On Monday morning, Britain performed a now-familiar ritual: the lectern was wheeled outside Number 10 to say goodbye to yet another Prime Minister. At this rate, the man doing the wheeling has enjoyed more job stability than the people he’s wheeling it out for. He’s even acquired a fan following who call him “hot podium guy,” which says everything about how accustomed this country has become to prime ministerial departures.
But when Keir Starmer stepped behind the lectern, he wasn’t simply announcing his resignation. He was making one last attempt to answer the question that follows every outgoing leader: what will I be remembered for? As he began, Ode to Joy blared across Whitehall, the same piece Starmer once said best captured the spirit of the Labour Party, turning what had once symbolised optimism into an exit soundtrack.
The rest of his speech was less a farewell and more a closing argument for the defence. Starmer reminded us that he inherited a Labour Party that was, in his words, “politically, financially and morally bankrupt”. He had rooted out antisemitism, restored economic credibility and delivered the party’s first landslide in a generation. On his achievements, he presented these like physical evidence to the jury. See exhibit A: NHS waiting lists, workers’ rights, defence spending, child poverty.
It was, in effect, an attempt to write the first draft of his own political obituary. Starmer wanted the history books to remember the man who rescued Labour rather than the prime minister who struggled to inspire it. He quietly argued that his greatest achievement wasn’t governing Britain but making a Labour government possible at all. A tacit acknowledgement that two years marked by poor approval ratings, caution and an inability to cut through were harder to sell than the journey that got him there.
Back in the early 1990s, as the previous decade’s flourishing of female pop stars began to mature, there grew a distinct divide within their ranks. There was Madonna, obviously, who is her own beast. There was Janet, Whitney, Kylie, and even Cyndi Lauper. And, then, there was Paula Abdul.
Paula Abdul had six back to back US number ones. Paula Abdul won Grammy awards. Paula Abdul was the people’s darling. And then, between 1991 and 1995, Paula Abdul took a brief hiatus, and, shortly afterwards, ceased to be famous.
It is with this cautionary tale that we turn to the predicament of Lizzo, who you may remember from her jaunty self-love anthems of the late 10s, including Truth Hurts and Good As Hell. At the time of writing, her latest album, the miserably titled ‘BITCH’, has failed to chart on the Billboard 200, and, in it’s second week, sold just 650 copies.
She has, on X, decried a lack of support from her label, and laid the blame squarely with the decline of radio as a format, stating that, in the age of streaming and social media, it was impossible for her to get a hit. While it is undeniable that US radio is not what it was even three years ago, this rather avoids the fact that, while admittedly a radio darling, her initial rise from obscurity was the direct result of her songs being featured in films and as the background audio on various TikTok trends.
In a Rolling Stone post-mortem this week, industry executives opined that, rather than complaining, she should be instead talking to her sizeable fanbase about her music. But this ignores the rather large elephant in the room - that Lizzo, whose songs were hinged on her body-positive, supermarket-advert friendly image, was slapped with a lawsuit in 2023 that accused her of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment for her dancers. Lizzo’s appeal was her fundamental, accept all comers, friendliness. She was the poster child of Resistance-era social media, the face of Woke 1.0 during the first Trump administration. In a world where the worst thing anyone can be is cringe, Lizzo’s rather indelible association with the now passé notion of what we might call ‘Fight Song feminism’ is her cross to bear. That it comes in concert with the fact that she (allegedly) failed to practice what she preached is another black mark — to be unwoke is one thing, but to be unwoke AND embarrassing is a terminal offence.
The phrase ‘Khia Asylum’ is often used in pop parlance to describe singers who, for one reason or another, have failed to break into the mainstream. Escaping from the Khia Asylum is possible - Sabrina Carpenter and Zara Larsson are prime examples of recent parolees who have both, through a combination of canny marketing, social media nous, and sheer luck, climbed to the top of the public consciousness after years of waiting.
But unlike Carpenter and Larsson, Lizzo, to some extent, always had the deck stacked against her: she does not look like a popstar, and her songs were the kind of soupy doo-wop R&B that previously catapulted the likes of Meghan Trainor to one-hit wonderdom. Her success, like Trainor’s, may have been something of a fluke in the first place, a classic, if not particularly kind, example of the right person being in the right place at the right time. But it was also much longer lasting, and much more penetrative — she was, like Abdul, genuinely everywhere, in a way that makes calling her a one hit wonder unfair. If she can get out of her own way, there may be a path back to music stardom. But there also may not be, and scrabbling against the inevitable so publicly only underlines what is arguably the chief criticism laid at her door: that all this is, really, a little bit unbecoming.
So for all that the industry has changed since the early 90s, it’s worth remembering a mantra chez nous: for every Madonna, there always has to be a Paula Abdul.
