Imagine that your bank has made an error and erased all records of your assets. Your life is—at least temporarily—devastated. You complain, trying to unravel exactly what’s happened. However, you hit a brick wall when the bank’s senior leaders reveal that they’re not entirely sure what transpired because the issue was discussed via WhatsApp with ‘disappearing messages’ turned on. No permanent records of the conversation were kept.

Imagine that your relative dies in hospital due to a rumoured policy that patients in their condition will not receive treatment. An investigation is launched. It reaches no firm conclusions: the discussions about your relative occurred via WhatsApp, intermingled with messages about children’s piano lessons, and it is deemed in appropriate to disclose those private conversations.

Imagine that you were arrested by the police and detained for 72 hours, without ever truly knowing why. You complain. You are informed that no-one is precisely clear why you were detained: the officers in charge raised concerns with their superiors via WhatsApp, but nobody can recall the specifics, and the phone with the messages on it has broken.

In all of these cases, I imagine you would be outraged. Your outrage would probably be directed at the lack of permanent, contemporaneous records of both the decisions and the processes through which they were made. You’d likely consider the fact that WhatsApp was used to make the decisions as strange and inappropriate, but perhaps a second-order issue.

In the context of the covid inquiry, there is a lot in the press about WhatsApp messages. Their use in Government is frequently defended based on ‘efficiency’. I am concerned that they are only really more efficient because they circumvent processes seen as bureaucratic but which are fundamental to good Government, like contemporaneous record-keeping.

I think the press underplays this issue because they don’t see it: WhatsApp is commonly used within journalism, and for communications between politicians and journalists, so journalists are hindered in being able to take a step back and see the bigger picture of how inappropriate this is.

Take a step even further back and there’s a failure that underlies scores of recent Government scandals, from Partygate, to Richard Sharp, to Matt Hancock’s resignation, to Suella Braverman’s speeding course: the pathological inability of senior politicians to separate their professional roles from their personal lives. I have some sympathy with this, given how all-consuming some senior roles can be, but this ought to lead to particular effort to impose professional boundaries: I see no evidence of this.

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.

Charlie Warzel argued this week that

Twitter has evolved into a platform that is indistinguishable from the wastelands of alternative social-media sites such as Truth Social and Parler. It is now a right-wing social network.

He points out that

In just a few months, Musk has actively worked to elevate a particular right-wing, anti-woke ideology. He has reinstated legions of accounts that were previously banned for violating Twitter’s rules and has emboldened trolls, white-nationalist accounts, and January 6 defendants.

I’m not on Twitter, and so have nothing to measure this up against. But I’d observe that we’ve seen lots of large media organisations exit the platform recently.

Hypothetically, I don’t think I could imagine a caption on the BBC’s flagship television news programme promoting their political editor’s Truth Social profile, if such a thing were to exist. Is it reasonable for them to continue to promote Twitter like that?

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.

The UK press is waiting with baited breath for publication of migration statistics at 09.30 today. Each outlet will then pick over the statistics and find a of presenting them which reinforces their pre-existing view of the world.

So, allow me to write preemptively about something completely different that’s due to be unveiled today, in a way which entirely reinforces my views.

Today, a major part of the work going into the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris is being unveiled, as the triangular structures that make up the framework of the choir and apse begin to be unveiled. These have been made using techniques dating back to the 1200s.

We’re supposed to be awed by this, but I can’t help but feel a little depressed. In the great tradition of cathedrals, Notre-Dame included, the French could have chosen to blend spectacular history with spectacular modernism, to have explored and redefined the meaning of the cathedral for the modern age. This could have become a beacon, something to rival La Sagrada Família for demonstrating how ancient traditions apply to the twenty-first century.

Instead, the response was “put it back as it was,” using centuries-old techniques to reconstruct a centuries-old building, neither truly preserving anything (it’s newly built) nor connecting it to the modern world (it was designed to work in the 13th century). Through striving to avoid controversy, the project also avoids relevance.

Pretending things are preserved in aspic is very rarely the best way to conserve them.

This song, which is somehow more than two decades old, has been in my head while I’ve been writing this. It has northing to do with either of today’s revelations, and yet somehow feels like it connects the two:

The image at the top is by Ranopamas on Flickr, used under this licence.

