Society

Cue the Guardian headlines of ‘exploitation’ in ‘Dickensian’ Britain. Nearly 700,000 people are now working on zero-hours contracts, a rise of 100,000 in just one year. Is that really such a problem? Not among the many people who want flexible work because they want to fit the business of earning money around studying, travelling or other careers. I agree that employers using zero hours contracts should not be allowed to place exclusivity clauses in them, preventing people working elsewhere – and which the government has already said it will ban. But most zero hours contracts do not state this – they offer two-way flexibility, with the employer not obliged to

A minor point, I suppose, but one worth noting. It was stated on the BBC and in the liberal press that these three girls who have scuttled off to Syria for a spot of beheading and FGM had been ‘groomed’  by radical Islamists. A word not used when it is young men who head off to fight for Isis. A word, which in its current – and terribly, terribly overused – meaning immediately confers victim status upon whoever it is who has been ‘groomed’. This was pointed out to me by a chap called John Locke in a debate about the girls on a social media website, and it was a very

I am sorry to hear about Malcolm Rifkind, though less sorry to hear about Jack Straw, whose ‘outside interests’ I have had cause to write about here before. How often do MPs fall for this sort of sting? Every six months? Every nine? Think of all the ones that don’t make it as far as our TV screens because their intended target cottoned on while being asked to speak more clearly into their interviewer’s tie? Anyway, for all the fun and damage these scandals create, the truth is that lobbying scandals are the gift that keep on giving because nobody will address the twin underlying problems that cause them. Plenty

I have had many proposals of marriage recently via the internet, most of them coming from young ladies in Nigeria, Ghana, the DRC and so on. Some of them haven’t even asked for my bank details. I assume that request will come later. Here’s the best one, though. And also the most mystifying. Hello Dear one, Hello,You have a wonderful and charming look of which every man that knows something good must appreciate the good creature of the Almighty. I must say that you are an epitome of natural beauty and I would like to know you better and I hope to be your very good friend. Since the first

The challenge to put a fresh spin on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 was the most popular competition for ages. The brief was to replace ‘summer’s day’ with a trisyllable of your choice. A competitor emailed to ask if I’d meant a single trisyllabic word or a three-syllable phrase. I meant the former but perhaps that wasn’t clear so I allowed both. Objects of comparison ranged from ocelot to shaggy dog, from Shakespeare play to Theresa May. It was a dazzling performance pretty much all round. I’ve squeezed in seven winners, who take £20 each, but there could have been so many more — Ray Kelley, Philip Roe, Douglas G. Brown, Rob

Politicians know they need to be more natural, less spun, and more honest about what they think. But most of them carry on sounding unnatural, spin-doctored and cagey because they’re worried about the media will do to them if they speak their minds. They fear being pounced upon by journalists keen to write up their latest ‘gaffe’. But this week we’ve seen two politicians saying what they think without any major repercussions. Example one comes from Boris Johnson in his interview with Tim Shipman. The Mayor was asked whether he watched Coronation Street or Eastenders: ‘Um. What a world we live in where you are felt to be out of