Parody

As seen in the New European What is journalism? Is it a craft? A trade? Is it all about ‘Who, what, when, where, why’? To me, journalism is about intelligence-agency-style infiltrations of opposition parties. And so I find myself outside Bow Underground on a rainy Saturday morning, apologetically handing out Reform UK leaflets to hung-over, universally hostile Queen Mary students. It was odd to be canvassing somewhere I’d once researched on Rightmove. Truth be told, when I’d registered my ‘interest’ in volunteering for the party, I’d expected to have been flung to some left-behind hellhole like Clacton, which would give me the chance to doubleup on a semi-ironic at-the-coalface restaurant review for Vittles. Alas.

As seen in the Daily Telegraph I awake with a start and a splitting headache. Where am I? Slowly, the moving shapes take on settled form. I am sprawled on the floor of a double room in a Birmingham Travelodge. The lights are on, the curtain is drawn. There is the smell of Smirnoff Ice and stale poppers in the air. I try to rise, but when I put weight on my hand I wince with pain. Holding my palm up in front of me, I see it’s streaked with gore. Stumbling to my feet, I trip over the sleeping shadow minister for ‘UK Security’. Someone – or something – shifts in the bed. ‘Kemi… dome…’ it moans. I stagger to the bathroom just in time to retch.

As seen on Substack Picture this familiar scene. A young Gen Z woman in the bathroom of a rented flatshare, her puffy eyes brimming with tears. Looking up and down her naked body in the mirror and hyperfixating on every imperfection – moles, hip dips, a smattering of stretchmarks on a plump thigh. Wanting to scratch off every blemish which stops us fitting in with the image of womanhood that the looks-maxxing pornsick algorithm has created for us. Wishing we were perfect like the happy women who only seem to exist on our screens. The sad truth is that this is what me and many of my other Gen Z friends spent the last weekend doing after a video of Sydney Sweeney emerged online. Before we go any further, yes. She’s hot.

As seen in the Guardian It’s the end of the hottest summer in British history, and the business reception at Reform conference is in full swing. Disaster capitalists schmooze with reactionary Cambridge theologians and tech bros over canapés and flutes of prosecco. Presiding over all is a grinning Nigel Farage, face bathed in the lurid purple--pink light of the VIP lounge as he works the crowd. And in a corner is your humble correspondent. I’ve come on short notice, standing in for Anna Isaac, an old Tab chum who has been blocked thanks to her no-holds-barred investigative journalism. My assignment? To lift the stone and find the dark money crawling underneath. And what better place to look than here, where a pact between populism and the private sector is being brokered?

As seen on Substack It is three o’clock on Thursday when Saffie texts me asking to meet up at Blank Street for a Gen Z matcha. I know that she is feeling down because of her struggles with the job search, so I decide to lay my work aside. Without a friend to vent to, she would otherwise spend the rest of the day doomscrolling her Tik-Tok and melting her mind with extreme left propaganda about how multi-millionaire farmers should pay inheritance tax. Saffie’s radiant mother-of-pearl eyes are already brimming with tears when I sit down opposite her. She is wearing a strappy top, with a raincoat slouching off her shoulders, giving frame to her slender clavicle.

As seen in the Daily Telegraph Tis the end of silly season, when those of us who presume to scribe for a living scrape the bottom of the barrel. So we return to Markle, Duchess of Sussex and driver of clicks, summoning up the venom and spewing it over her American habits (shudder). Truth be told, I am not dispositionally opposed to her, partly for raison d’biographie. Having failed to make it to Cambridge on the first attempt, I snuck in as a postgraduate studying for a two-year MPhil. I showed up to my Middle Common Room in a borrowed Old Carthusian tie, a too-big Barbour (‘it belonged to an uncle in the Guards, dear’) and an invented family connection to the ‘Duke of Omnium’.

As seen in the New Statesman I t’s a quarter to midnight on a hot July evening when the text from Andy Burnham comes through: ‘Guess who just messaged me. Susie Wiles. Trump’s chief of fookin’ staff. Get over here right now, Connyboy.’ I murmur an apology to Aditi, asleep beside me, and slip off. I had been advising Burnham on comms in an informal capacity since last year, and this looked to be my biggest assignment yet. In an age of fracturing global order, geopolitics can hinge on a single WhatsApp. I arrive at ‘Camp Burnham’, the suite in the Heathrow Radisson Blu where Andy is preparing for government.

As seen in the Daily Telegraph I am sitting in my living room watching Songs of Praise, when a sudden burning smell assails my nostrils. I leap up from my armchair, deposing my poor delicate bichon frisé Wordsworth from my lap. ‘WILDFIRE,’ I shriek. I had heard the news of thousands being displaced in the South of France, but I never imagined the fires would reach Otford, Kent. Leaving Wordsworth to his fate, I make for the back door in the kitchen, only to discover the real culprit: my toaster, billowing black smoke. Oh heavens, I must have forgotten. Retrieving the two slabs of solid carbon from the now-defunct toaster, I muse on how, even if I hadn’t been about to be consumed by a climate change-induced wildfire, my fear of one raises an important point.

As seen in the New World What are the vibes of Rupert Lowe? That’s the question on my mind as I arrive at his parliamentary office, and find the door ajar. The MP for Great Yarmouth is sitting on a quilted armchair, stock still and staring straight ahead. ‘Um? Hi? Rupert? It’s Claire Holden – you said to pop by at 1?’ Rupert jolts to life. ‘Thank you so much for coming, sit down. No stand up. Actually you should sit yourself down – never could do business with a man I’m not looking at eye to eye.’ ‘Like I always say, a bird in the hand is worth a premium fountain pen’ I gingerly take my seat, notes app ready. ‘So, Rupert. Clearly Andy Burnham will have to deal with the bond markets. And it seems like they have a lot of control over our lives now.

As seen on Substack I was in the middle of a mindless scrolling binge, when Isabella and Tash told me that Keir Starmer was finally going to stand up to the social media companies. I opened the BBC app to check if it was true that the government would be banning harmful content – putting an end to the era of digital commodification, online hatred and violent pornography for good. I let out a little shriek of joy. But this soon turned to a guttural moan, as my friends and I realised that – as young women in our early twenties – we would miss out on these protections since they would be limited to the under-16s. I threw down my phone in disgust, before picking it up again.

As seen in the Telegraph Two thoughts on the sad and controversial death of Henry Nowak. The first is about Kemi. Wow. She really is The One. While Nigel Farage has angrily stomped about, demanding certain laws and policies be changed to stop something like that happening again, Mrs Badenoch instead forensically called for people to be mindful of their language. Mummy has done it again. Little do they know that until 2020 there were no racial tensions in this country at all And here is thought two: I despise Americans, and the Americanisation of our culture. Nowak’s death has opened the floodgates to all sorts of barking, ill-informed commentary from the Yanks about this seat of Mars.