. You could say it was...
In the opening scene of Stormy, the documentary about Stormy Daniels’ life, she says: “I have just been tormented for the last five years or so....
OK, this is going to sound a little hypocritical, as I have hard-recommended every activity and pursuit, every wellness wheeze and rejuvenation...
For the 2008 televised vice-presidential debate in the United States, Sarah Palin was opposite Joe Biden. Reportedly, she’d so frustrated the...
Mr Z was having a crisis of confidence, due to the change of seasons. He thinks summer’s easy when you’re young; you just wear fewer clothes. In...
For a man who wants to win an election, Rishi Sunak’s first week of campaigning has been bizarre, a little bit frightening, like getting trapped in...
Whether or not universities are at risk of going bust is often talked about like a second-order problem. Sure, it’s sad and all, but is it as...
Phone signal went live this week across a quarter of the underground system in the capital, mainly in central London, with further coverage planned...
Maybe the most remarkable thing about my stepfather-in-law is that he managed to find love in a swimming pool, at the age of 85, which is how I became...
It’s a convention as old as our species (I’m guessing) that if you have a hideous experience giving birth, you don’t tell younger women about it...
God knows I don’t want to pick sides in the bitter rivalry between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. The rappers’ feud has been going on for way too long...
When Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor being vetted as a candidate for Donald Trump’s vice-president, admitted in her memoir to having shot and...
Mayoral elections can seem set apart from the main drag of politics. People vote for individuals and their records, it’s not outlandish to stand as...
“What do you think is the greatest threat to the planet, and why?” I ask my 16-year-old. “Earthquakes. Because buildings fall. And this causes...
Another week, another phantom menace for Rishi Sunak. The people he is talking about, regarding his benefit reforms, do not exist. The 1.35 million...
Only those born before 1998 could vote on Brexit, so there is no conceivable way of knowing which way today’s 18- to 30-year-olds would have felt...
I went past parliament last week and saw Angela Rayner. She is one of those politicians you couldn’t miss anyway, but she was also dressed in...
The Spice Girls are like German biscuits in reverse. They don’t remind you of the seasons – the seasons remind you of them. On the eve of St...
The unpaid carer’s allowance in this country is £81.90 a week. It’s hard to see what serious thought went into arriving at that figure – any...
Ten years ago this week on the M25, Britain’s first stretch of all-lane running (ALR) “smart” motorway was introduced, with more to follow....
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...
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...
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...
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...
“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)...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Nobody knows exactly how the first red fire ants were imported to Australia, but it happened – and now these vicious and destructive creatures are...