Convenience Big Store: Ditch Jefferson and no one’s safe

28 October, 2021

In the headlines

"Fizzy" Rishi's Budget was heady stuff, says the Daily Mail: "The whole nation was positively showered with largesse." Sunak's spending plans mean the government will splurge at levels not seen since the 1970s, even if we're to be clobbered by the highest taxes since the war. The Chancellor threw money at the NHS and schools, "double-counting in ways that would make Gordon Brown blush", says John Rentoul in The Independent – with his "Brexity Blairism", Sunak now owns the political centre ground. He's also made beer and prosecco cheaper. Welcome news, says Henry Mance in the FT: "Lowering the price of alcohol is the closest the Tory party has come to a childcare policy."

Comment of the day

The Thomas Jefferson statue in New York City Hall. Ted Shaffrey/AP

Ditch Jefferson and no one's safe

New York's decision to scrap a statue of Thomas Jefferson that has stood in City Hall for more than 100 years is "astonishing", says Lionel Shriver in The Times. He was one of America's founding fathers and – you saw this coming – a slave owner. But so were George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe and Benjamin Franklin. At this rate we'll have to "bomb Mount Rushmore", topple the Washington Monument and wipe every Jefferson, Madison and Franklin town or avenue off the map. You may as well rip up the constitution, too, because these "wicked men" wrote it.

"National mythologies help maintain the social fabric, which is alarmingly easy to unravel." And it's not only being unravelled in America. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is splashing out £25,000 per borough on "decolonising" street names. Beyond baffling cabbies, what's the point? The valuable history lesson Jefferson teaches us is that we must stay alert to hypocrisy, past and present. The man who wrote "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence also helped to draft a constitution "in which a slave counted as three-fifths of a human being". Jefferson may embody the most shameful parts of my country's history, as well as some of the best. "But to see a man more clearly, you put on your glasses. You don't throw him in the river."

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in London this week. Paul Grover/Shutterstock

It's not all Zuckerberg's fault

It's easy to vilify Mark Zuckerberg in the current anti-Facebook frenzy. But I fear he's becoming "a scapegoat for deeper problems with the internet itself", says David Ignatius in The Washington Post. What the whistleblowers have revealed about the social media giant – its accommodation of dictators, drug cartels and human traffickers – is outrageous. But before lawmakers around the world act, consider the adage: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." After the political upheavals of the past decade, we wanted "a villain to blame". For Trumpism, we initially made Russia the bogeyman before turning our guns on Facebook. But the "veins of rage" were there well before Trump – the old media gatekeepers just kept them in check.

Like the internet, social media was meant to be an "open ecosystem" where different ideas and opinions could flourish. Instead people just found their niches and "created closed loops for themselves" – which became perfect breeding grounds for misinformation, hatred and much else besides. There are many potential solutions to this, including "limiting retweets and shares". But none is perfect. The "awkward truth" is that, Zuckerberg or no Zuckerberg, "we'll get the internet we deserve".

Inside politics

Joe Biden is less popular at this point in his presidency than all of his predecessors bar one: Donald Trump. A majority of Americans (52%) think the country is worse off than it was a year ago, when Trump was in office.

Tomorrow's world

Jeff Bezos wants to build a business park in space. The billionaire Amazon founder's spaceflight firm, Blue Origin, says its proposed Orbital Reef could be operational by 2030 and would be similar in size to the International Space Station – a $150bn project funded by 15 nations. The new space station would accommodate 10 people in low-Earth orbit, from tourists and film crews to astronauts from "sovereign nations without space programs".

Love etc

Health-food chain Holland & Barrett has launched a range of vegetable-shaped sex toys, says Vegan Food & Living. The £16.95 silicone vibrators come in the shape of corn on the cobs, chillies, carrots, bananas and aubergines. One customer bought a gadget thinking it was "a nice cob for dinner", but soon realised it was "a whole other ball game". Her online review says: "I decided to make the most of this monster and I can honestly say best experience of my life."

Snapshot

Life

The former owner of The Daily Telegraph, Conrad Black, was asked at the Cliveden Literary Festival about the three years he spent in jail after being convicted of fraud in 2007. "I was not in jail," replied Black, 77. "Jail is where they put the town drunk. I was in prison."

Snapshot answer

It's an Ecuadorian naval training ship that intercepted a "narco-sub" off the coast of Colombia. The BAE Guayas was on a routine voyage when a cadet spotted a homemade semi-submersible with engine trouble. Submarines are popular with drug cartels – it's thought they carry a third of the seaborne cocaine smuggled from Colombia.