Most 21st-century Van Morrison albums haven’t made headlines, says Ryan Walsh in the Los Angeles Times. His new one has: Latest Record Project, Vol 1 is a 28-track double album filled with not-so-veiled conspiracy theories and lyrics widely interpreted as anti-Semitic. A song called They Own the Media goes: “They control the narrative, they perpetuate the myth/Keep on telling you lies, tell you ignorance is bliss.” The white nationalist-tinged Western Man explains how the titular protagonist has let shadowy others “steal his rewards”.
This didn’t come out of nowhere. Morrison, 75, has long been a “boozy-uncle type” with a paranoid distrust of the music industry. Last autumn he released three anti-lockdown songs raging against “fascist bullies” and scientists “making up crooked facts”. But this latest album might not kill off his career entirely: it’s been a hit on the alt-right 4Chan message board.
DC’s cringeworthy texts leave him in the 💩
The texts, emails and WhatsApp messages David Cameron has been forced to release by a lobbying inquiry are “cringeworthy” and embarrassing, says Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph. “See you with Rishi for an elbow bump or foot tap. Love Dc,” read one message to a civil servant. These “clumsy attempts at youthspeak” are a more egregious act of cultural appropriation than Justin Bieber’s dreadlocks. Even worse, Cameron seems to think Rishi Sunak is cool. “The man wears an ironed hoodie, for pity’s sake. Tom Hardy he most certainly ain’t.”