Sally Rooney: ‘I can’t publish work in UK due to Palestine Action ban’

Normal People author Sally Rooney has claimed she will be unable to publish any new work in the UK while protest group Palestine Action faces a terror ban.

The Irish author, who has two of her novels adapted for TV by the BBC, has been supportive of the activists, saying they are “plainly not a terrorist organisation” and condemned the government’s decision to proscribe them.

She said in August that she intended to use the earnings from her work and her public platform to continue to support Palestine Action.

Now, in a witness statement submitted to the High Court, Ms Rooney said that it is “almost certain that I can no longer publish or produce any new work within the UK while this proscription remains in effect”.

She claimed: “If Palestine Action is still proscribed by the time my next book is due for publication, then that book will be available to readers all over the world and in dozens of languages, but will be unavailable to readers in the United Kingdom simply because no one will be permitted to publish it (unless I am consent to give it away for free).”

Ms Rooney said this would be because her UK publishers are unsure whether they will be able to pay her for her work, due to the risk that she could use this money to support Palestine Action.

She also said that her books may have to be withdrawn from sale as their publication is based on royalties on sales, and the non-payment of the royalties would mean she could terminate the contract.

Ms Rooney’s best-selling work includes Conversations with Friends and Intermezzo.

She added: “If, therefore, [her publisher] Faber and Faber Limited are legally prohibited from paying me the royalties I am owed, my existing works may have to be withdrawn from sale and would therefore no longer be available to readers in the UK.”

Following her pledge to donate money to the group, Downing Street said that any support for a proscribed organisation was a criminal offence.

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori has taken the government to court over the terror ban, arguing that the impact of the proscription was “dramatic, severe, widespread and potentially lifelong”.

Raza Husain KC, for the claimant, said that the decision by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper to proscribe the organisation in June 2025 was “novel and unprecedented”. He told the High Court: “This is the first direct action civil disobedience organisation that does not advocate for violence ever to be proscribed as terrorism.”

He added that the decision, which Ms Cooper faltered over, was “so extreme as to render the UK an international outlier”.

Mr Husain also told the court that there had been more than 2,000 arrests following Palestine Action’s proscription, which included “priests, teachers, pensioners, retired British Army officers” and an “81-year-old former magistrate”.

During a hearing on Wednesday, scores of people assembled outside the Royal Courts of Justice holding placards which read “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”. Several demonstrators were carried away by police officers.

Sir James Eadie, for the government, told the court on Thursday that it was for parliament to decide what acts constituted terrorism.

He explained that the home secretary had been advised by a group of security experts that certain actions of Palestine Action did qualify as terrorist acts.

Sir James said the ban “strikes a fair balance between interference with the rights of the individuals affected and the interests of the community”.

The barrister also emphasised that the ban has not prevented people from protesting against Israel’s actions in Gaza or in support of Palestinians.

Man who threw boy from Tate Modern convicted of hospital attack

A man convicted of throwing a six-year-old boy off a balcony at the Tate Modern art gallery has now been found guilty of attacking two nurses.

Jonty Bravery, 24, was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 15 years, for throwing the boy from the London gallery’s 10th storey in 2019. The boy survived the fall but suffered a bleed on the brain and multiple broken bones. In October, his family said he had only recently been able to run, jump and swim again.

Bravery, who is autistic, is being held at Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital.

During a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday – which he chose not to attend – he was found guilty of assaulting nurses Linda McKinlay and Kate Mastalerz in September 2024.

The court heard he had kicked one nurse in the thigh and had “clawed” at the face of another, leaving her with blood dripping down her cheek.

Prosecutor Tom Heslop said Bravery has to be monitored by three members of staff “24 hours a day, seven days a week”, and is kept in a room with only a mattress in it.

“At around 9.30 at night, Mr Bravery asked to go to the toilet,” he said. Afterwards, Bravery tried to harm himself, Mr Heslop said. The nurses tried to restrain him, putting him on his mattress before turning him onto his back, Mr Heslop said.

Bravery “kicked out towards Ms Mastalerz”, hitting her in the thigh, the court heard. He also “clawed across” Ms McKinlay’s face, leaving her with blood dripping down her cheek, the prosecutor said.

Body-worn footage played to the court showed the nurses struggling on the floor with Bravery before other staff rush into the room to help.

A panicked staff member can be heard shouting: “Jesus Christ, do something.”

Ms McKinlay told the court that it was the first time she had been attacked at Broadmoor in her long career.

