Musical theatre came of age on Broadway when “Oklahoma!” stunned audiences for the first time in March 1943. The American Musical was born – surely one of the great artistic creations of modern times. Before Rodgers and Hammerstein, on screen and stage, popular musical theatre had been jolly, often tuneful, but shallow fluff. You might leave the theatre or the cinema whistling the tunes – but you won’t remember the banal and trivial story. Chichester Festival Theatre did one of those period pieces last year with “Top Hat”. Bouncy, breezy and energetic it was – but instantly forgettable. But this year they have atoned themselves with a production of one of Broadway’s greatest achievements – Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady”.

It took Americans to tell a quintessentially English story. “Pygmalion” was George Bernard Shaw’s characteristically uncomfortable (for some) telling of a story that dramatised some of the social and behavioural conflicts of Edwardian England. It held a mirror up to the class and wealth differences in the London of those times. The gap between the lifestyle of Henry Higgins in Wimpole Street (rich and privileged) and Eliza Doolittle in Lisson Grove (an area notorious at the time for extreme poverty, alcohol abuse and crime) is unbridgeable. “My Fair Lady” interrogates the rigid constraints of the Edwardian class system, demonstrating how social status in Britain is artificially manufactured through speech and phonetics. It critiques the commodification of Eliza Doolittle by upper-class intellectuals who treat human identity as an experimental project.

So “My Fair Lady” is very much part of the genre of American Musicals with a subtle but visible openness about social issues that emerged strongly in the 1950s and 1960s :

“Oklahoma!” Premiering during the final years of World War II, it is often viewed as a patriotic celebration of American pioneering spirit, but it subverts standard pastoral tropes by examining the deep-seated friction between settled farmers and nomadic cowhands. The darker undercurrents surface most clearly through Jud Fry—an isolated, working-class outcast whose ostracisation and tragic fate expose the violent exclusions upon which orderly agrarian communities were built.

“South Pacific” Set on a South Pacific island during World War II, the musical directly confronts American racial prejudice through the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” which argues that hatred is a learned behaviour passed down by society.

“The King and I” Examines the friction between Western modernity and traditional Eastern hierarchy, highlighting the plight of enslaved concubines and advocating for female autonomy within absolute monarchy.

“Finian’s Rainbow” A whimsical fantasy that grounds its satire in real-world American bigotry, featuring a bigoted Southern senator who is magically turned Black, forcing him to experience systemic discrimination firsthand.

“West Side Story” Transposes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the Upper West Side, addressing the hostility faced by Puerto Rican immigrants and the systemic failure of social institutions to help marginalized youth.

“Cabaret” Uses the decadent, amoral atmosphere of Weimar Berlin as a warning mirror for contemporary American complacency in the face of creeping fascism and antisemitism.

The Chichester production deftly honours the Oklahoma! (and later) trend for acute social observation in the American Musical theatre. It sticks closely to the plot and action created by Lerner and Loewe. The production thankfully eschews the regrettable trend to mess with the classics. In 2023 there was a production of Oklahoma! at Wyndhams Theatre which was boasted as “Oklahoma! as you’ve never seen it before – re-orchestrated and reimagined for the 21st century.” I thought that it was beyond ghastly!

The Chichester audience is mostly elderly and many if not all will have seen My Fair Lady on the stage before and certainly the movie. The latter did not greatly deviate from the theatre productions. I don’t think they would have welcomed a “reimagined” version and I’m pleased to say they didn’t get one !

My Fair Lady is a long musical and a challenge for any cast and production team. The Chichester Festival Theatre met this challenge totally. It was musically outstanding and well sung. The dancing was exceptional – “I’m getting married in the morning” a tour de force. The principals – Hadley Fraser as Higgins and Keziah Ibe as Eliza couldn’t have been more contrasting castings. Fraser is a hugely experienced actor including major roles in Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. But it was Ibe’s professional debut. Both were outstanding. The theatre took a risk with the casting of the tyro Ibe in the key role of Eliza but she was a triumph. The two accents, cockney and posh, she handled with equal facility. She also sang well and acted this difficult part believably. A star is born.

