| No Images? Click here   Robert Mugabe has died aged 95, current Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa has confirmed.He wrote on Twitter: “It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe’s founding father and former President, Cde Robert Mugabe.  Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill has been asked to investigate whether Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by conscripting police officers to stand behind him in a piece of “naked electioneering”.The prime minister has been roundly criticised for giving a wandering speech largely focused on Brexit and his demands for a general election at a police training college in Yorkshire on Thursday evening.  Gina Miller has lost a legal challenge in the High Court against Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks ahead of the Brexit deadline.Miller and her team had challenged the legitimacy of the advice the prime minister gave to the Queen before she signed off on his plans to ‘prorogue’ parliament, with Miller’s lawyer calling it “an unlawful abuse of power”.  Emily Thornberry has confirmed Labour will not vote next week for Boris Johnson’s snap general election because the prime minister is a “manifest liar”.Johnson will try for a second time to force an early election on October 15 after MPs rejected his first bid.  Boris Johnson has been warned that a domestic abuse bill originally brought forward by Theresa May is now at risk of falling off the government agenda because of the proroguing (suspension) of parliament.Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird has asked for a commitment from Downing Street to reintroduce the bill, which she says has potential to be a “landmark” piece of legislation for victims if passed.   This month I’ve been rewatching Sex and the City. I’ve just got to the episode where Carrie turns 35 and is unintentionally stood up by all her friends in a restaurant. Later, she talks about how the experience made her realise how alone she really is – in that scene, her best friends nod along and cry with her.My own 35th birthday is fast approaching and, like Carrie, I will probably wake up alone that morning. This is not me being pessimistic, I just couldn’t be more single if I tried.  It’s 2004, and I’m playing in a $2million winner-take-all poker tournament called the Tournament of Champions, and I have two tens, and I have to decide whether to put the last of my remaining chips into the pot and risk getting knocked out. And I’ve already taken fifteen seconds with this decision, and it’s just way too long.See in poker you make these very complex mathematic calculations, these very deep reads of your opponents, and you have to do it all very quickly because there are ten people at this table, and the action needs to keep moving along, so fifteen seconds in poker is an eternity. I was 17 when Steve and I got engaged, and just 20 when we married. Looking back now at my tender age and the 0-to-60 mph speed of our courtship leading up to that diamond ring, I see hints of the mania that would upend my life three decades later. I was in a huge hurry to get through ― and past ― my teens and into a grown-up marriage. Impulsively, I said “I do” to my first real boyfriend and “I don’t” to what had been a chaotic and mostly unhappy childhood. All I wanted was some peace and order. I found both in Steve, and I felt happy and rescued.Once the honeymoon was over, I settled down to a comfortable, drama-free existence. I had never been a fashionista, but during my first few decades as a wife, to say I dressed modestly would be an understatement.  New to this email? You can sign up here.©2019 Oath (UK) | Midcity Place, 71, High Holborn, London WC1V 6EA |
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