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Russell T Davies could not have known when he made Its A Sin that it would come out during another pandemic one that has elicited an entirely different response. How bittersweet it must be for the survivors of the Aids pandemic to see the care and attention that has been given to cracking Covid.

There are a million reasons Its A Sin is so powerful, and I do not have the word count to go into them all here. It is powerful because it is full of love and it is full of joy, but to me it is powerful because it shows us the true nature of shame, and how deadly it can be. Shame, mostly born out of other peoples ignorance, is what kills. Shame is what essentially leads to the death of one character, a heartbreakingly beautiful boy who is ultimately too scared to find out if he is HIV positive, meaning the disease progresses to Aids.

During his last days, he tells his shocked mother that he is sure he has killed other men, simply by loving them. Later, his friend Jill tells her that so many of the men dying alone in Aids wards believe that, in some small way, they deserve it. That in some small way, this disease is their punishment for not being the child their parents wanted them to be.

Its tempting to see Its A Sin as a very modern period drama, to compartmentalise what happened and tell ourselves that the world has long since moved on. But the shame of Its A Sin is not that far away. While advances in science mean HIV is now an entirely manageable condition, campaigners have faced uphill battles to get preventative drugs, known as PrEP, made available on the NHS. In 2019, almost 700,000 people across the world died from Aids-related illnesses, while 38 million people were living with HIV. And a report published last year by the UN found that the Covidpandemic risks setting back the goal to end the Aids pandemic by at least 10 years. The report estimated that even a six-month disruption in HIV treatment could result in an extra 500,000 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

We must be careful, too, in believing that the kind of shameful ostracisation gay men faced in the 1980s is a thing of the past. If anything, shame has become mainstream thanks to the advent of social media, and Covid has only cemented its position as a powerful global currency. Shame is the religion that drives the culture wars. Shame is now state-sanctioned, with full-page adverts in national newspapers shaming us into not leaving the house. For many LGBTQ+ people, shame did not magically die with the repeal of Section 28 (a mere 20 years ago). And the trans rights conversation, which now dominates the media, seems powered by shame.

Its A Sin reminds us that shame is a dead end for everyone involved. It gets us nowhere. Its interesting that this show about shame has in itself been shamed, for not telling the story of all the women who died of Aids. But for me, the most powerful character was Jill (interviewed in The Telegraph last month), who shows us how powerful it is to be set free from shame. As Russell T Davies knows, the only way you kill shame is by exposing it to the light. Let this extraordinary drama be a prompt for us all to do just that.

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Shame drives the culture wars and its powerful legacy still lives on - Telegraph.co.uk

It seems so obvious why Captain (later Major) Sir Thomas Moore mattered. Why should we even ask? He was so decent, raised so much money for charity, served in the war defending India and what was then Burma. And he was so modest. It is really no wonder that he became a national hero.

But there is something more. He stood for a kind of Britishness that resonated with Middle England. First, he linked the war and the coronavirus crisis. Each year on Armistice Day we realise how few survivors there are from those two extraordinary generations who gave their lives for their country. Those wars dominated the lives of British families for more than a century. Nearly 900,000 military dead in World War One. Nearly 400,000 in World War Two, not counting 70,000 civilian dead. In Blake Baileys new biography of Philip Roth, he describes VJ Day. As he celebrated with the other youngsters, writes Bailey, Roths jubilation tempered somewhat by the sight of older people sobbing on benches probably the parents of boys who had been killed, he thought. The war was over and it was a wonderful thing, but not for them. They would have this grief forever.

Hence the shock when young demonstrators desecrated the Cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill last year. For so many British people, these were disgusting, unforgivable acts. This brings us to the second reason why Tom Moore was regarded as a national hero. Without ever wishing it, he had become part of the culture wars, the growing divide about what kind of country Britain is or should be.

I cant remember any moment in my lifetime when Britishness has been so bitterly contested. Which statues of the past should be torn down? Is Britains past something to be celebrated a story of freedom, tolerance and democracy or is it something to be ashamed of, a dark story of slavery, racism, colonialism? The older you are, the more likely you will see it as the former. The younger you are, the more inclined you will be to see it as the latter. Of course, its not just a generational conflict. If youre black or brown you will wonder why generations of British historians and politicians have been so silent about the legacy of slavery and Empire.

What does any of this have to do with Tom Moore? On Twitter I saw this by @JarelRB just after Moore died: The cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism. I was appalled. No, it isnt, I replied. People wanted to pay their respects to a fine man. Its as simple as that. @JarelRB turns out to be the Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown, a young black clergyman still in his 20s. He has now deleted his tweet and apologised; the Church is investigating. But what fuelled his anger?

Many want to build a statue in Tom Moores memory. Who would bet against that statue being desecrated in no time? Why? Because some (many?) would share Robinson-Browns anger and see respect for an old army veteran who raised so much money for charity as a cult of White British Nationalism. Too white, too male, too old, too patriotic. This is what we have come to. We shouldnt pretend otherwise.