We have too many juke box musicals cluttering up our stages these days. From Mamma Mia onwards the offering may have good song and dance but the story, if there is one, is secondary to that. My list earlier in this blog of musical theatre that matters is far from complete. “My Fair Lady” is one of the great American musicals. The Chichester production confidently confirms this.

While testosterone is a major and highly visible driver of secondary sexual characteristics, biological sex differentiation is a complex, multi-layered process that extends far beyond a single hormone check.  

From a physiological and developmental standpoint, biological sex is determined and expressed through several interconnected levels:

 Chromosomes and Genetics: The foundational blueprint is typically set at fertilization by the 23rd pair of chromosomes—usually XX for females and XY for males. However, research has shown that genetic differences go well beyond just the presence of the X and Y chromosomes. Transcriptomic studies indicate that thousands of genes across the entire genome (not just the sex chromosomes) exhibit sex-biased expression, behaving differently in male and female cells and tissues due to complex regulatory networks.  

 Primary Sex Characteristics: These are the reproductive organs (testes and ovaries) that develop during embryonic and fetal life driven by genetic cascades (such as the SRY gene on the Y chromosome).  

 Endocrine Profiles: While testosterone is predominant in males, both males and females produce and utilize androgens, estrogens, and progesterones, albeit in vastly different baseline proportions and cyclical patterns.  

 Secondary Sex Characteristics: Developmental changes during puberty—such as bone structure, muscle mass distribution, fat distribution, vocal cord development, and body hair—are influenced by the long-term interaction of hormones, genetics, and cellular memory.  

 Cellular and Systemic Differences: Every nucleated cell in the body carries a sex chromosome complement (XX or XY), which influences cellular metabolism, immune responses, and how various tissues function. For instance, medical research shows that men and women experience different vulnerabilities and presentations in cardiovascular disease, neurological conditions, and autoimmune disorders, differences that are rooted in cellular and genetic architecture rather than circulating testosterone alone.  

Because these systems are deeply integrated across development, checking a single hormone level provides only a snapshot of an individual’s current endocrine status, rather than capturing the full scope of biological sex architecture.

Article produced by AI (Gemini)

“ I’ve been wondering for years why so many people believe things that are obviously false so I decided to do some research on how propaganda actually works on the human brain because there is a pattern here. The people who fall for propaganda are not randomly distributed across the population they share very specific psychological vulnerability that propaganda is deliberately designed to exploit.

Propaganda has been a science for almost almost 100 years and the people using propaganda against you right now know exactly what they’re doing. Here are the ways propaganda actually works on your brain:

The repetition trap. Repeat the same lies so many times you’ve stopped noticing that they are lies. That is not by accident ! In 1977 psychologists Lin Hasher, David Goldstein and Thomas Topino at Villanova and Temple universities conducted a study where they showed volunteers a series of statements. Some of those statements were true and some of those statements were false. They showed these statements across multiple sessions weeks apart from each other. What they found destroyed the assumption that people can simply recognise false information. Statements that were repeated over multiple sessions were rated as significantly more truthful than statements they had only seen once. Itdidn’t matter whether that statement was actually true. It didn’t matter whether the person knew the statement was false before going into the study. Repetition overrode prior knowledge almost almost every time.

Psychologists call it the “illusionary truth effect” when the brain mistakes familiarity with truth – more times you hear something the more times your brain processes that thing is credible not because the evidence changed but because repetition makes information easier to process and your brain interprets at ease as reliability. That is why the stolen election lie did not die after sixty one courts rejected it. That is why the claim that immigrants caused more crime persists after every study shows the opposite. That is why vaccines and autism remain linked in many peoples minds despite the original study being retracted and its author losing his medical license for fraud. These people were not persuaded by evidence. They were worn down by volume – say it enough times and the brain starts to believe it. That is a default setting for most human brains – the only way to defeat that is with education.

The engineering of consent propaganda does not work by changing your mind it works by bypassing your mind entirely. In 1928 Edward Bernas, the man widely regarded as the father of modern public relations, published a book called “Propaganda ”. In the book he described with remarkable truth exactly how public opinion is manufactured and controlled. He believed that manipulating the public is not just acceptable in a democracy it’s necessary! He considered himself one of the people doing it. It is called the “engineering of consent” – the deliberate manipulation of public opinion not through argument or evidence but through the strategic control of symbols, emotions and associations that bypass rational thought entirely.