She said she had restrained Bravery because “we didn’t want him to hurt himself”. She continued: “He was screaming and shouting and kicking. We shouted for assistance.”

Asked about her injuries, the grandmother said: “He attacked my face, he was clawing at my face. My eye and my face were all scratched. In the aftermath I was very shaken.”

Ms McKinlay was taken to hospital for treatment.

Fellow nurse Ms Mastalerz said she started “shouting for help” when Bravery began kicking and scratching. She was left with a bruised thigh, and said it had been a “very stressful situation”.

Finding Bravery guilty of both charges, chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said that Bravery “went too far”. He adjourned sentencing until 8 January, and asked for an update on Bravery’s current mental health condition.

In 2020, Bravery was jailed for another 14 weeks after admitting attacking Broadmoor Hospital staff. He punched nursing assistant Sarah Edwards in the head and face before pulling her hair, and bit Maxwell King, a rehabilitation therapist assistant, on his finger after he came to his colleague’s aid.

MTG goes on rant about Charlie Kirk, Republican men and her resignation

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a lengthy screed about Republican men and the threats she faces as a political figure, after someone suggested she stay in office.

The firebrand congresswoman has broken from the Republican Party on several major issues in recent months, a split that culminated in a falling out with President Donald Trump. In a shock announcement last week, Greene said she plans to step down in January after enduring years of personal attacks and threats.

On Tuesday afternoon, in response to one of Greene’s (Twitter) X posts, right-wing internet personality Mike Cernovich insisted she rethink her resignation. “You need to serve out your full term,” he wrote.

She responded with a tirade Wednesday, defending her decision to resign and alluding to the dangers of being an outspoken political figure in 2025.

“Oh I haven’t suffered enough for you while you post all day behind a screen? Do I have to stay until I’m assassinated like our friend Charlie Kirk. Will that be good enough for you then?” she wrote, referring to the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder’s assassination in September.

“S*** posting on the internet all day isn’t fighting. Get off YOUR ass and run for Congress. I fought harder than anyone in the real arena, not social media. Put down your little pebbles and put your money where your mouth is,” Greene wrote.

An hour later, she posted a screenshot of that tweet and continued her thought — this time taking aim at “Republican men.”

“Typical of Republican men telling a woman to ‘shut up get back in the kitchen and fix me something to eat.’ F*** you in the sweetest most southern drawl I can enunciate,” she wrote.

“I have been trying tell all you ‘men’ that our kitchen pantry is empty with spider webs, our house has been ransacked, the windows and doors are broken and busted, and the greedy rich bastards have twisted your minds into a sick state that you all continue in the two party toxic political system that acts like college football playoffs yet is burying you and your children and their children and their children in a pine box in a shallow grave,” Greene continued.

“Get off your ass and fix your own damn food and clean up the kitchen when you’re done,” she concluded.

Greene has represented Georgia’s 14th congressional district since 2021. For years, she was a staunch MAGA ally of Trump, touting his “America First” policies and even promoting his 2020 election fraud claims. Trump, in turn, called her a “future Republican star” and “real winner.”

In recent months, the GOP congresswoman has publicly broken with her party over the war in Gaza, health care subsidies, and the handling of the Epstein files.

Perhaps most detrimental to her relationship with the president, Greene was one of just four Republicans to sign the discharge petition to force a vote on a bill to release the Epstein files, inciting Trump’s wrath. The president dubbed her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene” and said he was withdrawing his endorsement of her.

Once the discharge petition garnered the final signature, Trump reversed course on the legislation and encouraged members of Congress to support it. The Epstein Files Transparency Act then swiftly passed both chambers of Congress and the president signed it into law.

Despite the victory on the bill she fought hard to pass, Greene announced her decision to resign days later. In her resignation statement, she alluded to the president’s insult.

“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States, whom I fought for,” she said.

In her time in Congress, Greene has endured “nonstop, never-ending personal attacks, death threats, lawfare, ridiculous slander and lies about me,” she added. “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”

Newcastle ordeal shows police and Uefa have not learnt lesson of Paris

After 39 fans lost their lives at Heysel in 1985, a perception began to take hold that English football supporters were hooligans. This blanket stereotype should have expired before the turn of the millennium. Instead, 40 years on from that tragic day in Brussels, it has become transgenerational.

Travelling Newcastle supporters are the latest to endure the trauma. The club will issue an official complaint to Uefa over the treatment of its fans following the team’s Champions League defeat in Marseille, when they were allegedly attacked by batons and pepper-sprayed by the French authorities in a bid to subdue the seemingly cooperative away contingent who were trying to get back to their hotels. The Independent has reached out to Uefa for comment.

