Interns at the Conservative party have been made to take part in “privilege walks” administered by the charity Patchwork Foundation, to shed light on the career advantages that white middle class apparently have, according to The Telegraph. The so-called diversity test forced interns between 2021 and 2022 to line up in a row whilst statements were read to them, if answered yes, they had to take a step forward. Those who walked the longest distance were deemed the “most privileged”…

CCHQ were swift to make known their distance from the oppression obstacle course, with a Conservative spokesman saying: “Patchwork Foundation development days are run alongside, but are separate to, the CCHQ internship.” Luckily the Tories are miles ahead in the polls so there’s plenty of time and energy to waste on this… 

Yesterday afternoon, The Guardian asked for women in the UK to come forward and share their experiences of being “subjected to online misogyny”. Let’s take a look at how some of the 1,553 replies shaped up:

• “Does a pile on started by Owen Jones which ended with a man local to me developing a fixation on me & leaving me scared to leave the house count?” – Victoria Freeman
• “Owen Jones” – Julie Bindel
• “What, even when it involves your columnists?” – Emma Burnell
• “Well I cancelled my Guardian subscription because I was sick and tired of your biased reporting on gender ideology, which endangers women. Does that count?” – FletchFletchington
• “You removed JK Rowling from your list of celebrity birthdays because her support for women’s rights upset the incels in your IT department” – Simon Edge
• “Ask the female journalists you drove out of their jobs. If you can remember what ‘female’ means.” – Sarah Phillimore
• “There was the time a clownish far-Left publication insisted birthing bodies & chestfeeding were ‘inclusive’ terms. Gross.” – Rita Panagi
• “Is this an all staff email?” – Goody TwoShoes
• “You mean Owen Jones? Glad you finally got there.” – Frances Barber
• “Well, there’s this newspaper I used to read every issue of and then they decided to join a misogynist, science denialist cult and now every day I have to see articles from their journalists pretending women aren’t real anymore…” – Shambolic Neutral KPSS
• “How about the time a newspaper referred to women as menstrators? Which paper would insult women so horribly!? Think real hard. Give up? IT WAS YOU!!!” – Laura Marcus
• “Remember those articles you published about the Wi Spa incident, making out women and girls being exposed to a naked sex offender in the changing rooms were bigots?” – Andrea Paterson
• “I’ve had an awful amount of abuse, and a pile on orchestrated by your Owen Jones, who is really quite a horrific nasty bully.” – Red Tory
• “Just look to Owen Jones’s timeline & replies & write an article about that.” – Sall Grover
• “Seeing you get rid of Suzanne Moore and other female writers so you could keep misogynist opinion and misogynists like Owen Jones. You are truly the nastiest most anti-women paper in the UK.” – Lottie Lewis

You get the idea…

Vice Media Group has been forced to announce a new round of staff sackings in light of its ongoing financial struggles and “need to realign toward profitable areas of the business” – not least video content. Last night, the Vice Union tweeted their devastation at the 17 layoffs, “in what has become a macabre annual ritual at this company.” If it’s an annual ritual it begs questions about their continuing shock…

While the layoffs have taken place across the pond, the UK Vice Union branch were quick to extend solidarity to their felled colleagues in the account’s first tweets since May. Before the news of these sackings, the account had last been tweeting about their campaign for “a four day week with no reduction in pay! 🎉”

“This would make us the first major news publisher to adopt a 4 day week. After a long hard year that showed work practices can change without the company imploding, it’s time to rethink how we work. We hope Vice embraces the potential to be a pioneer!”

They were at least correct about it being a “long hard year” for the company. Their diagnosis that Vice had avoided implosion, however, now seem like a very low bar upon which to build such a utopian campaign…