You do not convince people you make them feel something and then you attach that feeling to whatever you want them to believe. This is the entire operating model of right wing media. Fox News does not deliver information, it delivers outrage contempt – the warm satisfaction of having an enemy to blame – the facts are not important.

The feeling is the product you do not come away more informed you come away more afraid more angry and more certain that the people on the other side of your enemies. Bernas named this method in 1928 and it has been running at an industrial scale in American right wing media for 30 years.

If the fire hose of falsehood repetition is not enough enough on its own if repetition creates belief and emotion bypasses reason the most powerful propaganda strategy is not to tell just one convincing lie it’s the hundreds of unconnected lies simultaneously at maximum volume across every available channel faster than anyone can fact check them

in 2016 researchers Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews at the Ryan corporation published the study on how certain political movements use lies as deliberate weapon weapons. research researchers called this the “fire hose of falsehood”. It’s when a political movement deliberately floods every information channel with so many lies so fast that the population loses its ability to identify what’s true or not anymore. The goal is not to convince anyone of any specific thing – the goal is to destroy the shared factual foundation that makes coherent public debate possible. That is when nobody agrees on what is true.

Watch any of the Trump press conferences from the last 10 years – researchers at the Washington Post counted over 30,000 false or misleading statements during his first term alone. The volume of lies is not incompetence it’s a strategy no fact checking operation on earth can keep up with. So it does not need to win any argument, it just needs to make argument itself.

There is another mechanism that makes propaganda almost impossible to reverse once it has taken hold. In 1957 psychologist Leon Feser at Stanford University published his landmark research on cognitive dissonance. He found that when people hold a belief that is contradicted by evidence, they do not update their beliefs but experience psychological pain and then construct whatever justification is necessary to protect that belief from the evidence. Psychologists call this this “ protective cognition” when a belief becomes so fused with a person’s sense of who they are that someone challenging that belief stops processing incoming information at all – it processes that information as a threat responds to such threats the way it always does with aggression. This is why Trump supporters who lost their jobs because of tariffs still defend tariffs. This is why every piece of evidence that Trump committed crimes is processed not as evidence but as proof of the conspiracy against Trump

Propaganda is not designed to convince everyone it’s designed to find the most vulnerable people in the room and exploit them. the people with fragile identities, the people who lost community, the people who need belonging badly enough to accept any story that provides it.

If you can see the mechanism behind propaganda you were never the target but the people who cannot see it are everywhere – and there were enough of these people to change the outcome of an election. The people running this operation are not trying to convince you they’re counting on you doing nothing while they convince everyone else.

Some people will wake up when the lies finally cost them something they cannot ignore. But most people won’t. The answer is not to argue louder it’s to understand exactly what we’re up against. Propaganda is a science and so is the resistance. The propaganda machine is running on the most vulnerable people in your life right now and it won’t stop until it costs them something they cannot explain away.”

(I have slightly edited Mr Bean’s arguments)

To illustrate how short-term weather fluctuations sit on top of a long-term climate trend, think of climate as the underlying baseline signal and weather as the day-to-day or year-to-year noise.

The graph below illustrates this exact relationship over a 50-year span:

Key Concepts Illustrated in the Graph:

1. Climate as a Continuum (The Dark Red Line)

 What it represents: The 50-year moving average or underlying trend in global/regional climate (such as mean temperature anomaly).

 The progression: It shows a steady, continuous progression over time. Even if individual years or months vary, the overall climate baseline moves predictably upward over multi-decade scales.

2. Weather as Short-Term Noise (The Light Pink Jagged Line)

 What it represents: Local atmospheric events, seasonal shifts, natural ocean oscillations (like El Niño/La Niña), and sudden weather fronts.

 The volatility: Notice how wildly the pink line swings from month to month and year to year. In any short window (e.g., Year 10 to Year 15), you will see sharp drops that resemble cooling or dramatic spikes that look like sudden extreme heat.

n.b. This was produced for me, at my request, by AI. (Gemini).