Is it a coincidence that this response to the death of Sir Thomas Moore took place at the same time as a debate about patriotism in the Labour Party? It is clear that one reason Labour lost so resoundingly in 2019 was not just because Jeremy Corbyn associated with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites and terrorists, but because there was a sense among many ordinary British people that he preferred the Palestinian flag to the Union Jack, the IRA to British veterans.He didnt know (or care) when the Queen gave her speech on Christmas Day. Sir Keir Starmer knows this cost Labour hugely in the last election and has started to speak about patriotism and the British flag. But then a video from 2005 appeared of Starmer boasting of supporting the abolition of the monarchy. Guido Fawkes commented: It wont go down so well in Bishop Auckland or Ashfield.

This isnt just about one quote. YouGov published a poll about patriotism. It asked people, How patriotic would you say you are? A 61 per cent majority of British people polled said Patriotic. 88 per cent of Conservative voters but only 44 per cent of Labour voters called themselves Patriotic. There was a similar divide between Leavers (81 per cent) and Remainers (54 per cent).

Middle England took Captain Tom to its heart. Rightly so. There is so much to admire and respect. But another England would, I fear, disagree. Much of the political debate over years to come will be over these issues.

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Why Tom Moore mattered: a culture war over the Captain - TheArticle

Who edits The New York Times? This is not, at least at first glance, a particularly complicated question. Dean Baquet has been the executive editor of the newspaper of record since 2014, a period of profound growth, when the company amassed six million subscribers (it had about 1.5 million the year Baquet took over). While The Washington Post has made strides in recent years, the Times is still an agenda-setting newspaper like no other. In recent years it has become an industry-swallowing behemoth, hiring whoever it wants whenever it wants, while dominating a number of media formatsaudio, visual, and, of course, text.

But the question Who edits The New York Times? has taken on a different dimension in recent years. While the obsession over the Times foibles and fuck-ups has long been a cottage industry, it is now firmly entrenched in the culture wars. According to the anti-woke contingent, the Times is increasingly run by a pitchfork-wielding mob of scolds demanding ideological purity and adherence to faddish identity politics. Last year, in the wake of a controversial op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton calling for troops to quell violence associated with the George Floyd protests, the mob was able to force out the papers opinion editor (who was pushed out) and a controversial employee (who resigned). This mob, the argument goes, is holding the rest of the paper hostage. Baquet is only nominally in charge.

On Friday, there were anti-woke howls across the internet after the Times announced that Donald McNeil, a prize-winning health care reporter, was leaving the paper he had worked at since 1976. McNeil had recently received widespread acclaim for his reporting on Covid-19, but a report from The Daily Beast two weeks ago alleged that he had repeated a racial slur in front of teenagers while accompanying a high school trip to Peru. (The Times apparently sends its reporters on these trips, which cost $5,500 each, as guides. Fancy!) McNeil had initially been given a reprieve by Baquet but was pushed out after 150 staff members objected to his light treatment in a letter to management. Here was another smoking gun: The paper of record devouring its own on command from a legion of woke, illiberal scolds.

See more here:
Can We Stop Obsessing Over Every Personnel Decision Made by The New York Times? - The New Republic

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Last Monday night, nearly a month after Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol looking to overturn a democratic election and, in some cases, kill U.S. lawmakers, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Instagram Live to share her harrowing account of that day.

Traumatized not only by the close encounter with people who were there to harm her but also the PTSD she suffers as a result of a previous sexual assault, Ocasio-Cortez said that as she hid in another congresswomans office, she thought she was going to die.

She was inarguably right to be terrified. Terrorism was, in part, the goal of the Capitol insurrection. Last month, in fact, a 34-year-old Texan named Garret Miller was arrested for taking part in the riot and posting violent threats online, including a tweet that simply said, Assassinate AOC.

But to the many on the right who have told her and other Democrats to move on from those events, Ocasio-Cortez says they were using the same tactics of every other abuser who just tells you to move on. Just a cursory scroll through Twitter in the wake of her powerful testimony proves her point.

This is a masterclass in emotional manipulation, journalist Michael Tracey says.

Only AOC can make the Capitol riots all about herself, Breanna Morello tweets.

Members of congress lie, including AOC. Especially AOC, Austin Petersen says.

Sadly, this is not surprising. In the ugly, divisive and tribal political hellscape in which we are currently living, AOC is a reviled figure on the right, ergo we shouldnt expect even the revelation that shed been sexually assaulted, or that she was fearing for her life on Jan. 6, cowering in a closet and wondering aloud if shell live to be a mother one day to be met with basic decency or empathy by some hardened partisans who see only enemy avatars, not actual people.

The rioters who breached the Capitol, the ones who shouted hang Mike Pence, the women who went looking for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to shoot her in the friggin brain, the man who beat a police officer with an American flag, another who attacked a police officer with a hockey stick, another who etched Murder the Media into a door inside the building, the people who planted pipe bombs around Washington, D.C., that day, the ones who marched swastikas into the peoples house, the ones who carried Confederate flags and white pride signs they werent thinking about the people in that building, only their own hate.