The supporters, moving in groups of 500 at a time, were said to be waiting “patiently and without incident” as they were held in the Stade Velodrome for up to an hour to ensure their safety when leaving the stadium. But after the first group was released, police began to “indiscriminately assault” supporters to stop the remainder of the fans from moving any further. Visible fan distress led to “crushing becoming apparent” in the upper concourse area of the away sector – an incredibly dangerous situation that, as history has taught us, can turn fatal.

“We will be calling on Uefa, Olympique de Marseille and local authorities to formally investigate this matter to ensure lessons are learned and this behaviour is not repeated,” a Newcastle statement read. Such a plea has been made before. But this four-decade-old problem feels no closer to being solved.

The apparent need to show “unruly” English fans the iron fist began to fester in the aftermath of the Heysel disaster. Ahead of the 1985 European Cup final, contested between Liverpool and Juventus, 39 fans died and 600 were left injured in a crush after a wall collapsed. While abject failures in crowd management and poor stadium design were at the heart of the disaster, there was a widespread belief that Liverpool fans were solely responsible, and that the crush had been the culmination of crowd disorder sparked by Reds supporters crossing a fence separating them from a neutral stand that contained mostly Juventus fans.

Fourteen were later found guilty of manslaughter and jailed. It resulted in English clubs being banned from Europe for five years, and fuelled the notion that there was a problem of English hooliganism on the continent.

That reputation stands to this day, and has effectively become the knee-jerk justification for European authorities – most prevalently the French police – to subject fans to unnecessary and disproportionate force. This actively ignores the systemic negligence of the authorities at play, heightening fan danger and hindering progress.

On the 40th anniversary of Heysel earlier this year, The Independent spoke to Professor Clifford Stott of Keele University, a specialist in crowds and policing and the co-author of the independent report that delved into the chaotic scenes at the 2022 Champions League final in Paris. Probed about the persistent tendency to blame hooliganism for this sort of incident, he said: “It is completely useless as a narrative to help us to understand the nature of the problem. What we’re dealing with isn’t hooligans, it’s crowd management, crowd dynamics and crowd psychology.”

Liverpool fans were famously embroiled in pre-match troubles involving Paris police ahead of the Champions League final in May 2022, when police funnelled supporters into a bottleneck near the Stade de France that was not fit for purpose. Crowds inevitably began to overwhelm the police, which led to the use of teargas. Ticketless supporters were then blamed for the ordeal by French authorities before an independent report exonerated the fans and confirmed the police’s responsibility in the ordeal.

Manchester United fans were also teargassed by French police last season – this time in Lyon, after their Europa League quarter-final first leg. The post-match scenes were nearly identical to what was seen in Marseille, with the local authorities claiming that the measures were “proportionate” given the need to restore calm.

However, these incidents of rogue, excessive policing do not adhere to the Saint-Denis Convention – the legislation ratified by the Council of Europe in 2016 that effectively set the framework for how major sporting events should be managed across the board. On paper, this was the solution to years of toil undertaken in the effort to make football universally safe; to prevent future disasters or cases of crowd mismanagement. But its essence – the requirement for international police cooperation around each and every event that goes beyond country lines – was, and evidently still is, idealistic, as well as massively difficult to implement.

“The ideal situation is the policy agreements that were reached in 2016, and they’re still not being realised,” adds Stott, who notes that a trend has emerged in the case of France. “There is a common pattern of the Saint-Denis Convention not being adhered by some countries and one of them is France.”

With English fans still faced with the prospect of peril every time they cross the Channel, football remains tasked with putting into practice the lessons the game has learnt – and written into law. Stott believes that vast improvements could be seen if Uefa took a more hands-on approach to regulating match policing in its competitions. “It’s really their failure to oversee the delivery of the safety and security operations in these locations that lies at the heart of the problem,” he says.

But, as demonstrated in Marseille, progress isn’t being made, and the same problems keep cropping up. There is still so much work that needs to be done to ensure the safety of travelling supporters, because with every one of these incidents, disaster is a potential outcome.

I’m with William. Every woman I know wants a wife to run the show

Behind every average man there’s an even better wife,” said Prince William this week. He was visiting a youth centre in Wales and talking to a young man who’d overcome some life challenges with the support of his good woman. Oh, how the two chuckled together about their lovely ladies – and it really wound me up.