I wrote this in February 2018. It’s a bit long-winded but there may be indications that I was right

The reasons people gave for voting “Leave” in the EU Referendum fall broadly into two categories – though they overlap and both can be characterised under the slogan “Take Back Control”. The clinching argument which gave “Leave” their narrow victory was concerns about “Immigration”. The other argument – the one given by the more sophisticated Brexiteers – was about “Sovereignty”. Those who personally voted “Leave” , giving “Sovereignty ” as the reason, also tend to deny that immigration concerns were the principal reason “Leave” won. They are squeamish about associating themselves with a position which could be borderline racist, Islamaphobic  or xenophobic and for which the main proponents were UKIP and its even further to the Right fellow travellers. In particular the Leave.co.uk campaign led by Nigel Farage, Arron Banks and Kate Hoey. There is a strong dose of disingenuousness about all this. Some of the Conservative “Leave” campaigners jumped on the “Turkey  is joining the EU” meme – including the new Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt. The “Official” “Leave” campaign ran an advertising campaign saying this. It was, of course, a barely coded message about immigration, especially Muslim immigration. At least the advertising of Banks, Farage and co. was more open about its “Don’t open the floodgates to more migrants” pitch.

“Take Back Control”  was often linked to “our borders”. Essentially a positioning which says that “Freedom of Movement” – one of the “Four Freedoms” essential to the EU’s “Single Market” – meant that anyone from 30 countries (not just EU countries) could come and live and work in Britain as a right. And when here they would be treated as a British citizen in respect of (say) healthcare or welfare. The “Take Back Control” slogan and all its surrounding rhetoric implied that FoM is a bad thing and we should have full control of our borders again and not have who enters Britain decided but Brussels. In fact studies show that the presence of European nationals is strongly net positive to the UK economy. But such truths were casualties in the febrile and often squalid times of the Referendum.

A Sovereign nation certainly controls its border itself unlike the 28 countries of the European Union, along with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland which are open to citizens from across the continent. But it is surely the case that the 27+3 nations that will continue to be open if Britain leaves have made a conscious decision to do so. In effect they have pooled their Sovereignty on this matter.  And for good reason. The Single Market offers huge mutual benefits and the freedom of movement of two factors of production – Labour and Capital – is an integral part of this.

Those who voted “Leave” citing “Sovereignty” no doubt had control of borders as one of the reasons but, they argue, it goes beyond that. “Isn’t it better that Britain takes its own decisions rather than having slavishly to follow the same path as 27 other countries?” There is a strong nationalistic element to this reminiscent of Flanders and Swann’s “The English, the English, the English are best – I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest”. In essence where a decision needs to be made and who makes it is more important than the quality of the decision – or so this implies.

Rationally in most cases it really doesn’t matter where a decision is taken or who takes it so long as we perceive the outcome as being beneficial to us. To me two of the most important developments of the past decade or so were taken thousands of miles from Britain’s shores. Amazon and Apple launched products and service which literally changed my life. To be able to buy virtually anything online from  Amazon at a fair price and have it swiftly delivered to my home is a boon. And to be able to make this purchase lying on a hotel bed (as I am now) using my iPad?  Well ! Exactly the same applies to political decisions. If the European Parliament approves a regulation that benefits me does it matter that it was taken in Brussels rather than Westminster. Of course not. In a global, interdependent world the best decisions on crucial matters are better taken cooperatively. The English are not necessarily best.
The EU recognises that local matters should be resolved locally. “Subsidiarity” is a key EU principle. The idea that you take decisions at the lowest level practical is inherent in how the EU works  – far more so than in England where (unlike Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) we have few political institutions below Westminster to devolve decision-making to.

The other benefit of joint sovereignty in certain areas is that there are more checks and balances .and greater pooling of experiences. If the EU proposes a new regulation there are 28 nations to consider it from their own experiences. If the British Government proposes a new law no such checks exist. It may take longer at an EU level, but any significant new regulation will have been considered from a broad not narrow perspective.

