Christine Berry

The battle for the narrative about Labour’s catastrophic defeat is already in full swing, and it is predictably proving to be a bloodbath. On both sides of Labour’s political divide, people are advancing explanations that conveniently confirm everything they already… Continue reading →

At home after the birth. Two months old. Mark’s mum is with us and we decide to get fish and chips for tea, since none of us have the wherewithal to cook. After a difficult birth I’m just about well… Continue reading →

I have to admit the controversy over the Gilette ad on toxic masculinity kind of passed me by, due to the whole having a newborn thing. In fact, I’ve only just now managed to actually watch it. But I was… Continue reading →

This week, university staff have been on strike against devastating changes to their pensions, braving the freezing weather to stand on picket lines waving placards with brilliantly dweeby slogans (personal faves: “Geertz ya dirty hands off our pensions” and “The… Continue reading →

The hymn we sang at Mum’s funeral service, ‘Make me a channel of your peace’, includes the aspiration “that I may never seek…. to be understood as to understand”. Mum was one of those rare people who, whatever you were… Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, whilst ill on the sofa, I watched The Wolf of Wall Street, the 2013 biopic of stock market fraudster Jordan Belmont. It stayed with me for days afterwards, and not in a good way. It… Continue reading →

So I know that having lived in the north for all of five minutes, I don’t really get to do this, but humour me for a bit. Chris Grayling’s response this week to George Osborne saying we need a Crossrail… Continue reading →

Last week I was at WOMAD festival for the first time in ten years. It had become a bit of an annual ritual for me to try and cajole my partner and friends to come with me, and then whine… Continue reading →

Liam Fox has been in the news this week for being totally cool with the prospect of chlorinated chicken being put on our plates by US farmers. (At least, I think that’s his position; he’s been a bit coy about… Continue reading →

In the wake of the horrifying Grenfell Tower disaster, people are starting to ask questions about why reports on housing safety were sat on and ignored. And the finger is being pointed towards the government’s ‘war on red tape’ –… Continue reading →