There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the idea of a British MP being charged with a criminal offence would have seemed far-fetched. Those times are no more. And while Anatomy of a Scandal, the glossy courtroom drama out on Netflix today, is a work of fiction, it is also a staggeringly prescient example of life imitating art.
“I was joking this week that it was nice that Boris and Rishi got the marketing email,” laughs Sarah Vaughan, author of Anatomy of a Scandal, the novel upon which the series is based. “Obviously, on a human level, I would really rather we didn't have a prime minister who’d been fined for breaking lockdown rules — but on a weird, I've got a Netflix show out this week level, it is freaky timing. Hopefully, it will give the show a bit more resonance.”
Even before this week’s headlines, to say Anatomy of a Scandal has been eagerly anticipated would be an understatement. Adapted for the screen by David E Kelley, the Emmy-winning writer and producer behind Big Little Lies and The Undoing, the six-part thriller stars Homeland's Rupert Friend as MP James Whitehouse, Sienna Miller as his beautiful and impeccably well-mannered wife, Sophie, and Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as Kate Woodcroft, the barrister with a past who finds herself prosecuting Whitehouse when his affair with a young aide leads to an accusation of sexual assault.
It’s a team that Vaughan, 49, admits she could scarcely have dreamt of. “A producer said to me recently, ‘You do realise it's not normal to have Sienna Miller in your first show?’” she smiles. “Also, like a lot of middle-aged women, I really liked Quinn when Homeland was out — I thought he was the moral heart of the show but also had this sort of dark intensity — so when they told me that they were approaching Rupert Friend, I squealed.”
Friend, she admits, had to be asked three times before he accepted the role. “He said being an entitled Tory wasn't high on his bucket list, but the amazing director threw him down the challenge. His character is more nuanced, I think, in the show than in the book. David E Kelley said that he's not a victim of his upbringing, but he is very much a product of his upbringing. He's had a very rarefied life, really, and hasn’t experienced anything beyond that.”
For Vaughan, while the drama plays out around the case, the real story is one of power and privilege, as demonstrated by Whitehouse’s elastic relationship with the truth, his sense of entitlement and his membership in the Libertines, an elite Oxford fraternity clearly inspired by the notorious real-life Bullingdon Club.
“I think there have been other shows about rape, but this is about the scandal of entitlement and that’s what made it a different story,” Vaughn muses. “I started writing the book in 2016 in the lead-up to the EU referendum. David Cameron was in charge, an old Etonian prime minister who went to Oxford. George Osborne was Chancellor. There had been a bit of a furore about that very famous Bullingdon picture with Cameron and Boris Johnson on the steps, and I just had that in my mind so much as I was writing it.”
Before becoming a bestselling novelist, Vaughan spent more than a decade at The Guardian, where, as a political correspondent in 2004, she interviewed Johnson about his affair with Petronella Wyatt. “The point of the Boris interview wasn't that he had an affair. It was that he'd been sacked for lying about it,” she explains. "What struck me back then was his lack of contrition. There was this real sense of entitlement, a belief that he was going to bounce back and it didn't really matter, he'd be absolutely fine.”
While this was a time before the #MeToo movement, the gender and power dynamics at play in the corridors of Westminster have also long fascinated Vaughan, playing a key role both in Anatomy of a Scandal and in her latest novel, Reputation. “I didn't experience it, for which I'm profoundly grateful, but I could absolutely observe that imbalance of power,” she says now. “I don't think you have to have a particularly vivid imagination to imagine that where you've got powerful men believing their own self-importance and women who, as researchers, are much less powerful and earning far less, there's a massive imbalance of power. The potential for exploitation is huge.”
Indeed, in the period since Anatomy of a Scandal was released in print, the UK has been rocked by a succession of outrages that could have come straight from its pages, from the sexual assault trial of MP Charlie Elphicke to former health secretary Matt Hancock’s affair with an aide, to the ongoing Partygate scandal. As grim a period as it has been for the British electorate, globally it has only served to increase anticipation for Vaughan’s first and impeccably timed televisual work.
“I often wonder what it must be like to know that however you behave, you will always be excused and forgiven,” Dockery’s character muses during one dramatic scene. It is a question that many viewers may also find themselves pondering, before, during and long after their next Netflix binge ends.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
The Energy Research Centre
Founded 50 years ago as a nuclear research institute, scientists at the centre believed nuclear would be the “solution for everything”.
Although they still do, they discovered in 1955 that the Netherlands had a lot of natural gas. “We still had the idea that, by 2000, it would all be nuclear,” said Harm Jeeninga, director of business and programme development at the centre.
"In the 1990s, we found out about global warming so we focused on energy savings and tackling the greenhouse gas effect.”
The energy centre’s research focuses on biomass, energy efficiency, the environment, wind and solar, as well as energy engineering and socio-economic research.
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
IF YOU GO
The flights
FlyDubai flies direct from Dubai to Skopje in five hours from Dh1,314 return including taxes. Hourly buses from Skopje to Ohrid take three hours.
The tours
English-speaking guided tours of Ohrid town and the surrounding area are organised by Cultura 365; these cost €90 (Dh386) for a one-day trip including driver and guide and €100 a day (Dh429) for two people.
The hotels
Villa St Sofija in the old town of Ohrid, twin room from $54 (Dh198) a night.
St Naum Monastery, on the lake 30km south of Ohrid town, has updated its pilgrims' quarters into a modern 3-star hotel, with rooms overlooking the monastery courtyard and lake. Double room from $60 (Dh 220) a night.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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ACC%20T20%20Women%E2%80%99s%20Championship
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PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
What is the Supreme Petroleum Council?
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council was established in 1988 and is the highest governing body in Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas industry. The council formulates, oversees and executes the emirate’s petroleum-related policies. It also approves the allocation of capital spending across state-owned Adnoc’s upstream, downstream and midstream operations and functions as the company’s board of directors. The SPC’s mandate is also required for auctioning oil and gas concessions in Abu Dhabi and for awarding blocks to international oil companies. The council is chaired by Sheikh Khalifa, the President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the vice chairman.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
((Disclaimer))
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The years Ramadan fell in May
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Uefa Nations League: How it Works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
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The biog
Age: 46
Number of Children: Four
Hobby: Reading history books
Loves: Sports
Read more about the coronavirus
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Read more from Aya Iskandarani
TRAINING FOR TOKYO
A typical week's training for Sebastian, who is competing at the ITU Abu Dhabi World Triathlon on March 8-9:
- Four swim sessions (14km)
- Three bike sessions (200km)
- Four run sessions (45km)
- Two strength and conditioning session (two hours)
- One session therapy session at DISC Dubai
- Two-three hours of stretching and self-maintenance of the body
ITU Abu Dhabi World Triathlon
For more information go to www.abudhabi.triathlon.org.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
HIV on the rise in the region
A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.
New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.
Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.
Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.
Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.
More coverage from the Future Forum
