Much has been written about the Labour Party, the crisis of the Left and progressive politics in general. I’m adding to it not because I claim to hold any authority on the subject, but from a compulsion to share my personal experience, and, as an ex-Labour member, my deep frustrations with the current situation in the party.

Joker is the must-seemovie of the moment. That rare type of movie that succeeds in mirroring the cultural moment in which it was made, as Taxi Driver did in the seventies and Fight Club managed in the nineties.

My wife and I land at Marco Polo Airport for a short stay in Venice, affectionately known “The Floating City”, a week after its worst flooding in 22 years.

Unless you are a political junkie or obsessive nerd like myself, it is quite likely that you have never heard of the ‘Overton window’. Named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton, the Overton window represents, at any given time, the frame of reasonable options or opinions across a spectrum of possible options/opinions in public/political discourse.

The notion that there are vast disparities in power and influence which favour men over women across all levels of society is so prevalent and commonsensical to us these days that to challenge the concept of the ‘patriarchy’ and to question the dominant narrative on gender inequality is, at best, a demonstration of ignorance, at worst, an act of misogyny.