Way of the World

Carol Vorderman, the former Countdown maths whiz, has been telling viewers of ITV’S This Morning about her love life. It sounds quite remarkable. At the age of 62, she’s dating no fewer than five different men – all at the same time.

Personally, I say good luck to her. She’s free to live however she likes. And polyamory, as this type of arrangement is known, is said to be a very fashionable trend.

My concerns are purely practical. Because from an admin point of view, dating so many different men – or, as Ms Vorderman calls them, “special friends” – must be a nightmare.

For example, how do you decide which special friend gets to take you out for dinner on Valentine’s Day? Do you make them draw lots? Or do you keep a league table, which you update every week, awarding points to each special friend for romantic gestures, chivalry, remembering to put the lavatory seat down, and so on? Then the prize of taking you out on Valentine’s Day can be awarded to whichever special friend is top of the table the week before. Perhaps that’s the fairest system. And, as any free marketeer will attest, competition does drive up results.

To keep all five special friends happy, though, I assume you would have to go on an equal number of dates with each. The trouble is, it must be hard to remember whose turn it is to take you out next. To ensure you don’t forget, do you schedule them into your kitchen calendar, like council bin collections? (“Let’s see.

This week it’s recycling, garden waste, and Ian the management consultant. Next week is main bin, food waste, and Colin the cardiologist.”)

Another challenge would be your birthday party. Do you invite all five special friends?

Or, to avoid awkwardness, jealousy, brawls, etc, do you throw five separate birthday parties, and invite a different special friend to each one? The latter plan would probably be safer, but somewhat expensive, not to mention tiring. Especially for all your other, non-special friends, being obliged to set aside five consecutive nights just to celebrate your birthday.

Then there’s Christmas to worry about, the five separate summer holidays to book, the endless relationship anniversaries… This polyamory business can’t be easy. All credit to Carol Vorderman. I don’t know how she manages to fit all these men in. Thank goodness she’s got a head for numbers.

Just over the road from the offices of The Guardian, the noble standard-bearer of the modern Left, stands a huge branch of Waitrose. I’ve often wondered which of the two was built first. Did The Guardian

decide to build its offices as close as possible to a Waitrose, in order to ensure that its staff would always have ready access to Waitrose Essential vermicelli nests, cappuccino mousse, flageolet beans and organic quinoa flour? Or did Waitrose decide to open a branch as close as possible to The Guardian’s offices, in order to ensure a constant flow of loyal customers?

Either way, I just hope Waitrose’s takings aren’t down this week. Because after the distressing news that broke on Wednesday, some of The Guardian’s

executives may be off their food.

Last year, The Guardian decided to produce a podcast investigating a 19th-century business tycoon’s links to the slave trade. Nothing unusual there, you might think. Except that the 19th-century tycoon in question is John Edward Taylor – the man who founded The Guardian.

Cancelling its own founder. Surely nothing could be more Guardian

than that. But the story grows more extraordinary still. Because, according to a report on Wednesday by Deadline, an American news website, three of the podcast’s producers have claimed that The Guardian lacked “any serious desire” to “face and interrogate its own historic role”, and was trying to “whitewash history”. They have therefore accused the newspaper of “institutional racism” and “editorial whiteness”. On top of that, they complained that they’d been subjected to “microaggressions” and “colourism”.

In response, a Guardian spokesman insisted that the podcast will not “pull any punches”, and said the newspaper was “disappointed” that the producers had chosen to give such a “partial reflection” of their time at The Guardian. I do sympathise. After all the effort The Guardian has made in recent years to popularise such phrases as “institutional racism”, “microaggressions”, “colourism” and “whiteness”, how galling it must be to have them thrown back in its face. In 1953, after the England football team suffered an unprecedented thrashing at home to Hungary, English pundits were horrified that the sport’s pioneers had been so comprehensively beaten at their own game. I imagine that’s how The Guardian must be feeling right now.

Still, some good may yet come of it. With any luck, The Guardian will now tire of the modern Left’s insufferable obsession with identity politics – and join us in the war on woke.

I for one would welcome this with open arms. Think how glorious it would be. George Monbiot demanding a knighthood for Jeremy Clarkson. Owen Jones accusing Sir Keir Starmer of being dangerously Left-wing. The Tories may have lost the support of Rod Stewart. But perhaps they’ll gain the support of Polly Toynbee.

I just hope The Guardian doesn’t find its offices besieged by furious Left-wing protesters. If they can’t find any statues of Guardian columnists to tear down, I fear they may tear down the Waitrose instead.