Emily Prescott

You will almost certainly have noticed that Taylor Swift is making her way across the UK. Even in the crowded news marketplace – an election, Euro 2024, poorly royals – she is, just by virtue of playing some concerts, consuming a lot of airspace and column inches. We see endless vox popping of her fans, of all ages, gushing about their idol. I can relate to an extent. Like any normal young girl growing up in the 21st century, I sought solace in the music of Taylor Swift. When my heart hurt after I’d found out Ed Bentley had told another girl he loved her on MSN, she soothed me on my iPod nano. I’d listen to her song ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’: ‘I’ll bet she’s beautiful, that girl he talks about / And she’s got everything that I have to live without.

As we are reaching 100mph, I can hear the muted sirens and see blue lights reflecting on gawping onlookers. I’m neither an officer, nor a criminal but I’m in the back of a police car on my way to an incident that apparently involves two men fighting in the middle of a road. I am a celebrity gossip columnist by trade so the only abusive men I deal with are usually the likes of Jeremy Clarkson (via Twitter) and lecherous millionaires (at 5 Hertford Street). I feel scared of what I’ll see when we arrive at the scene, but I have long been curious about the Met – whose misconduct I feel as though I read about on a near daily basis – and curious too about the people who work there. So, a few months ago, I signed up for a ride-along.

Lord Lebedev, the proprietor of The Evening Standard, has been using the paper to wage his own 'major inquiry' into free speech. ‘I’ve donned my body armour and I am ready,’ he wrote in an article launching the campaign. One of Lebedev’s free-speech interviewees was Azealia Banks, the ranty singer. According to Lord Leb, Banks occupies ‘an increasingly rarefied place in the pop pantheon: that of a woman who says it like it is.’  She certainly made good on that claim. In a post-interview social media tirade she called Lebedev by turns ‘a homosexual,’ ‘a Gay Party Boy,’ ‘Evegghead cornball’ and a ‘wannabe James Bond but really serving nothing more than Austin Powers.

In bedrooms across the country, women are wearing £145 sexy silk chemises emblazoned with jewels spelling out the words ‘Ban Space Travel’. This isn’t just a bit tacky or part of a new kink. It’s a sign of growing cynicism around space exploration. (Another item in the same collection, sold by luxury underwear company Bluebella, casually calls for ‘world peace,’ as though the two issues are akin.) Bluebella’s CEO Emily Bendell says the garment, designed by Ashish Gupta, is a ‘cultural statement’. ‘With so many problems here on earth, we have to hold billionaires focused on space exploration to account,’ she says. It is unclear exactly how much holding to account exactly lace-trimmed camisoles can do. But this movement goes far beyond the bedroom.

You might think someone who grew up in the 356-room Belvoir Castle wouldn't be too worried by a traffic fine. But when Lady Eliza Manners was caught speeding, she avoided paying off the full £100 ticket by claiming ‘financial hardship’. And apparently she’s not the only budget-conscious occupant of the Leicestershire property. Her mother Emma, the Duchess of Rutland, recently claimed she shops in Asda. While it might be hard for those on the actual breadline to sympathise with the troubles of the titled and entitled, such states of affairs do stand to some sort of reason.