The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-24)

The Sunday Times April 24, 2022 27

COMMENT

that if a child has adverse

experiences, such as being

smacked, at the age of three,

they’re more likely to suffer

poor mental health and

behavioural problems.

Do we really believe that

barely formed human beings

can understand being hit —

either as a way to “teach” or

punish them? In my

experience, any burgeoning

lesson was extinguished each

time I wet myself in fear.

Smacking might not have

done you any harm, Wes. But

what about those it did, and

does still?

“As a child who was smacked

by their parents from time to

time,” Wes Streeting said with

a wry smile during a Times

Radio interview last week, “I

don’t think it did me any

harm and I don’t think my

parents are bad or immoral

parents for giving me the old

slap from time to time.”

I was stopped in my tracks.

Say what now, Wes? Or to give

him his title: Labour MP and

shadow secretary for health

and social care (yes, I know).

The context: Wales joining

Scotland in making it illegal to

physically punish children

and England rejecting calls to

follow suit.

Parents can hit children if

they use the “reasonable

punishment” defence and, as

Streeting put it, “the law does

ensure that children are not

allowed to be marked”. Oh,

cool! So when I was hit square

in the face as a toddler that

was bad, but when a 6ft bloke

hit me in the head (no mark!),

that was OK. Experts can tell

you how adept abusers are at

knowing where and how to

hit so that no marks are left.

They can also tell you, as

UCL researchers did in 2021,

You say smacking’s harmless? That

feels like a slap in the face to me

Cat-loving single women

have long had it rough.

“Cat lady,” people laugh

with a knowing nod; “crazy

cat lady”, if they lack

subtlety.

We all know how it goes:

that woman’s so lonely, so

without fun and friends

with benefits of any kind,

that she gets a cat, stroking

him or her night after

lonely night.

It’s OK, everyone: she’s

not going to die alone any

more! She has a cat!

I’m pleased to report,

however, that the sad,

single, sexless cat lady trope

is no more.

A survey by a dating site

for married people,

Illicit Encounters, revealed

that cheating wives were

more likely to own a cat

than to own any other

animal (more than one in

five was happily with

tabby).

One respondent said:

“They are independent

and easy to take care of.

Does that leave more time

for an affair? I suppose it

does.”

Also in the top ten of

animals owned by cheating

wives were tropical fish

and, yes, a snake. A snake.

This stuff really does write

itself.

Terri White

Week ending

Anti-Tory hate porn makes for clichéd TV. In

real life, class politics is more complicated

Camilla Long

If there is one thing I am truly

grateful for, it is Prince Harry

looking out for all the hunted,

vulnerable lickle women who

crowd his silly life.

He seems to believe that

what defines the women of

the royal family is that they

are all unfocused, dithery

hopelessnesses.

His first instinct, for

example, on meeting the

supremely capable TV star

Meghan Markle was to

protect her from the press

she had hitherto much loved.

Now he tells us he has

made sure the Queen is also

“protected” in a 15-minute

flying visit to Windsor.

Is it just me or is all this a

bit patronising? If there is

one woman in the world who

does not merit being turned

into a victim it is our 96-year-

old monarch. But it seems

there is a pattern. Tina

Brown’s bumptious new

book about the royal family is

filled with women quietly

picking their way around the

prince, or having to deal with

his hatred, like Camilla, who

unwisely turned his former

bedroom at Highgrove into a

dressing room for herself.

I get that Harry is angry at

the past — but shouldn’t he

vent his anger at Charles?

Cressida Bonas, his

girlfriend before Meghan,

clearly got fed up “being

yelled at or ignored while he

threw a hissy fit”. According

to Brown, Cressie dumped

him after tiring of his mental

health issues, leaving him to

find someone happier to play

the passive, grateful martyr.

You can sleep

easy, ma’am.

Harry’s got

W your back

hen is partygate going to

be over? My view is, not

now, not bloody ever. I am

seriously worried that

now Boris Johnson has

officially been caught

lying and failing to give a

proper account of

himself, we will never, ever be allowed

to forget what a mendacious, cheating

silver-spooned prat he is. It will be the

screaming Brexit High Court wars

trebled.

Not a single policy, for example, will

be announced without it being

shriekingly linked back to his privilege

and lack of honesty; no photo

opportunity will come about without the

prime minister being cynically, but

probably correctly, questioned about

why he really posed.

No foreign trip will be undertaken

without the “optics” being neurotically

parsed by everyone, as they were,

pathetically, on Thursday, when people

angrily wondered whether Johnson

should still visit India if MPs were going

to be debating his lies in parliament. No

bill will ever be tabled without people

hissing “dead cat” or reminding us

that he was once a member of the

Bullingdon Club.

I am so tired of everything being

about Boris.

It seems amazing to me that we have

got ourselves swept up in a neverending

political drama that is not, as it happens,

unlike the Netflix hate-watch Anatomy of

a Scandal, which topped the charts on

the streamer last week. The show is

about a Tory MP who cannot help but

run towards chaos and danger and

cannot control the narrative, just like

Boris, which, snaps a barrister played by

Downton’s Lady Mary, is due to his being

a clueless “person of privilege”.

I say the character James Whitehouse

is “just like Boris”, although I don’t think

there are huge similarities between the

prime minister and this prune-like

Oxford beta who is accused of raping an

“underling” in a parliamentary lift.

