The Critical Commentator

 In Mark Menzie's case sympathy is undeserved and censure pointless. The MP for Fylde, who telephoned an elderly party worker in the small hours begging for money because "bad people" were holding him to ransom, cannot expect forgiveness; but reproach (though he will meet it in spades) is futile. Some people do just get themselves into the most awful mess... Why do MPs at every level in the parliamentary pecking order, from prime ministers such as Boris Johnson to backbenchers you've never heard of like Menzies - why ever do they take these crazy risks? They know the danger very well. They're public figures. They know the media will go gangbusters if they're caught with trousers down, fingers in the till, tractor porn on their laptops or (if male) running down the road in lipstick and high heels... Raving Madness Caius Gabriel Cibber (1630-1700) Photo Credit: Bethlem Museum of the Mind [CC BY-NC]  Yet the very people who need most to tread carefully, tread mos

  Not long ago - in 1960, say, when the average man married at 22 and the average woman at 20 - many 25-year olds were homeowners and parents, almost a decade out of full-time education... Thanks to the housing crisis, competition for graduate jobs and student loan debt, increasing numbers of young people are stranded in their family homes, condemned to pass their twenties in a state of childlike dependency. Coddling parents and digital technology exacerbate the problem. In the optimistic jargon of academia, this new phase of life is "emerging adulthood". We should deplore it for what it really is : the infantilisation of young adults... This infantilising instinct is especially unhelpful because as the psychologist Jean Twenge has observed, the lifestyle of many adults in their twenties increasingly resemble those of children. Concerning numbers of people my age continue to watch Disney films and profess loyalty to a Harry Potter house. Children's brands are adapting th

Shoes Charles Chapman (b. 1955) Photo Credit: Arts Council Collection    Rishi Sunak has apologised to all fans of Adidas Samba trainers after being accused of ruining their credibility when he was pictured in a pair. The prime minister said he was "a longtime devotee" of the brand. He made the apology after wearing the grey, white and black trainers in a Downing Street interview, paired with a white shirt, navy chinos and black socks. Many social media users have said they will sell their shoes. GQ magazine said: "Rishi Sunak took an eternally cool sneaker and ruined it for everyone". (Aletha Adu, The Guardian, 2024) No apology needed. You wear whatever footwear you want to. As for the many social media users selling their Adidas Samba trainers because Rishi Sunak wears them the question must be asked. Why? Does it really matter who wears these trainers? Keith Starmer The normally buttoned-up Keith Starmer [leader of the Labour party] won plaudits earlier this mont

  In 2009 the NHS's  gender identity development service (Gids) saw fewer than 50 children a year. Since then demand has increased a hundredfold, with more than 5,000 seeking help in 2021-2022. Head of a Girl Albert Lynch (1860-1950) Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND] In her review of gender services, Dr Hilary Cass said  t here had been a "dramatic increase" in presentations to gender clinics in a decade and, in particular, a rise in birth-registered females... There is no single explanation for these rises, her review concluded. But it says various factors may explain the increase in predominantly birth registered females presenting to gender services in early adolescence. Social Media and the internet The report says girls spend more hours using social media than boys. A study cited by Cass found 43% of girls used social media for three or more hours a day compared with 22% of boys. A systematic review highlighted by the Cass report found use of social

  HMRC (Revenue and Customs) claims £36bn was lost to the exchequer last year simply because people do not pay their tax. Shockingly, that figure is £5bn higher than that lost in the previous year. It represents a third of total government spending on education... We also know that £36bn is a very conservative estimate of the gap between what the exchequer does collect and what is due - what is known as the tax gap. For instance, many wealthy individuals  hide their assets in secret trusts they set up overseas in British tax havens, and pay no tax on that hidden wealth. Furthermore, the tax gap does not start to take account of the billions lost each year when global companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft avoid tax  by creating financial structures that have no other purpose than to avoid paying tax. Duty Paid Ralph Hedley (1848-1913) Photo Credit: Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens [CC BY-NC] Paying tax is central to the values that we all sign up to in society. If socie

  As millions of people across China travelled to the graves of ancestors to pay their respects on tomb-sweeping day - an annual opportunity to honour and maintain the graves of the dead - a new way of remembering, and reviving, their beloved relatives was being born. For as little as 20 yuan (£2.20), Chinese web users can create a moving digital avatar of their loved one, according to some online services. To mark this year's tomb-sweeping day... some mourners turned to artificial intelligence to commune with the departed. At the more sophisticated end of the spectrum, the Taiwanese singer Bao Xiaobai used AI to "resurrect" his 22-year-old daughter, who died in 2022. Despite having only a recording of her speaking three sentences of English, Bao reportedly spent more than a year experimenting with AI before creating a video of her singing happy birthday to her mother, which he published in January. "People around me think I've lost my mind," Bao said in an