I try not to rant about politics. It achieves nothing and it’s not great for my blood pressure. As I’m not willing to become a politician myself, what right do I have to throw mud from the sidelines?

But occasionally, the hypocrisy becomes too much.

The Conservative Party pushed voter ID laws through Parliament. One of the effects of this legislation was to disenfranchise millions of British citizens. The final number who were turned away from polling stations in the recent local elections hasn’t yet been collated.

Yet, yesterday’s right-leaning newspapers were inexplicably keen to celebrate that a Conservative MP who championed voter ID has written to ask the Leader of the Opposition—a man with no ability to change the law on voting before the next general election—

Why do you think it’s right to downgrade the ultimate privilege of British citizenship—the right to vote in a general election?

Huh?

The image is an unmodified version of an official Government portrait used under this licence.

Yesterday saw the World Health Organization declare the end of the global health emergency attributable to COVID-19. Today, for the UK at least, the focus shifts from a virus with a corona to, well, just the corōna.

Later, we’ll see the first United Kingdom Coronation of the century; of the millennium; of my lifetime. Or, as The Economist has it, ‘a man in London is about to be given a hat.’

Inevitably, this has made me reflect on my feelings about monarchy, which are not as straightforward as one might suppose.

Firstly—obviously—no-one would support the creation of a monarchy today. It’s absurdly anachronistic. It grants power and responsibility through birthright, it is the definition of antidemocratic, and symbolises limits on social mobility that hold us all back. Even with some elements of primogeniture having been removed, it is a system fundamentally rooted in gender inequality, perhaps never more obviously underlined than on a day when the wife of a son of a Prince Regent is crowned Queen.

Yet, I wouldn’t support an alternative. As long as the family are willing to continue to deliver the function, then having a head of state that none of us can choose, trapped in an endless stalemate of not being able to do anything meaningful without risking abolition, seems like a suitably British fudge. The system is obviously absurd and indefensible, and those—perversely—are its virtues. Instead of abolishing a symbol of inequality and suppression, let’s spend our effort on tackling inequality and suppression.

And yet, I do support disestablishment. It is absurd that monarchy gives us a state religion. It is profoundly wrong and demonstrably divisive that we have 26 English Bishops as automatic representatives of that religion in our legislature. This is the bit of monarchy that has a practical effect on all our lives, and if we’re going to abolish something, abolish that.

And this is the moment to do it. The 2021 census showed Christianity to be a minority religion in this country. Today, we anoint a King as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, alongside a Queen with whom he did not share the sacrament of marriage. Let him be the last. Let him call himself the ‘defender of faith’ rather than ‘the faith’ if it pleases him. Let’s finally separate church and state.

In 2022, more people resigned from the Government than were accused of voter fraud. More people resigned as Prime Minister than were convicted of voter fraud.

You may therefore conclude that voter fraud isn’t the biggest current threat to our democracy. Of course, though, looking only at current threats is foolhardy: we must always be looking ahead and preparing for threats that are on the horizon.

Perhaps, therefore, the Government’s decision to introduce a requirement to show photo identification when voting is a smart move.

Perhaps, too, there is a good reason why a long-expired over-60 photographic Oyster card is valid for this purpose, while a just-issued over-18 photographic Oyster card is not. It would be cynical to lazily assume that this is reflective of the typical voting patterns among card carriers in each age bracket.

Approximately two million eligible voters don’t possess photo identification, and something like 1.9 million of them have been disenfranchised from today’s election, as they didn’t apply for a voter ID card nor a postal ballot. Still more will not know the rules and be turned away when they attend a polling station, and many won’t return.

But, the Government argues, this is essential for keeping our democracy safe. And, as is little mentioned by critics, the Electoral Commission agrees.

So let’s not give into cynicism: let’s assume that there are indeed good reasons to carefully protect the process for voting for local councillors.

Let’s assume that the Government is acting in all our best interests, not the narrow electoral interests of the governing party.

Let’s agree to blithely ignore the fact that just months ago, the governing party’s internal election to select a Prime Minister was held mostly online, with no attempt to check photographic identification at any point in the voting process.

