Helen Lewis

"Crooks and frauds are attracted to MAGA because it's a place that it's 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 to be cancelled from."

'Weird sex poems' and a 'digital affair' - why has no one in MAGA blinked at RFK Jr.’s new sex scandal?

@maitlis.bsky.social | @jonsopel1.bsky.social | @helenlewis.bsky.social

He makes a big deal out of his MPhil (he literally just posted a picture of it on X) and his trading experience, so it seems reasonable to say he's partially making an argument from authority. That makes the authority worth scrutinising.

Gary Stevenson claims to have been the best trader in the world. His old colleagues disagree What is the truth behind the inequality campaigner’s Citigroup memoir?

I would treat his claimed expertise with caution: www.ft.com/content/7e8b...

Yes, his name occurred to me -- he was a finalist for the NS/Speri prize, as was Wolfgang Streeck.

Mariana Mazzucato on state-led innovation, Simon Wren-Lewis (who advised Corbyn for a bit)... Kate Pickett (not an economist but working in the area). I thought James Meadway, ex-Corbyn, was also helping him develop policy.

This is a very good example of how the best interview questions are rarely hostile.

Olivia Nuzzi’s Tell-Nothing Memoir Can American Canto turn scandal into literature?

New by me: "The only person in this story with real power is RFK Jr., and he is—I cannot believe I am typing this sentence—maintaining a dignified silence. He doesn’t need to 'reclaim the narrative' because he’s too busy helping kids catch measles."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

YouTube video by TheHollowShrine Devs - Lyndon Falls (Aubade)

Delighted to report that my years of relentless pro-Larkin proselytising helped get Aubade into the TV series Devs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP4y...

Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec 1), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: “If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?” With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of “adjuvant systemic chemotherapy”, and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients’ survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL

Amazing letter in The Times (also an unbelievable play fwiw)

They said it couldn't be done!

Olivia Nuzzi’s Tell-Nothing Memoir Can American Canto turn scandal into literature?

New by me: "The only person in this story with real power is RFK Jr., and he is—I cannot believe I am typing this sentence—maintaining a dignified silence. He doesn’t need to 'reclaim the narrative' because he’s too busy helping kids catch measles."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

ah so you haven’t read it, got you

man, it would be SO embarrassing if the piece discussed the Khashoggi case and you just hadn’t read it before posting

Is social media just...boring now? Social media is destroying democracy and accelerating idiocracy. But it's also just...really, really boring.

I wrote about how and why social media has largely become boring and why it's a bad idea to eat your own brain: www.forkingpaths.co/p/is-social-...

Yeah, I know, I know.

As I say in the piece, public beheadings are no longer done. Also the comedians couldn’t “say what they liked” — that was very much the point of the piece. They agreed not to mock religion or the royals.

Worth reading. And contemplating.

"This, to me, was the greatest irony of the Riyadh Comedy Festival. With its Cheesecake Factory outlets and newfound interest in comedy, Saudi Arabia is becoming more American—just as America is becoming more Saudi."

I mean, Jes Staley‘s friendship with Epstein was tolerated for many years until the bad publicity became overwhelming. And you know, I’m personally *proud* that the left (specifically feminism) has led on ending the culture of turning a blind eye to powerful men being sex pests 🤷‍♀️

It wasn’t a joke, though, it was ragebait. And this post is not a sincere clarification but an invitation to your followers to tell you that you were actually right all along, and you’ve been unfairly traduced—not least by framing me as “angry” when I was very polite.

Yeah; he was outed as a sex pest by the NYT, which is leftwing — plus, very clearly the right does not cancel people for being sex pests, cf the current US president. So it was a leftwing cancellation. That doesn’t mean it was wrong, which I think people are assuming was implied.

You've lost me here, I'm afraid.

Hey, if I write something dumb feel free to call it out. All I ask is that you read the piece first!

Yeah, I really went easy on Louis CK here. There’s no way you actually read the piece, is there? (Or, I’m guessing, any of my articles on the Epstein case.)

How Many Comedians Does It Take to Change a Country? What it’s like to watch Louis C.K. do stand-up in Saudi Arabia

"Sometimes you have to ask yourself: How did I get here—sitting in Saudi Arabia, listening to Louis C.K. do jokes about Barely Legal magazine?"

I went to Riyadh to see the transformation of a country with the world's biggest cultural chequebook. Gift link:

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I know. I can't believe Jonathan didn't want to wingman. Something about "having a job of my own, thank you"

How Many Comedians Does It Take to Change a Country? What it’s like to watch Louis C.K. do stand-up in Saudi Arabia

Why, yes, @helenlewis.bsky.social did go to the Riyadh Comedy Festival

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

How Many Comedians Does It Take to Change a Country? What it’s like to watch Louis C.K. do stand-up in Saudi Arabia

"Sometimes you have to ask yourself: How did I get here—sitting in Saudi Arabia, listening to Louis C.K. do jokes about Barely Legal magazine?"

I went to Riyadh to see the transformation of a country with the world's biggest cultural chequebook. Gift link:

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I deleted it because the conversation it generated was ill-informed and not productive. I stand by the sentiments completely & will happily repeat them in a better forum. This violent misogynist should never have been put in a women’s prison. All the best, Stu.

Enjoying myself imagining the thousand yard stares that all the four star generals must be greeting this with