at distraction, if you like. i mean, either borisjohnson is being badly advised or he's being very well advised and he's ignoring the advice. but, whichever it is, he's ending up trying to, as i say, sort of tick—box populist policies to allow some of his potential critics on the backbenches to feel that their hobbyhorse issue is being advanced at the same time as the british public and the activists — the tory activists — can see that he looks a broken man, and those optics, i think, have a much more profound impact than any policy that he might try to put forward in a sort of kneejerk reaction. and helen lewis from the atlantic. i mean, in the sunday papers, various newspapers — the telegraph and sunday times — they were reporting it as a blizzard of crowd—pleasing policies. you know, laura's touched on it but, you know, one of them was the announcement about the bbc licence fee. within a few hours, lo and behold, the culture secretary, nadine dorries, was tweeting