Politics

Wednesday

Katy Balls

What Nadine Dorries’ coronavirus diagnosis means for parliament

Westminster is abuzz this morning not with anticipation for Rishi Sunak’s first Budget but over the news that Nadine Dorries has become the first UK politician to contract the coronavirus. The health minister began to feel unwell at the end of last week before showing symptoms relating to the coronavirus – dry cough, high fever and chest pains – at the weekend. She has since tested positive for the disease and self-isolated. However, before doing so, Dorries was in contact with hundreds of people including fellow politicians at a No. 10 reception the Prime Minister hosted on Thursday, health officials and constituents in a surgery on Saturday. While Dorries believes

Saturday

Melissa Kite

How I fell out of love with the BBC

One of the many technological things I don’t understand is, how come I’m paying to watch television? I know why I used to pay. I used to switch on a box in the corner of the room and marvel at the choice of three quite interesting programmes and something slightly racy on Channel 4. It was all reassuringly underwhelming, with everyone doing as well as could be expected given the circumstances. The cardboard sets on a lot of the shows wobbled and we were happier for it, one could argue. There was an obvious balance of earnestly attempted light entertainment and archly presented informative content and I for one didn’t

Nina Power

Oracles, perverts and the Dirtbag Left

For 500 years the State Oracle of Tibet has worked as a kind of angry immortal advisor to the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan hybrid of Dominic Cummings and John Dee. The current incumbent, like all previous ones, alternates between his human incarnation and his spirit version. ‘In Tibetan Buddhism, the unseen parallel world of spirits is not to be taken lightly,’ explains anthropologist David Sneath on Heart and Soul (BBC World Service). ‘There are so many other living species,’ the Minister of Religion and Culture tells Sneath, ‘many of which we don’t even see.’ Sneath interviews the cheerful sixty-something State Oracle (living in exile in Dharamsala), various government ministers, sincere