The mention of Amazon and Apple – and I could have chosen a hundred or more examples – was just to illustrate that 21st Century life is complex and major influences on our lives come from people or organisations we only engage with indirectly. This may seem a statement of the obvious – it is – but this fact is at the heart of any discussion about “Sovereignty” , or should be. At a basic level many of us would like the maximum of control over our own lives. It is possible to do this – perhaps by moving away from the complexities of modern living to some cottage in the country, growing our own vegetables and making our own entertainment. Even if we do that we cannot truly escape. We still have to pay our taxes and fulfil some bare minimum citizen obligations. The world is always with us.

In modern history some of the greatest horrors come from when peoples , or specific groups of people, are forced to do something against their will. Ethnic cleansing. Fleeing war or a natural catastrophe. It is natural to want to choose what we do and when we cannot do that for whatever reason we are aggrieved. And in a democracy it is likely that legitimate governments will pass laws that some citizens will object to. Here the concept of the “greater good” applies. You won’t please all the people all the time but so long as a particular law or regulation benefits significantly more people than those who object to it it’s probably worthwhile. So long as the democratic process was fair and followed and the consequences properly managed.

Which brings us back to the decision-making process in governance. Can we accept that in principle it really doesn’t matter who takes a decision or where it is taken – only whether it was a quality decision? Are lower level decisions always better than higher level ones or does there need to be a pragmatism which accepts remote decision-making if the outcomes are desirable? I think the answer is obvious. Major social, economic environmental and other changes can only really be taken at a high level. You couldn’t have had London boroughs opting out of the “Clean Air Act” at will. There had to be a decision at a much higher level of Government if the fogs and smogs of 1950s London were to be eradicated. Which they were.

Politics has always been in part about the struggle between freedom and compulsion those polarising goals of the Right and the Left. The battleground is at the heart of political discourse. The gut cry “Too much regulation stifles our freedoms” is not a modern idea. In power parties of whatever political persuasion will always have to consider whether more or less regulation is desirable – there is rarely a credible ideological answer (or even guideline) to help resolve these questions. That regulation has generally increased in the post war decades is broadly true. This is in part a response to lifestyle changes and in part a consequence of having a better understanding of science. The “Clean Air Act” was necessary because people were dying prematurely and unnecessarily from pollution. The heavy regulations applied to smoking and tobacco were the same. Public health was the driver.

As citizens our first obligation is to obey the law. Even if we disagree with it. The “greater good” argument should persuade us if we take our citizenship seriously. But how the law should operate and what new laws should apply (or existing laws be relaxed or changed) can be contentious. Perceived fairness is crucial – are those to whom a new law will apply being treated “fairly” ? If we are non smokers we probably don’t care that much about tobacco duty increases. But, I would argue, we should care that smokers are being treated fairly – smoking is a legal pursuit. We accept discriminations across society that are for the “greater good”. The banning of smoking in public places was certainly discriminatory – but few or any would now argue that it was the wrong thing to do. My 40-a-day mother would be astonished if she was here. But she isn’t. She died prematurely of cancer in 1978.

Modern life is not only complex but we also live in a world of far greater interdependence than even our closest forefathers. “No man is an island entire in itself” wrote John Donne 300 years ago but the apotheosis of this appeared in the twentieth century and has grown exponentially. Even an island race is no more entire in itself, and certainly not one as large and diverse as Britain. The primary context in which we live and work is now a global one and, especially, European. The British economy is inextricably part of the greater European one. The drivers are freedoms that we and fellow Europeans have created for our mutual benefit. Crucially three of Adam Smith’s four “Factors of Production” can and do move freely across the 28 countries. Labour, Capital and Enterprise move according to classic economic supply/demand drivers. A Greek Bank can invest in a Swedish car plant without restriction if its sees a good return. A Swedish student can study in Athens. A Greek Doctor can work in Britain’s National Health Service. And so on tens of thousands of times over.

