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Freelance writer and journalist
Browsing All Posts filed under »Politics«
Pinkos and the brain
Unfairness is hard to accept, and hard to correct, but luckily for your peace of mind, the human brain has a work-around. It’s called the “just world hypothesis”: a tendency to build retrospective narratives that justify inequality. As Oliver Burkeman explains, “The just world hypothesis sees suffering and concludes that people who suffer must be […]
Industrial etiquette
December 2, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
Here’s a confession: I don’t really know what to do in a strike. When my children’s teachers walked out earlier this year, their classes closed, so I kept them at home and told the teachers I backed them. Easy. But this Wednesday, the school stayed open, so I took them in, and then worried all day […]
Private lives
October 9, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
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I feel ancient. I remember when a Tory vice girl story was a thing of joy and wonder, a hose full of snigger juice soused across the news. “Aha!” you could chortle back in the days of section 28 and Back To Basics, “They love to govern our bedrooms, but they’re not so straight themselves!” […]
The political myth kitty
October 7, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
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Criticising the media gets boring. Even Chris Morris – who did it better than anyone with The Day Today and Brass Eye – found that he couldn’t bear to do it anymore when he came to work out his response to the war on terror: “I did formalise some ideas,” he told the Guardian, “but […]
[Comment is free] Childcare costs mean a choice of debt or unemployment for many parents
October 4, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
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Originally published by the Guardian. I could understand why my bank manager was looking at me like that. It did sound a bit stupid. “You’re about to start a job, and that means you need to extend your overdraft?” he said, dubiously. After years of scratching around as a student, I was finally about to […]
The beauty Mensch
October 2, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
Can we say that Louise Mensch has had a facelift? It’s pretty heavily implied in this Guardian interview, but as Mensch doesn’t directly admit to it – and interviewer Decca Aitkenhead doesn’t phrase the suspicions as a statement – I suppose there’s just enough uncertainty between the lack-of-lines to stop us from saying, definitively, that […]
Dave’s got something for the ladies
September 15, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
We live in glorious times for democracy, my sisters: after many years of struggle and toil, finally we have the vote. At long, long last, our politicians are forced to listen to female voices – and act in female interests, if they wish to maintain power. Well, the Equal Franchise Act is actually 83 years […]
Fast paper
October 3, 2010 by Sarah Ditum
All debates about the influence of social media come down to this. It is just fast paper. Was anyone expecting anything else? I mention this because The Observer today contains a summary of the Gladwell v Shirky spat over the power of Twitter, and while it’s presented as an argument, both of them are basically […]
What to say about Ed
September 27, 2010 by Sarah Ditum
It’s the decision that will determine Labour’s fate over the next five years. It’s the difference between a demoralising era of electoral devastation for the party, and the chance to mount an effective challenge on the next polling day. It’s the choice that could make Labour a force that’s ready for power, or inaugurate a […]
Who gained from Hague’s embarrassment?
September 22, 2010 by Sarah Ditum
Guido Fawkes likes to style himself as a bottle-throwing avenger of the internet. No party, no loyalties, nothing but unconstrained contempt for the people in charge and a free-ranging vocabulary of abuse. It’s part of his MO to deny any editorial responsibility for what appears on his site: the comments go unmoderated, even the cartoons […]
December 5, 2011 by Sarah Ditum
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