Your guide to the best columns and commentary on Thursday 29 October
Your guide to the best columns and commentary on Thursday 29 October
The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.
1. Kara Alaimo on CNN
on presidential sexism
With ‘husbands’ remark, Trump has sealed his fate with women
“As President Donald Trump pleaded for the support of suburban women at a Michigan rally, he argued that he deserved their votes because ‘we’re getting your husbands back to work.’ Before these comments, it wasn’t entirely clear that Trump was a sexist; he did put some women in powerful positions in his administration and in the Trump Organization. But by appealing to suburban women to support him because he’s helping their husbands, Trump suggested he believes the workplace is the proper domain of men. This is textbook sexism.”
2. Maighna Nanu on HuffPost
on the home secretary’s guilt
Priti Patel has blood on her hands. Her condolences mean nothing
“Priti Patel and Boris Johnson have expressed their condolences, making sure that both of their apologies refer to the ‘ruthless criminals’ or ‘callous criminals’ who they attribute to be at the helm of these tragic losses. In both cases, they abdicate culpability from a situation that the British government bears responsibility for. Their apologies have become as rehearsed as the faux compassion that they show. These words ring incredibly hollow given the government’s barbaric stance on asylum seekers and those seeking refugee. Words mean nothing without actions to back them up.”
3. Robbie Gibb in The Daily Telegraph
on bias in public broadcasting
Tackling the BBC’s endemic bias will be a mammoth task
“It seems having a non Left-wing comedian has become a new form of tokenism. Since the rise of alternative comedy in the Eighties, the BBC has never moved culturally away from the dominance of Left-wing Tory-bashing comics. Only ‘anti woke’ Geoff Norcott seems to have broken through this barrier. Norcott is a funny man but so too are Andrew Doyle, Leo Kearse and Dominic Frisby. You would be forgiven for never having heard of them unless you are a comedy circuit regular. And how on earth did the jaw-droppingly biased Roadkill drama get commissioned? With its grotesque caricature of a Tory minister and ludicrous plot line about secret plans to privatise the NHS – surely this is the most inane, inaccurate and biased prime time drama to air on British TV.”
4. Owen Jones in The Guardian
on an environmental revolution
Tory MPs are right: the north needs a renaissance – but it’s got to be green
“You see, the neglect of the north and the climate emergency are two problems in search of a common solution. A debate about how we reshape the post-pandemic economy should be welcomed, even if it is coming from the Tory benches. Across the globe, the coronavirus has underlined how states can mobilise vast resources to confront an unprecedented crisis when the will is there. While the virus has required the suppression of economic activity, the climate emergency seeks to reorientate that activity away from fatally harming the only home our species has. That means replacing the skilled, secure jobs stripped away from northern communities by deindustrialisation.”
5. Harriet Hall in The Independent
on celebrity foolishness
Kim Kardashian’s birthday posts were beyond insensitive – but what did we expect?
“Nobody can begrudge someone looking to appreciate the small things during the pandemic – like marking your birthday. But this was not small, in any sense. Kardashian is far from the first celebrity to be so staggeringly tone-deaf during the pandemic. Throughout lockdown, stars from Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Ellen Degeneres and the Beckhams have shared the interiors of their estates, discussing the struggles of quarantine with their swimming pools, gyms and sizeable acreage of land in view while the rest of us chumps tried to clear enough space in our living rooms for a Joe Wicks session (and that will have been a luxury for some).”