Change can be stressful and some manage it better than others. Whilst Britain is certainly not a closed society it can be insular – more so, perhaps, than those among our fellow European nations with contiguous borders. The joy of driving across national borders without the need to stop for any customs or other checks has been a part of mainland Europe for decades. They don’t talk about “going abroad”  – that concept doesn’t exist. That doesn’t mean that going from (say) Germany to France isn’t noticed. Of course not. The distinctive cultures of the two countries is enjoyed, even celebrated but moving between them is no big deal. But those 21 miles of sea between Britain and “Europe” though no longer any sort of physical barrier thanks to the Tunnel are still a psychological barrier. We do go “abroad”.

The biggest divide in Britain is not North/South or even Class – it is between those who see nationality as horizontal – and those who see it as vertical and hierarchical. The latter group were the ones satirised by Flanders and Swann.  They are often older, less educated and far less travelled. They see nationalities as having a hierarchy with Britain at the top. They often put Anglophone Countries next –  indeed many  of the Eurosceptics who became Brexiteers are supporters of the mythical “Anglosphere” a concept not acknowledged by anyone in the countries like Australia or New Zealand who the Eurosceptics say would be part of it. It’s all bunkum. Those of us who see nationality as horizontal don’t deny differences of culture and behaviour – we just don’t think British culture and the way we behave are better than those who are different.

So “Sovereignty” or “taking back control” is a consequence not of logic but of bias. The idea that decisions that Britain takes on her own are likely to be “better” than those taken co-jointly with others is based on the same highly questionable ideological slant that sees nationality as vertical and hierarchical. It conflicts with the adages like “Two heads are better than one “ or “A problem shared is a problem halved”. It is proudly individualistic , even nationalistic, rather than collegiate and trans-national.

What we are dealing with in the “Sovereignty” question is not empirical. You cannot “prove” that “taking back control” will produce better outcomes (or that the opposite will for that matter). The issue amounts to this. Should Britain really become the only country in Europe outside the EU and it’s close associates like Norway and Switzerland in the Single Market because of some highly spurious claim that we need to “restore our Sovereignty”. Can we really be that foolish?

A key United States stat is ‘income share of top 1%’. The US IS TWO NATIONS. Rather as England was in Victorian times. Here’s what Disraeli said in “Sybil”:

“Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws. THE RICH AND THE POOR.”

When you average the rich and the poor you get numbers that are representative of neither. Many of us have seen the lifestyle of those Americans with money. Especially on the East and West coasts and in islands of wealth like Florida or Vegas. But go to the poorer parts of the great cities or the boondocks and it’s a different story.

The median family income in Massachusetts is $100k, in Mississippi it’s half that. With far more limited welfare support than in Europe there are Victorian levels of poverty almost everywhere. The conspicuous consumption of the rich, starting in the White House, would make Louis XVI blush ! Batten down the hatches you fat cats.

Throughout his push to return to Westminster and challenge for national leadership, Andy Burnham and his allies repeatedly pushed back against the narrative that he was actively scheming to overthrow Keir Starmer.

Despite the public denials and dismissals of “plotting,” Burnham openly mounted a direct challenge by running in the Makerfield by-election with the explicit platform to “change Labour.” Following his landslide victory in that by-election, the political momentum became insurmountable, causing Starmer to resign and clear the path for Burnham to step into No. 10.

By highlighting that he was outside the Parliamentary Labour Party, Burnham attempted to defuse accusations of “backstroom plotting” and “scheming,” framing the unfolding crisis as an internal Westminster issue rather than something he was actively orchestrating from afar.

So the obvious conclusion we must draw is that we will shortly have an unelected Prime Minister whose accession to the job was a direct consequence of plotting and manoeuvres that he drove. Further that he is denying this obvious truth with provably mendacious statements. I can find no precedent in modern British history of such scheming and denial.

I agree he’s “consequential” , he was first in Iain Dale’s list of the most influential people on the Right back in the day. Ahead of David Cameron who was then Prime Minister! But over Farage’s political career it’s impossible to find one thoroughly worked through policy proposal of any significance. His appeal has always been to the gut not the intellect.

Farage is a Conservative Nationalist who puts the nation state (Britain) ahead of the reality that the modern world is increasingly interdependent. That positioning has a marketable faux-patriotic appeal. And there is plenty of brand symbolism around. 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 .