King Charles III has become the first reigning British monarch to disclose his personal tax bill. He paid £12.9 million in 2024/25, placing him among Britain’s top 100 taxpayers. William followed suit, declaring £7.76 million and directing £1.5 million in prison rent to the local community.
Why now? The royal household has faced mounting pressure following the scandal surrounding Prince Andrew, currently under police investigation over his relationship and participation with Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses. The King framed the decision as encouraging “wider understanding and accountability”, and while this is not completely wrong, the decision to only reveal this information in the wake of a scandal that refuses to go away, screams damage limitation more than it does public good. It might be worth remembering that allegations around Randy Andy have pervaded for decades, and the Royal strategy had, until recently, been largely based on turning a blind eye.
Responses have been mixed. Whilst some news pieces have applauded the seismic nature of the declaration, many have been quick to point out the obvious effort to contain fallout from damaging revelations about the finances of the former Prince Andrew, along with criticism as to all the information conveniently omitted. Most poignantly, the report fails to mention the income on which the taxation was based, making it unclear whether Charles’s payments were substantial, or merely tokenistic pocket change.
The King’s efforts to control the narrative by offering us openness is admirable insofar as twenty years ago it might have reset the story. Now that social media lets everyone be an investigative journalist and any inkling of doubt can spread instantly, Charles’s half-openness may have just prompted many more questions. Image rehabilitation is no longer quite so simple.
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Even the most hifalutin sections of the media are surprisingly open-minded to reports of the supernatural.
This leniency is particularly evident whenever the FIFA World Cup comes round - when such titans as Paul the Octopus are called upon to gaze through the mists of time on behalf of us mere mortals.
It’s against this liberal backdrop that Ghanian Witch Doctor, Nana Kwaku Bonsam put a curse on England captain Harry Kane ahead of the countries’ group stage clash this week.
A smattering of tongue in cheek media coverage of his announcement of the ‘curse’ pre-match (including a psychic showdown with the legendary Uri Geller) became a deluge as the whistle blew.
Kane, who has broken a number of goalscoring records in the past year, cut a peripheral figure before missing a big chance to help Ghana to a creditable 0-0 draw.
Suddenly, the Witch Doctor was their secret weapon. Dr. Bonsam then showed considerable media (and diplomatic) savvy by appearing as a guest on LBC and declaring that, Ghana having reaped the benefits of his initial hex, he was now ‘releasing’ Kane to score as many goals as he wants for the rest of the tournament.
Clearly unafraid that this increased media scrutiny might impact his magic, Nana has continued to soak up the limelight, revealing that a misplaced malediction from his apprentice was behind Turkiye’s latest failure to live up to their Dark Horse mantle, and even weighing in with his predictions for an Andy Burnham premiership.
It’s a sterling display of showmanship and although it probably won’t lead to sustained fame in the UK (that said, don’t discount the announcement of a Witch Doctor podcast), his successful cursing of Kane, benevolent lifting of the curse, and good humour throughout may just have earned Nana a spot as the media’s resident Witch Doctor for future World Cups.
Qatar spent an utterly mindblowing $220 billion on hosting in 2022, but the mixed legacy of this ultimate football-as-soft-power gambit continues after a Telegraph investigation revealed that 1,000 ‘fake fans’ had been given an all-expenses-paid trip to support the team at the world cup.
Qatar’s football association funded flights, hotels and match tickets for thousands of supporters. For those getting déjà vu, Qatar did in fact deny these same allegations back in 2022 before apparently exporting the strategy to North America this time round.
Up to a quarter of supporters interviewed had no links to Qatar. A man born in Saudi Arabia, now living in Washington State, said that “many of us had never even set foot inside of a stadium either”. One American man was literally wearing a Brazil shirt beneath his Qatar jersey.
Naturally, Qatar wanted their “fans” to look the real deal – to be the part you have to look the part - so the drafted supporters were each given a fanbox, all containing the same trashy goodies.
Their aim? To create “a vibrant stadium atmosphere that will help push the players toward the best possible results on the global stage”. And nothing screams “vibrant atmosphere” more than forced fun, paid cheers and choreographed whooping
But to its credit, the drafted fans pushed the Qatar team to the best possible results of… finishing at the bottom of their Group, losing 3 – 1 to Bosnia, 6 – 0 to Canada and a nail-biting draw against Switzerland.
On one level, there is an element of pitying poor Qatar. Everyone’s worst nightmare is throwing a party and no one showing up. However, Qatar hasn’t quite registered yet that when it comes to making friends, their default response of whipping out the cheque book is unlikely to curry much favour from the football-watching public.
Qatar’s manager gave the following farewell statement: “I am grateful for our fans. They are a minority but they tried to support us and stay behind us. I’m sorry for them”.
A sweet sentiment but he needn’t worry about apologising – it’s not like they can ask for a refund.
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