Lara Prendergast

The battle between the spooks and the geeks is heating up. A new report into the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby has suggested that the brutal attack could have been prevented if an internet company (which remains unnamed in the report) had allowed online exchanges between the two killers to be accessed by intelligence services. While the 191-page report suggests that both MI5 and MI6 made errors, the real villains to emerge are the US-based web giants. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who chaired the report, has suggested that internet companies are 'providing a safe haven for terrorists'. The report says: ‘What is clear is that the one party which could have made a difference was the company on whose system the exchange took place.

It was never clear why George Clooney became so attached to the Elgin Marbles. He didn’t even seem to know where they were from when he delivered his plea to the British Museum earlier this year: ‘They’ve had a very nice stay here, certainly. London’s gotten crowded. There’s plenty of room back there in Greece. England can take the lead on this kind of thing – letting art go back where it came from. The Greeks are nothing but generous. They would loan it back once in a while.’ ‘Even in England, the polling is in favour of returning the marbles to the Pantheon [sic].

When I think back to history lessons at school, the predominant focus was always on war. From the Battle of Hastings to the Battle of Agincourt, the Crusades to Nazi Germany, the curriculum seemed jammed full of stories about aggressive military affairs. Fascinating, but it was a relief to reach sixth form and discover another way to study the past — through a cultural lens, via the history of art. History of art is often viewed derisively in the UK. It’s almost ignored by the state system, yet is offered by many independent schools. Because of this, it’s seen as a ‘posh’ choice, in much the same way classics is. A--level history of art is available at only 17 state secondary schools out of more than 3,000, plus a further 15 sixth-form colleges.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3" title="Isabel Hardman, Emma Barnett and Jamie Bartlett discuss the leaked photos" startat=1312] Listen [/audioplayer]Nobody wants naked photos of themselves leaked across the internet so a global network of creeps can beat off to them. But celebs and plebs alike are increasingly confronted by this unsavoury reality. Whether it’s anonymous hackers or enraged ex-boyfriends who post the images, the story is the same: women are being let down by their ignorance of the pitfalls of technology. You should be able to take naked photos of yourself.

The leader of Rotherham Council has resigned following the results of a report which found that at least 1,400 children were victims of ‘appalling’ sexual exploitation in the town during a sixteen year period. The report details the ‘blatant’ collective failures during most of Roger Stone’s leadership. Professor Alexis Jay, a former senior social worker who wrote the latest report, described how children had been ‘set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone’. The report suggests that Rotherman Council and the police knew about the level of exploitation but did not act.

New powers to tackle the huge growth in 'legal' highs are set to be introduced. Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, is said to be pushing for the most radical move, a blanket ban on all psychoactive substances. My heart sinks. Do those at the top of government really think that a blanket ban will solve the problem? The evidence doesn't suggest so: prohibition very rarely reduces drug use. So why do they think that an even more extreme level of prohibition will help? New varieties of 'legal' high will be invented and put on sale on the internet. Many of these drugs are already imported from foreign websites, and it's hard to see how this ban can stop this from happening.

The Department of Education has published a damning report today which suggests there was an ‘aggressive Islamist agenda’ pursued in a number of the ‘Trojan horse’ schools in Birmingham. Peter Clarke, a former counter-terror chief, published the report, which found evidence of a coordinated plan to impose strict Islamic teaching on pupils. Michael Gove, the former Education Secretary commissioned the report.

In the Independent this week, Yvette Cooper suggested that British boys should grow up as ‘confident feminists’. They need to have lessons in feminism to help them learn how to treat women, she argued. But school shouldn’t be a place where you indoctrinate pupils to believe a particular ideology. And feminism, for all its admirable achievements in the 20th century, is an ideology. Compulsory sex education in which boys are taught to be feminists is beyond silly. By all means explain that they shouldn’t go round lifting up girls' skirts for a peek, but it’s possible to do this without telling them they must call themselves feminists. They might not like that kind of prescription. Schoolboys do tend to be a bit… truculent.

Uh oh. The ‘all-women shortlist’ is again being touted as a good idea for the Conservatives, this time by Nicky Morgan, the new women’s minister. When asked about using shortlists to increase the number of female MPs, she told a Mumsnet chat: ‘I do think the big issue is we just aren't getting enough women coming forward (which is an issue for all Parties). I think we need to see where we end up in 2015 and if we are still struggling to get more women MPs then no option is off the table.’ In response, a senior Conservative has said that quotas are ‘categorically not an option’. Why can’t people like Morgan see that an all-women shortlist (or any form of social engineering) is a bad idea?

Oh come on internet. Pull yourself together. Michael Fabricant has tweeted about punching a woman and people are going mad. It’s a silly thing to tweet, but does anyone doubt that? It’s simply hyperbole, flounce, floridity. That’s sometimes what it takes to get noticed on Twitter. Plenty of people are guilty of this trope. Let’s not pay them too much attention. But let’s not also drag this out into a discussion about violence against women. Victims of abuse must find this sort of storm very frustrating – I imagine most men who actually punch women probably don’t tweet about it.