Whilst the trends around the world, especially in Europe, have been towards transnational cooperation Farage has soapboxed independence, always with an appeal to the spurious “benefits” of sovereignty. This translates into a covert (sometimes more overt) xenophobia.

The EU Referendum outcome showed that the (then) UKIP position can have popular appeal and the subsequent rise of Reform under Farage has confirmed this. Populism doesn’t need or get policy depth, it survives and prospers with slogans. Farage drove established Parties to do the same . Remember the decidedly cerebral Rishi Sunak stood at a podium with “Stop the Boats” on the lectern!

History teaches us to beware the demagogue. In truth that is what Farage is (though there is a hilarious hint of Roderick Spode about him as well). The jury is out.

Kemi Badenoch has explicitly stated exactly that Britain is Multiracial not Multicultural. During a major policy speech on British integration and identity, she directly addressed the distinction between race and culture, outlining her stance on how the country should approach immigration and social cohesion:

“I have long argued that while Britain is a multi-racial country, we must not be a multi-cultural one. Some people think this is a controversial position because they do not understand what culture is. Culture is not your skin colour… Culture is much deeper than that. It is behaviours. It is norms. It is expectations.”

In her rhetoric, Badenoch separates the concepts to make a case for assimilation rather than coexistence of competing cultural frameworks. She argues that a country can be successfully diverse in terms of race and ethnicity while still uniting around a single, shared national culture.

My comment:

I think Mrs Badenoch is profoundly wrong, simplistically and ignorantly so. Of course Culture is not your skin colour but race, which generally is signalled by skin colour, is very definitely an element of your cultural identity.

Since settling permanently in Britain Badenoch (nee Adegoke) has very much assimilated marrying a banker of Scots heritage and living a life with few if any hangovers from her own Nigerian heritage. In effect whilst she cannot deny her race (nor would wish to) she wishes to be seen as culturally British which she is, of course, perfectly entitled to do.

A way back I worked in Shell with a colleague whose name was Clarence Eng. As his surname hints Clarence was 100% of Chinese heritage. But his parents had fled China for Britain at the time of the Mao revolution in 1948. Clarence had been brought up in a typical British middle class environment, including boarding school and Cambridge. He referred to himself as a “banana” – yellow on the outside and white on the inside. The equivalent for someone of African heritage would be “coconut”.

We risk entering squally waters here. But the key point is choice. You can, as Kemi and Clarence have done, essentially move on from your heritage and 100% adopt a traditional and conventional British way of life. Be monocultural Kemi might say approvingly. But she would also say pretty much explicitly that you should reject other cultural choices. So the Notting Hill Carnival is presumably anathema to her.

The problem is not peculiar to Britain. Alan Gamlen, director of the Australian National University’s Migration Hub, said “monoculturalism” was the idea that everyone followed a uniform set of norms and rules for behaviour. That included the foods they ate, the clothes they wore, the gods they worshipped, the language they spoke, and more. This standard is not only highly prescriptive but actually counter-productive. And impossible to enforce.

There is also rather an ironic paradox in the idea of enforcing a uniform cultural standard. Britain’s culture is far from unitary even if we exclude the variations brought by the Windrush generation of immigrants, etc. In Scotland there is a distinctive culture which is not really a subset of British culture. We share a language (with differences!) but many of the cultural behaviours are different. This is even more so in Wales where Cymraeg is extensively spoken and brings inevitably with it cultural variation.

In truth race brings culture with it as does, for example, religion. There is no denying the cultural distinctiveness of the Jewish communities of North London. They do not conform to Kemi Badenoch’s idea of what British behaviours, norms and expectations are. So what? They obey the law and no doubt are as proud to be British as they are to be Jewish.

Badenoch says we “must not” be multicultural (her words). The reality is that we indisputably already are and a multiracial society like Britain will inevitably be multicultural as well. Here’s one list:

• British Indian community
• British Pakistani community
• British Bangladeshi community
• Black British Caribbean communi
• Black British African community
• British Chinese community
• British Irish community
• British Jewish community
• British Turkish community
• British Arab community
• British Polish community
• British Romanian community

Etcetera !

