Convenience Big Store: You’ll never satisfy the digital mob

4 May, 2021

In the headlines

The UK's daily Covid death toll fell to just one yesterday, leading to calls for a quicker end to lockdown – "Why are we waiting?" asks the Daily Mail. A poll ahead of Thursday's Hartlepool by-election gives the Conservatives a surprise 17-point lead over Labour – it would be "genuinely remarkable" were the Tories to turn the "red wall" town blue, says Politico. At least 23 people have been killed in Mexico City after a railway bridge collapsed onto a road as a train was passing over it.

Comment of the day

Actor and director Noel Clarke. Dave Benett/Getty Images

You'll never satisfy the digital mob

Bafta's treatment of the black actor and director Noel Clarke was not only an "astonishing volte-face" – it was wholly unjust, says Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times. First, Bafta was so terrified of appearing racist that it overlooked complaints against Clarke, who has been accused of sexual harassment, verbal abuse and bullying by 27 women. Then, having given him an award, it stripped him of it without asking him for his side of the story because it was "terrified of being an enabler of sexual assault". (Clarke has denied any wrongdoing.) Evidence and due process went out of the window. What mattered was to stay on "the right side of the latest arbitrary line drawn by the self-appointed guardians of moral purity".

And all for nothing, because Bafta's contortions to appease "the digital mob" are futile. "Like Saturn, the revolution devours its children," Jacques Mallet du Pan said of the Terror in the 1790s. Hundreds of respected writers, journalists and others have been cancelled in recent months "so organisations could burnish their progressive credentials". Just last week WW Norton ditched Blake Bailey, the author of a new Philip Roth biography, before allegations of sexual assault against him were even investigated. The publisher was willing to "eviscerate" an author's reputation, and his book, to "send a signal". We risk "sleepwalking towards an Orwellian dystopia" in which everyone thinks they're dispensing justice when they are "making a mockery of it". We need to take care, because "in time, it could devour us too".

Why it matters

Given that Bafta was aware of the accusations against Clarke, wouldn't it have made sense to investigate before giving him an award, asks Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph. Unless, of course, "ticking demographic boxes now takes precedence over the truth". As it seems to. "Demographics are what define us now, not our words and actions."

Read the full article here.

Life in an inheritance society

Thanks to the second economic meltdown in 13 years, downwardly mobile younger generations are more than ever "living precariously off family wealth", says Simon Kuper in the Financial Times. The result is an "inheritance society", and our appetite for TV shows such as Succession and Years and Years shows how much the idea of inheritance resonates these days, as does our obsession with real-life dynastic dramas such as the Trump saga and Harry and Meghan. It's not new: only in the first couple of decades after the Second World War did the vast bulk of wealth not come from inheritance. And there's a lot at stake. Millennials in the UK can expect to inherit 16% of their lifetime income, and those in the US more than $68 trillion from their boomer parents by 2030 – "surely the biggest wealth transfer in history".

Yet today's teachers and bank managers often find themselves living in their childhood bedrooms with parents "who control the pot of gold". In Italy the average child leaves home at 30. So generations are left "clamped together in a perverse embrace". As for siblings jostling for their share of a big family fortune, "the moment of inheritance often destroys the family". Downward mobility can also transcend blood. Years and Years depicts the entire UK in freefall: "Add on the pandemic and climate change, and that's currently our world."

Read the full article here.

Inside politics

The foreign minister of the Philippines, Teddy Locsin Jr, has responded angrily on Twitter to what he sees as China's illegal encroachment in disputed waters in the South China Seas: "China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see... O... GET THE F*** OUT. What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We're trying. You. You're like an ugly oaf forcing your attentions on a handsome guy who wants to be a friend; not to father a Chinese province."

Tomorrow's world

The Royal Marines have demonstrated how a jetsuit could enable swift boarding of a hijacked ship. The superhero-style technology was designed by former Royal Marine reservist Richard Browning. Browning, whose inventor father took his own life while his son was at school, left his comfortable job to develop his Daedalus Suit five years ago because he "felt like something was missing".

Zeitgeist

A CIA recruitment video featuring an "intersectional cisgender millennial" officer has drawn sharp criticism in the US. In the video, the 36-year-old Latina, who states she has been diagnosed with "generalised anxiety disorder", says she doesn't "internalise misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be". Donald Trump Jr tweeted: "China & Russia are laughing their asses off watching CIA go full woke."

Snapshot

On the money

Melinda Gates, 56, wife of Microsoft founder Bill, has surprised those who know her by filing for divorce. She described their marriage as "irretrievably broken". It's not yet clear how they're going to divvy up one of the world's largest fortunes – Forbes puts them in fourth place, with an estimated $130bn – but there doesn't appear to be a prenup. Melinda once admitted marriage to Bill, 65, was "incredibly hard": when they were dating, she caught him listing the pros and the cons of proposing to her on a whiteboard. She initially said no. The family live in a $123m home in Washington state dubbed Xanadu 2.0. It has an artificial stream and a fake beach.

Snapshot answer

It's the world's most valuable stamp, which is up for auction this summer. The magenta stamp from the former British Guiana is worth an estimated £10.8m and is the last of its kind. It was discovered in 1873 by a schoolboy who sold it for a handful of shillings to a local stamp collector (or philatelist). Its current owner is the shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, who bought it in 2014 for £6.8m. He has inscribed his initials and a drawing of a stiletto onto the back of the stamp.