Buonasera tutto!

It’s Sarah here bringing you this weekend’s edition including Stewart Lee on Robert Jenrick’s plan to deport the relatives of serious criminals; Deborah Frances-White on the Epstein associate who brought sexualised fashion to pre-tweens; and disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz on Iran’s social media game. Plus we’re delighted to have actor Adeel Akhtar’s cultural tips and a review of The Music is Black at V&A East.

This newsletter is coming to you from Perugia in Italy where the Nerve team has decamped for the annual International Journalism festival. That sounds grand, but it’s probably the only work conference in the world where most people are in jeans and trainers.

Perugia is in the Umbrian hills, all faded grandeur and views of the countryside snatched through archways. But we have been working hard, honestly! We’ve been attending panel talks, meeting young journalists, fellow independent titles and media funders. I came to the festival last year for the first time and remember being so struck by the hopeful energy. For so long there’s been a prevailing story that tech and diminishing trust is killing off journalism, but here there’s a genuinely positive sense of a community committed to building more protections for media and defending democracy. It’s clear that Independence - and collaboration - are the future of journalism. 

Also much-discussed were two sessions on the Epstein Files - Amy Wallace who spoke about co-authoring Virginia Guiffre’s book Nobody’s Girl, and a panel examining the media failings in covering the story, featuring friend of the Nerve and Ghislaine Maxwell expert Lucia Osborne-Crowley alongside two survivors with whom she has worked closely - Liz Stein and Jess Michaels. I was very struck by Liz Stein’s perspective that, despite the scandalous lack of action to bring perpetrators to justice, the survivors’ speaking out has been a “precipitating event” - it is changing the narrative of shame and making it easier for others to speak up. These are truly inspiring women. 

Speaking of Epstein, we have a piece today by Deborah Frances-White - host of the hugely successful Guilty Feminist podcast, who writes about billionaire Epstein acolyte Les Wexner (who crops up in the files more than 1000 times, but naturally defends his decades-long association with Epstein as “naive”). Wexner is the mogul behind Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and a US brand I knew little about - Limited Too, which was the first to start marketing sexualised fashions to pre tweens, with their catalogues in the 90s and 00s featuring “little girls in Pretty Woman-style caps and huge hoop earrings… bikinis and crop-tops”. Deborah traces the malign - and continuing - influence of Wexler’s empire - it’s a really thought-provoking read. 

We are delighted to be bringing Lucia and Deborah together for a LIVE Nerve / Guilty Feminist podcast recording in London on 30 April. Together with Nerve co-founder Carole Cadwalladr they will discuss how the Epstein survivors have been failed and what chance there is of those in power being held to account. As with all Guilty Feminist events there will be music, comedy and, as Deborah says: ”deeply motivational conversation on social justice. Come and join this moment of joyful resistance!” Tickets are available here and members have been sent a 20% discount code (we’ll send out it again next week).

Parents who “look the other way” are in the news as a result of the Southport killings inquiry, writes Stewart Lee in a hard-hitting column. One Reform MP even wants the killer’s mother and father to be deported for, as the inquiry puts it, “not doing what they morally ought to have”. But, Stewart wonders, would that principle also apply to a parent who paid £10m to an accuser – now dead by suicide – to have serious sexual allegations against their son quietly settled? A parent, for example, like Queen Elizabeth II? Or would that not be the same thing at all? Read his column here

Remember tweenage crop tops and prepubescent thongs? The paedophile’s close professional relationship with clothing billionaire Les Wexner heralded a dark, Lolita-like period in fashion when girls were invited to age up and women to age down argues Deborah Frances-White aka The Guilty Feminist. Read her piece here.

A Lego Donald Trump stumbles tearfully out of a bar named after the Strait of Hormuz, gets into a Lego limousine and cuddles up to a very young-looking Lego teenager, to the beat of a mocking rap soundtrack. It looks like a scabrous sketch from an American satire – but it’s actually a piece of Iranian propaganda. Disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz reports that a production company working for Tehran has produced a series of AI-generated videos that have gone viral on social media – and seem to be winning the propaganda war on “the increasingly lawless internet” that Maga has championed. Read Nina’s analysis here.

In her new book Finding Albion, the DJ and writer delves deep into the culture and history behind her mixed-race identity – part English, part Welsh, part Caribbean – especially as they refer to the ancient idea of Britishness. Her quest took her from the winter solstice at Stonehenge to the Notting Hill carnival at the height of summer, via ancient myths of Syrian queens and the story of fascism’s flirtation with folk music. In the end, she tells Michaela Makusha, the project is “an invitation for people to say: ‘I have a stake here’.” Here’s the interview.

Bafta-winning actor Adeel Akhtar is about to open at the Donmar Warehouse in the world premiere of the stage version of Fran Kranz’s Mass, whose cast also includes Monica Dolan. Adeel took a break from rehearsals to share his cultural highlights, which include the local pub which recently received a Michelin star and provides “a hit in the middle of the day”, the writer he is hooked on, and how poet Kae Tempest understands that “if you shine we all shine”. Read his full list here.

The hotly-anticipated V&A East museum launches with a bang this weekend in East London's Olympic Park (neighbouring its sibling the V&A East Storehouse which opened last year) with a lively and ambitious exhibition entitled The Music is Black: A British Story, covering 125 years of Black British music-making. "In the arts, a Black British story has often been one of omission and erasure, minstrelsy and appropriation," writes music critic Damien Morris, making his Nerve debut. But this show, featuring over 200 objects - from outfits belonging to Stormzy, Little Simz and Shirley Bassey through to instruments, photography, song sheets and more - feels like an "impressively substantial" celebration of the craft and its impact on culture. Damien has some reservations but in the main it's a big thumbs up. Read his review here.

The chef and restaurateur Jad Youssef was born in Beirut two years after the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war. Growing up in the shadow of conflict he recalls that food was always important:  “No matter what happens, we gather, we cook, and we eat together…the kitchen remained our sanctuary.” Jad shares a recipe from his debut cookbook Lebnani that was always a weekend favourite: “the kind of meal that brought the neighbours in, uninvited but always welcome – you just had to follow your nose.” Get the recipe here.

Thank you for reading and we’ll be back on Tuesday.

Sarah