Seven failed celebrity relationships you're pretty sure you could have patched up

25th January 2024

JENNIFER Lopez and Ben Affleck are already on the rocks even though she’s hot and he’s got an Oscar. Could you have helped these famous couples? Would you even want to?

Cheryl and Ashley Cole

When Ashley Cole cheated on Cheryl most of the male population muttered, ‘You bellend.’ And you suspect Ashley did the same. To salvage things you’d have to do an epic amount of apologising and sign up for some sort of ‘not shagging around’ therapy, but it’s doable. You’d also have to make it up to Cheryl big time, so you’d need to budget £800 for six months’ worth of Celebrations.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams

You probably wouldn’t want to split up someone regularly named as the hottest man in Hollywood, but that’s what happened with Rachel McAdams in 2007. You have literally no idea why they split up, but if it was something like Ryan picking his nose and eating it you’re pretty sure you could turn a blind eye. Ms McAdams didn’t, and now she’s missed out on loads of free Barbie stuff.

Noel Gallagher and Sara MacDonald

Your uninformed speculation reveals that Sara looks nice and they must have split up due to Noel being a moaning egotist who’s constantly twanging out derivative sub-Beatles toss on his guitar. You’d have rescued the relationship in three ways: buying a synth and going in a fresh new musical direction, only listening to Champagne Supernova on headphones, and doing the washing up more often.

Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift

If the gossip is to be believed, Hiddleston and Swift split because he wanted to go public with their romance and she didn’t. Or to put it another way: she’s just not that into you. Because she’s Taylor Swift she holds all the relationship cards, so your best bet would be to literally cling to her leg sobbing and begging her not to leave you, while dropping dark hints about suicide. Not great for your self-esteem, but likely what Hiddy did.

Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson

They got divorced in 2010 and the reason was pretty obviously Ms Johansson’s career going stratospheric. You personally would probably want to continue going out with Ryan as he’s extremely good-looking and your friends would be impressed, which is the main point of a boyfriend. Ryan certainly wouldn’t feel threatened by your crummy office job, unless he’s impressed by you being allowed to eat leftover sandwiches from meetings.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

Burton and Taylor were both quite a catch, but the relationship was dogged by their huge booze intake and Liz’s pill-popping. The obvious solution is cutting down in an achievable way: no cognac or opiates on week nights, then go mad at weekends. You’re no expert on substance abuse, but it probably would have been like this: ‘How are your barbiturates, Richard?’ ‘Lovely. Makes a nice change from neat vodka.’

Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant

The blame for this relationship going Versace-clad tits up lies squarely with Hugh so you’re fairly confident you could have avoided it. Not cheating on Liz wouldn’t even require a massive change to your lifestyle, unless you typically get home from work, get paralytically drunk, hop in the car and weave dangerously around the road while attempting to purchase a blowjob. Actually it’s probably a good idea not to do that even if a future with Liz Hurley isn’t at stake.

Why banning under-16s from using phones and social media would be piss-easy, by the government

25th January 2024

YOUNG people always listen to adults and never want things they are told they can’t have. Here Tory MP Miriam Cates explains how she would make them stick to a smartphone ban.

Ask them nicely

People say we Tories are the nasty party but we’re not, if you ignore everything we’ve done over the last 13 years. So we’ll start by simply asking teenagers nicely to log out of TikTok and turn in their smartphones. They’d quickly find other things to occupy themselves, which definitely wouldn’t be underage drinking and petty crime. They’ll probably join a church choir or play conkers.

Start making threats

If they won’t hand them over, it’s time to start making threats. Or sanctions, as we Tories like to call them when we’re callously stopping benefits for arbitrary reasons. Although given we’re trying to take the things that they love the most, I’m not sure we’ll have much left as leverage. Perhaps we could threaten to starve them. That sounds on-brand for us.

Get their parents to police them

If the kids aren’t willing, we’ll make the parents the bad guys and force them to confiscate the phones. There may be some resistance due to ‘child safety’, which we’ve not exactly helped by demonising trans kids and migrants, so parents may be reluctant to send them out on the street without a method of staying in touch. However a hefty fine for non-compliance will help. I’d suggest £1800, to be paid in £5 instalments from their pocket money. That’s realistic.

Put them in jail

If they still refuse, it’s time to start criminalising them. So what if there is a huge backlog in the justice system and prisons are so overcrowded that criminals are being released early? All we care about it looking good on the front page of the Telegraph and the Mail. Someone else can sort out that ‘crumbling justice system’ stuff later. Or not. Liberals needn’t worry if we threaten to build 20 new ‘Instagram prisons’ for teenagers. We never have any intention of completing anything we promise to do.

Do a U-turn

Yes, we all know this idea is completely impractical and unworkable and a U-turn will have to happen the second this gets any further than me having my grandstanding moment in the House of Commons. But that’s what the culture wars are all about: making a fuss, getting headlines and ultimately achieving f**k all. So actually this proposal has already been a huge success. But only for me.