They werent thinking about moms and dads, daughters and sons, grandparents and grandchildren in that building when they went looking for scalps. They didnt see Officer Brian Sicknick as Charles and Gladys son, or Ken and Craigs brother, when they killed him with a fire extinguisher. They didnt see Pelosi as Bellas grandma or Pence as Charlottes dad.

The Republican lawmakers like Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who taunted their supporters into fighting the election results, hyping baseless claims of fraud and stolen elections, werent thinking about the people on the other side of the anger they were stoking. They werent thinking about the human cost of all that frothing, fearmongering and incitement. Remarkably and chillingly, they dont appear to be even now, as they continue to spread the lies.

This kind of unconscionable moral rot has infected America deep in its core. Its in our partisan politics, our self-destructive culture wars, our hysterical media and our addiction to hate.

Its becoming clearer with every passing day that amid all the things posing an imminent threat to our way of life disease, climate change, war its truly our inability to see each other as people before politics thats going to destroy us.

S.E. Cupp is the host of S.E. Cupp Unfiltered on CNN.

Categories:Opinion | S.E. Cupp Columns

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S.E. Cupp: Bitter, partisan reactions to AOC are proof American politics has lost its way - TribLIVE

Charities that support politically or culturally contentious causes should expect their charitable status to come under regulatory scrutiny even if they are acting within the law, according to the outgoing chair of the Charity Commission.

The peer Tina Stowell, who is stepping down after three years in the post, warned charities against being captured by unnamed people who wish to push a partial view of the world and use charity platforms to wage war on political enemies.

The commission, whose remit covers England and Wales, has recently pursued high-profile investigations against charities after Tory MPs complained they had strayed into ideological dogma or a woke agenda on issues such as race equality.

Charities can challenge things, charities can shake things up, they can even change the world, but they cant and they shouldnt go out of their way to divide people, Lady Stowell said in a speech on Thursday hosted by the Social Market Foundation.

Investigations were launched into the National Trust over its publication of a report on some of its properties past links to slavery, and against the childrens charity Barnardos which was accused of political activism for publishing a blogpost on racial inequality and white privilege. Both investigations are continuing.

Charity figures responded furiously to the speech, accusing Stowell of demonstrating the very attitudes she was warning charities against. One charity leader told the Guardian: Lady Stowell warns charities against being divisive and yet she is drawing them into a culture war by saying they cant legitimately make a stand on issues.

Stowell, who some believe lost the trust of the charity sector after using rightwing newspapers to warn charities against getting involved in politics or culture wars, said charities had to be more respectful of public expectations of what they were for.

If charity is to remain at the forefront of our national life, it cannot afford to be captured by those who want to advance or defend their own view of the world to the exclusion of all others, she said. Charities can adapt to the latest social and cultural trends but there is a real risk of generating unnecessary controversy and division by picking sides in a battle some have no wish to fight.

Many seek out charities as an antidote to politics and division, not as another front on which to wage a war against political enemies, and they have the right to be respected.

Charity Commission guidance states that campaigning and political activity can be legitimate and valuable activities for charities to undertake within limits that require charities not to have a political purpose and to be independent of political parties.

Asked after her speech whether charities with a political agenda should lose their charitable status, Stowell suggested that party politics was too narrow a definition of the limits of charity political activity. Not everything which is contentious is defined as a particular partys position on something, she said.

So in that respect what charities have to be mindful of is there are risks to adopting or getting involved in particular sorts of movement or causes that are outside of their objects and then they start to make people question whether or not they really are entitled to retain that status of charity.

Stowell was appointed as the Charity Commissions chair in 2018 despite a unanimous parliamentary select committee recommendation that her nomination should be rejected on the grounds that she lacked experience of both charity and regulatory roles.

Stowell, a Conservative politician and former civil servant, became a peer in 2011. She was leader of the House of Lords before resigning the Tory whip upon her Charity Commission appointment. The commission was unable to say whether she would have the whip restored after her term ends.

Responding to Stowells speech, Sue Tibballs, of the campaigning charity the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, said: Throughout her tenure Tina Stowell has been a leading voice amongst those who accuse charities of stoking culture wars by not reflecting public opinion. Charities by law, however, are required to act in the public interest, not to reflect public opinion.

Andrew Purkis, a former Charity Commission board member, said it was important that Stowells successor as commission chair focused on what the law said charities were allowed to do, not what he or she thought they ought to do. The guidance is clear: charities are allowed to be political with a small p if we are in pursuit of our charitable objects, he said.

This article was amended on 5 February 2021. An earlier version described Tina Stowell as a Tory peer. Text has been added to clarify that Lady Stowell was the Conservative leader in the Lords, but resigned the party whip on her appointment to the Charity Commission. Text was also added to clarify the commissions remit covers England and Wales only.

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Commission chief tells charities not to be 'captured' for politics - The Guardian