Not because it was patronising, or a bit of a sexist, old-fashioned thing to say, but because I want one, too. You no longer have to be a straight man or a lesbian to see the advantages of having a wife: all the single women I know would prefer one to a husband any day. And most of the ones who are married to men, too. Forget sex: what we’re after is more of a platonic lifestyle arrangement; a logistical, day-to-day domestic solution to the problems of being alive, in which a woman not only brings money into the partnership but also does all the emotional labour.

Alright, so the desire for men is also there among my friends and me, but expressed in far less swooning terms. “Yeah, I’d like to meet someone,” we say, when discussing the possibility of a nice man on the horizon. But, “Ohhh, I’d love a wife,” we sigh.

One married friend with enough on her plate has a policy of simply hiring a woman to do every job her husband has promised and failed to do around their house. She’s given up asking him and is paying skilled females instead. “And I’m loving it. But it almost feels like cheating on him.”

I just want to be able to constantly use the classic excuse, “You didn’t ask me to do that!” along with a surprised face, when there’s something that needs to be done that hasn’t been done. Thereby putting my wife in the role of household manager, with the further role of organising and nagging about the work, as well as doing most of it. Unpaid, of course!

Richard Branson’s beloved wife, Joan Templeman, who has sadly died after 50 years of marriage, was the endlessly supportive and loving glue that kept the Branson home and family together. “Everybody needs a Joan,” he said – and he was right. You don’t have to fancy women to feel that you’d really like to take a turn at being an average man, as Prince William himself put it, rather than being pushed into all the additional, relentless effort of being the “even better” wife.

I think about how much time I’d have if I were the parent the school never phones; who isn’t contacted even if their child is in hospital, not until the school have at least tried the mother, the grandmother and the woman who lives next door. Or if, by simply making macaroni cheese one night a week and doing a Saturday trip to the swimming pool, I could get praised for being “so hands-on”.

I want to have the ability to think how strange it is that sometimes the bathmat is dirty and sometimes it is clean, without stopping to wonder whether someone, somewhere, might be putting it in the washing machine. Maybe there are even two bathmats? Remarkable! That’s surely some even better woman business. That’s not on me!

In fact, I want never to spend any of my money on nonsense like towels, cushions, or other nice house things that magically appear, so that instead I can buy things I want, like a really expensive bike with 46 gears that I will use approximately twice. And then tell my wife that she really needs to overcome her shopping habit.

A recent headline about the city’s new mayor in the New York Post read: “How Zohran Mamdani’s aloof wife, Rama Duwaji, quietly steered his campaign from behind the scenes.” Women online started responding with things like, “If you’re a good-looking, kind and hot guy and want an aloof wife who can quietly steer you to success from behind the scenes – I am available.”

This was entertaining, but not my own thought process, and I say this as someone who finds Mamdani extremely appealing. My instant reaction was: so how can I get an aloof wife for myself? Someone who steers my career, encourages me when I’m down but provides endless advice on how to get myself higher? Yet stays behind the scenes, so all the fame belongs to me?

Clearly, I’m still a little hazy on the details of where to find such a wife, or how the recruitment process would work, but that can be ironed out at a later stage. (By my future wife, with her ironing board.) And I’m not entirely sure what would be in it for them, these wives we’re looking for, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped the patriarchy thus far. So let’s make this system fairer. Even Better Wives for all, I say!

Cruise through Cajun Country on this unforgettable Louisiana road trip

A circular route from New Orleans takes you north along the Mississippi through Louisiana’s River Parishes to Baton Rouge. Loop through Lafayette and Houma on Highway 90, before returning to New Orleans. Whilst the 300-mile road trip can be done in a week, a fortnight or more best suits the southern laidback spirit to truly discover treasures along the way.

Best planned for early spring, when Louisiana jumps to its feet with music festivals and parties, or in the calmer autumn months when food festivals, gumbo cook-offs, and fall colours light up the oak-lined avenues. Here’s what not to miss en route…

New Orleans gives main character energy, even though the state capital, Baton Rouge, sits just 80 miles west along the river. Start the journey here with a day (or night) lost in the French Quarter, where lacy iron balconies and pastel facades are the backdrop to Jackson Square street performers and jazz music on every corner. Grab a coffee and oh-so-light powdered sugar beignet at Café du Monde, to fuel exploration of the city’s great cultural institutions, such as The National WWII Museum or the evocative Historic Voodoo Museum. Ride the St. Charles Streetcar past moss-draped oaks and stately mansions in the Garden District, or explore the city by foot to find your own adventure.