Let’s agree to see the logic that electing a Prime Minister requires less security and rigour than electing a local councillor. After all, the turnover of the former these days is much greater than the latter.

The picture at the top of this post is an AI-generated image created by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2.

Inflation is soaring,
Nations are warring,
But no issue’s more important
Than who gets to come to this country.

There’s industrial strife
And shortening spans of life,
But no issue’s more important
Than who gets to come to this country.

Our planet is burning,
Our children aren’t learning,
But no issue’s more important
Than who gets to come to this country.

We’re mining new coal
And missing key goals,
But no issue’s more important
Than who gets to come to this country.

We house people in squalor,
Tank versus the dollar,
But no issue’s more important
Than who gets to come to this country.

Hoards disenfranchised,
Leaders chastised,
But no issue’s more important
Than who gets to come to this country.

The number of people seeking asylum in the UK was 25% lower in 2022 than in 2002. Anyone saying that ‘tackling’ this is the UK’s top priority is having you on. And we obviously ought to treat people with kindness and compassion, not ship them to Rwanda.

A lot is often written about the need to adapt our national infrastructure, and particularly that of cities, to manage climate change. Most of what I read is about adapting cities to produce less carbon. For example, by promoting active travel over carbon-fuelled vehicles or by using heat pumps in place of carbon-fuelled central heating.

A lot of this is framed very poorly. Coverage regularly implies a choice, most frequently citing ’economic damage’ as a key barrier to implementing ecologically sound practice. It shouldn’t need saying that making our planet uninhabitable is the ultimate act of economic damage.

As my old friend James O’Malley frequently reminds us, adaptations actually have to be built to make a difference. If every option is blocked because it’s not quite eco-friendly enough, then we’re doomed to end humanity.

One aspect that seems under-discussed is how we need to adapt the built environment to cope with the climate change that is already baked-in through the damage we’ve already done. I was pleased to see an article in Le Monde yesterday about exactly this issue, looking at how Paris needs to adapt.

I think the two issues ought to be considered hand-in-hand: the super-insulated houses required to make heat-pumps work must also support passive cooling, or they will be uninhabitable in the medium term. Building better infrastructure for active travel is a must, but doing it with asphalt is a bad idea. Nice big windows to reduce reliance on powered lighting are unhelpful if they also trap heat.

I worry, though, that this complaint just puts me in the same category as those who oppose developments for not being quite ecologically friendly enough. I don’t think it’s the same complaint: building infrastructure in a way that guarantees a short lifespan can’t be good for the planet… but is it better than nothing?

I’m not sure what could possibly have reminded me of it, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed re-listening to this classic album.

In the great, over-stuffed pantheon of things I know nothing about, football looms large. It’s a subject on which I’m not even casually conversant, I’m less well-informed than your average six-year-old. It’s only two years since I was stunned to learn that Aston Villa wasn’t a London team.

And yet, I know that the Carabao Cup Final is this afternoon.

I couldn’t explain what the Carabao Cup is, nor pick it out of a line-up, nor explain why it’s named after a buffalo, but there’s still no fooling me: a big match is happening today.

I know this because I live in Newcastle, and I know of no other city where the football club and the city are so closely enmeshed. It’s partly to do with the location of the stadium right in the city centre, which means that the cheers after a goal resonate through the streets. But it’s also something that’s deep within the psyche of the city.

And so, I know it’s the Carabao Cup Final because the city is festooned with black-and-white bunting. The team’s flag has replaced the city flag outside the Civic Centre. Estate agents have turfed every property out of their window to dedicate their entire displays to supporting the club. Even a local care home has decorated their garden with black-and-white ribbons and balloons.

The talk in my office—where, incidentally, roughly 90% of the staff are female—has not been about whether anyone is making the trip to Wembley, but about who is making the trip. Jokes about silverware and absent goalkeepers are ten a penny.

Most shops and businesses in the city are closing early today to release staff to watch the match, as my friendly Caffe Nero barista had the foresight to tell me last Sunday. It’s a citywide bank holiday in all but statute.

And so: I might not be able to name a single Newcastle player and I couldn’t even tell you with certainty who the opposing team is, but I know it’s the Carabao Cup Final today. I hope Newcastle does well.