For a start, Whitehouse, who is played

by Rupert Friend, looks more like a sort

of unshaggable Channel 5 version of

Johnny Mercer (so, Johnny Mercer). He

only has his job because he’s “best

mates” with the PM, who sounds far

more like David Cameron than Boris.

Boris, of course, hasn’t ever been

accused of raping anyone, though he

and Whitehouse seem to think it isn’t

remotely a dumping offence to have

boned a subordinate while being

married. Where Whitehouse and

Boris do have similarities is they have

both allowed themselves, quite

carelessly and needlessly, to become

the endless butt of every joke and

vicious political fantasy about lying,

entitled, privileged, toxic Tories. It is a

startling error.

Scan any newspaper or social media

site and you will see it filled with articles

reminding you how self-interested and

venal the Conservatives are. These are

people who steal money, kill refugees

and rape women simply because they

think they can.

Anatomy of a Scandal lavishly delivers

hours of compelling anti-Tory hate porn

in the form of flashbacks to

Whitehouse’s student years, which he

spent exclusively wearing his drinking

club coat and tails and taking coke.

In one strange vignette, we see several

members of the drinking club “anal

chugging” champagne, surrounded by

dim supplicant blondes whose job it is to

supply them with alibis while they

casually assault virginal northern spods

in the cloisters.

We are told Whitehouse eventually

rapes the aide because he is angry over a

Times column that calls him “arrogant”.

It is hilarious — every second is like a

scene from a bizarre West End musical.

What I found most telling is that there

Boris has

carelessly

allowed himself

to become the

butt of every joke

about lying Tories A clueless “person of privilege”: Rupert Friend and Sienna Miller in Anatomy of a Scandal

is exactly the same amount of screaming

anger when it becomes obvious that

Whitehouse is so morally bankrupt he

cannot tell the difference between rape

and ordinary sex as there was when it

became clear Boris could not tell the

difference between a party and a work

event.

Is this what Boris had in mind for his

premiership: a populist leader being

dismissed as out of touch and being

angrily shouted at like a rapist?

The irony is that, by anyone’s

standards, Johnson isn’t even that

privileged. He doesn’t have anywhere

near as much money as Whitehouse, or,

for that matter, Cameron, who spent

most of his career trying to pretend that

he wasn’t privileged by filling the top

ranks of his party with “ethnic” women

with “a good back story”, while quietly

screwing poor people and hiring his

mates. Boris has an outsider’s social

caution and unwillingness to be found

out, which is probably why he invented

a persona. A new book by Simon Kuper

vividly captures how lovingly he honed

and practised this act until being an

absolute honking arsehole came to him

as second nature.

Unlike Cameron, though, Boris

will now be the focus of all searing

class-based anger as the soap opera

feverishly burns itself out. It is amazing

how easily privilege is turned into a

weapon. The same people who

sneer at Boris for looking at a cake at

a party will, of course, say nothing

about the fact that, say, Vogue has given

its cover to Lila Moss, daughter of model

Kate. What on earth has this

unremarkable 19-year-old done to

deserve that? Why should this blonde be

treated so differently from the other?

For a start she’s the first white cover girl

in what seems like three years — if that

isn’t privilege, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, Boris will continue to try

to put out the flames while fanning

them, as Starmer drones on about

“honesty and integrity” mattering “in

politics”. In fact, he is wrong: if Boris

Johnson’s rise tells us anything, it is that

they don’t matter at all. What actually

matters is not actively riling voters — if

they get sick of the screaming and

madness around you, you will be in as

much danger as Donald Trump.

SPLASH NEWS

Plenty of cobs but there

is a shortage of coats

I recently marked my
one-year anniversary of
leaving London after 21
years to move to
Manchester. Here, in no
particular order, is what
12 months of northern living
has taught me:

lNothing happens on a
Monday. Or a Tuesday or
Wednesday. Seriously,
where is everybody?
(Answer: sitting in the house
watching telly)

lThere are
approximately 359 names
for circles of baked bread
(barm, cob, breadcake,
teacake). I could go on in
the same vein for
another few hundred
paragraphs.

It can be minus two degrees

and a snowstorm, but still

nobody — nobody — wears a

coat out on a Friday or

Saturday night

lYou can order gravy on

anything at any time

lUnless you travel at a

wildly inconvenient time

and book a year in

advance while sitting

under the light of a full

moon, your train fare to

London will be obscenely

expensive.

lGoing back to the

capital will be like seeing

that hot man you dated

when you were in your

twenties. Damn, he still

looks good

Brilliant Billie

is to play... me

Billie Piper has signed on to

play me in a TV adaptation of

my memoir, Coming Undone.

Ever since the book came out

in 2020, I’ve been asked who

I’d want to play me and, by

God, it’s a minefield of a

question. Say someone

gorgeous (like, you know,

Billie Piper) and people think

you’re a delusional egotist;

say someone smart and

funny (like, you know, Billie

Piper) and, well, people think

you’re a delusional egotist.

It’s the ultimate test of self-

awareness — not so much

how well you know yourself

but how do you see yourself.

My previous answers were

Kathy Burke, Maxine Peake,

Samantha Morton and, yes,

Billie Piper. A girl can dream

(of being a delusional egotist).

NEWMAN’S

VIEW