For a quirky day trip, drive across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway – the world’s longest continuous bridge over water, according to the Guinness World Records – to find Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs; a curious folk-art installation of animated miniature towns and oddities from the mind of local inventor, John Preble.

Follow the Mississippi River north towards Baton Rouge, with a few stops en route. Explore Houmas House Estate and Gardens: once one of the largest sugar plantations in the country, visitors can now dine at one of the many restaurants and take guided tours showcasing the extensively-restored manor house and expansive gardens. Whitney Plantation, about 30 miles downriver gives a heartbreaking and evocative account of enslavement, and visiting these two plantations gives a sense of how both sides lived.

Baton Rouge emerges like a stately figurehead, rocking on the porch at the top of the Great River Road. A hub for art, music and politics, Baton Rouge is also a food mecca with fine dining, soul food, and the Red Stick Farmers Market – filled with homemade goods on the weekend. The gothic inspired Old State Capitol museum wouldn’t look out of place in a medieval fairytale, whilst climbing the current State Capitol building’s tower unravels views of the Mississippi river snaking through the landscape below.

Drive 55 miles westward, and find yourself in Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge – halfway along Interstate 10. The conservation area protects over 15,000 acres of hardwood forest and swamp habitat; spot alligators paddling through the bayous riverways, bird watch for woodpeckers, wrens and warblers, or just take in the impressive scenery.

Follow the sound of zydeco music down the Interstate to the dance halls of Lafayette. The heart of Cajun and Creole country, Lafayette is the ultimate place to tap your feet to this blend of French accordion and Afro-Caribbean beats. Louisiana’s French history is very much alive, as French conversations linger in the porchlight or come to life in Vermilionville folk museum, the re-creation of a 19th-century Acadiana village. Lafayette is also a food lover’s paradise. Try spicy boudin sausage from a roadside meat market, feast on gumbo as dark as a bayou at dusk, or savor po’boys and crawfish étouffée stew at a local café.

U.S. Highway 90 takes you southeast to the coastal wetlands of Houma. If you like it spicy, make a stop off in New Iberia and follow the pepper-scented air to Avery Island, home to the world’s only Tabasco factory and the botanical Jungle Garden of conservationist and hot sauce founder, Edward Avery McIlhenny.

As you travel further south, sing along with the southern leopard frogs on a guided swamp tour, spot another alligator, or drop into Houma’s Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum to hear the story of shrimpers, oystermen, and how this slice of coastline has been shaped by cultural, industrial and ecological events.

With a suitcase full of memories and joie de vivre, head back to New Orleans. Every mile offers a detour worth taking; from the turbulent history and uplifting music, to watery labyrinths and astounding swamp wildlife. A Louisiana road trip invites you to slow down and enjoy a journey into the true Deep South.

For more travel inspiration and information visit Explore Louisiana

Man arrested over Manchester synagogue terror attack

A man has been arrested in connection with the Heaton Park synagogue attack after arriving on a flight at Manchester airport, police said.

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said the man, aged 31, was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.

He is the seventh person to be arrested in connection with the terrorist attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester, on 2 October.

Worshippers Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed after Jihad Al-Shamie, a Syrian-born UK citizen, drove his Kia Picanto into the gates of the synagogue and then began attacking with a knife, wearing a fake suicide belt.

Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by armed police.

Three other men were treated in hospital for serious injuries following the attack.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, who holds operational responsibility for Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said: “At around midday today, officers from Counter Terrorism Policing North West arrested a 31-year-old man in connection with the appalling terrorist attack that took place at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue.

“The man was arrested at Manchester airport after arriving on an inbound flight and has been taking into custody for questioning.

“The loved ones of Mr Daulby and Mr Cravitz have been updated on this development, as have those who were seriously injured in the attack.

“Our investigation is continuing, and I would once again appeal for anyone with information that they think could assist our enquiries to please come forward.

“We are also still seeking to identify and speak to anyone who was present at the time of the incident or the immediate aftermath so that we can ensure they have access to all the welfare support options that are available to witnesses.”

A 30-year-old man arrested on 9 October on suspicion of failing to disclose information contrary to S38B of the Terrorism Act 2000 remains on bail, police said.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has information is asked to contact police via the Major Incident Public Portal or by calling 0161 856 3946.

Amol Rajan is certifiably clever. Does he need to let everybody know?

Winter is a time when cleverness pops up again: the Reith Lectures return to Radio 4, and BBC Two’s Quizzy Monday reaches its zenith, with the finals of Only Connect (which I have competed in) and University Challenge (which I have not). And Simon Callow will pop up in some form or other to casually recite the entirety of Dickens for Christmas.