What about the strong cultural distinctiveness of Sharia or Jewish law? (Beth Din). The one obligation that everyone in Britain shares is to obey the law. If a cultural group has behaviours that are extra legal then English law prevails. For example our legal system accommodates religious norms in various ways — kosher and halal food standards, faith schools, religious marriage ceremonies — and Sharia councils and Jewish Beth Din must fit within that tradition of legal pluralism. What they do not constitute is a parallel legal system with coercive power. Both institutions ultimately illustrate the same principle: English law is sovereign, but it leaves space for religious communities to govern their own internal affairs voluntarily.

Britain is undeniably a pluralist and multicultural society within which many different cultures co-exist peacefully ( mostly!). The Leader of the Opposition needs to learn this.

It is completely natural to look at tattoos and feel a bit perplexed if you don’t have them yourself. For a long time, Western society viewed them through a very narrow lens—marking them as a sign of rebellion, counterculture, or specific professions like sailors and soldiers.  

Over the last couple of decades, however, tattoos have undergone a massive cultural shift. Today, the psychology, sociology, and demographics behind tattoos are widely researched.  

1. Why Do People Get Tattoos? (The Psychology)

Psychological research shows that the motivations for getting tattooed have evolved from wanting to “rebel” to wanting to “author” one’s own identity. Psychologists cluster the primary motivations into a few key areas:

 Narrative and Identity Construction: For many, the body is a canvas to tell a personal story. Tattoos frequently serve as external markers of internal experiences—commemorating a major milestone, a personal triumph, or a philosophical belief.  

 Healing and Post-Traumatic Growth: A growing body of psychological research highlights tattoos as a therapeutic tool for emotional recovery. Following trauma, illness, or bereavement, getting a tattoo can be a way to reclaim agency and control over one’s own physical body, turning invisible emotional pain into a visible symbol of survival.  

 The Desire for Uniqueness (Distinctiveness): Psychological studies measuring personality traits show that individuals with tattoos often score slightly higher on the “Need for Uniqueness” scale and “Openness to Experience.” It’s an aesthetic choice to stand out in a highly uniform world.

 Aesthetic Adornment: Just as someone might choose a specific clothing style, hairstyle, or jewelry to feel confident and attractive, many people simply view tattoos as beautiful, permanent art pieces that improve their body image.  

2. Tattoo Demographics in the UK

If you feel like you are seeing tattoos everywhere in the UK, your observations are backed up by data. Tattoos are no longer restricted to any single social class, regional background, or gender. They have firmly entered the British mainstream.  

Data from major polling firms like YouGov and Ipsos paint a clear picture of who is getting inked:

By Age: The Middle-Age Boom

While Gen Z and Millennials embraced tattoos early on, the sharpest growth in recent years has actually been among middle-aged adults. Around 37% of British 35-to-54-year-olds have at least one tattoo—matching the exact percentage of 16-to-35-year-olds. It has become a common way to mark mid-life milestones, 50th birthdays, or retirements.  

By Gender: A Surprising Shift

Historically a male-dominated practice, contemporary UK surveys show that women are now just as likely, if not slightly more likely, to have tattoos than men, frequently opting for fine-line, minimalist, or highly illustrative custom designs.  

By Region and Profession

Geographically, tattoos are ubiquitous across the UK, though major urban hubs boast the highest density of studios. London, for example, is a global epicenter for tattoo artistry, driven heavily by creatives and tech sector workers.  

The old social barrier of the “unprofessional tattoo” has largely dissolved in British working culture. While corporate finance or corporate law can still be conservative, fields like education, healthcare, tech, and creative media heavily feature visible body art.

The Reality vs. Perception Gap: A 2025 study published in the Journal of Research in Personality found that while people frequently judge a person’s entire character based on their tattoos, those assumptions are almost always wrong. The only trait that accurately aligned with reality was that people with unique or unusual tattoos genuinely are more open to new experiences.

Ultimately, tattoos have transitioned from a subcultural stamp of non-conformity into a deeply personal, mainstream form of self-expression. For the person wearing them, it is rarely about shocking the public—it is usually about looking down and seeing a meaningful map of where they have been.