On Thursday’s Today programme, it was Amol Rajan’s turn, interviewing Oxford don Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst – a name arguably in search of a professorship – about how to rebuild the habit of reading after you’ve totally fallen out of love with it. The professor had a poem he’d brought in (and sent in advance) to show just how fun reading can be: “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams.

“And I’m going to try and do a close reading,” said Amol, puppyishly. No, the professor insisted, Amol would read it and the don would offer his own comments. “I might offer some comments as well,” Amol said.

A little can go a long way with the ubiquitous Rajan. Still, his enthusiasm for analysis was delightful – and even more so once he’d finished a rather breathless fact dump about sibilance in Paradise Lost’s Book 9, and started just enjoying himself. By the time the professor had obligingly said, “Give that man a first!” you could feel Rajan’s beam of pride warming the chill November morning across the airwaves.

There are so many types of cleverness, of intelligence. Whether it’s street smarts, a professorship, or doing the cryptic crossword in less than 15 minutes, cleverness is usually worn lightly.

The question, really, is if you are clever, should you show it off? Just as Nancy Mitford had her words that were U and non-U, an enthusiasm for geekery, learning and education full stop was, for some time, seen as deeply uncool. But then, too, some like to throw references in as tests. Just as Mitford had her words that were U and non-U, so little references can appear, whether to combat low self-confidence or make it clear that their education was really, really great. Really, it’s a class thing. Forget dog-whistling – this is snob-whistling. It is a way of pulling up the drawbridge to the ivory tower and throwing the key in the moat. This is regrettably rather sad and usually English; the equivalent of an American twentysomething who peaked at high school, only this time, during three years at Oxford or Cambridge.

As the good prof said on Today, “We tend to think that reading is a skill we acquire once and then do automatically, like learning to ride a bicycle. The truth is, we are learning to read all the time.” Using cleverness as a social trap is just as middle-middle as pronouncing your surname Bouquet rather than Bucket. It suggests that you stopped being interested in the world, in learning, around the time you handed in a dissertation or finished your finals.

I consulted one of the most collegiate Brain Trusts I know: my WhatsApp group of former Only Connect contestants. Three years after our teams competed on the show, we do pub quizzes together and have Christmas drinks. Predictably, for a group with 39 people considerably smarter than me, they had some useful things to say: 1) that playing up intellect is less socially acceptable than other areas ( “No one apologises for winning a football tournament”) but also that showing off brains can be on a par with showing off about lavish holidays or the difficulty of finding a cleaner. You need to know your audience.

One of our gang shared a newspaper clipping about his graduating from university at 18. When asked by the paper how he did it, he said at the time (I have to stress, aged 18), “I was lucky enough not to have to work too hard.” So yes, why not be a show off? Or, as he phrased it cheerfully, and with the benefit of some 30 years of reflection: “Being a bit of a d***head.”

Of course, the fear of “being a bit of a d***head” or worse, “thinking you’re all that” means that people with more self-confidence than qualifications risk running away with the story. See how Boris Johnson charmed the country by waffling his way through some Latin, and then utterly destroyed it during the pandemic. The book on Shakespeare that he was supposed to publish in 2016 remains unwritten – probably because top-level smarts and deep work are not at all the same thing.

That timing chimes with the UK’s concerted swing against brainboxes since Brexit. From Michael Gove’s infamous line during the referendum, “We’ve had enough of experts”– gosh, how well that’s played out – to the Daily Mail labelling three senior justices as “Enemies of the State” for pursuing the rule of law. Last week’s Covid inquiry report revealed the tragedy of an incompetent, panicked government ignoring experts and science by delaying lockdown, and sentencing tens of thousands of Britons to death. Johnson, again, is at the heart of it. If he hadn’t shown off his cleverness, the public might never have succumbed to his charm and been so utterly damaged by it.

So, let’s hear it for intelligence: knowing when to apply knowledge, having the empathy to see how it could best be applied, and getting Amol Rajan to wax lyrical about sibilance before 7.45am. We all need to pay closer attention because, truly, the smartest thing is to appreciate how much you still have to learn. And, whatever happens to the BBC, let’s pray nothing touches Radio 4.

Of course, the greatest risk is that by showing off your cleverness, you reveal you’re not all that clever at all. As we can only pray that Johnson may one day learn, it is better to keep your mouth shut and appear a fool than open it and remove all doubt.