Andrew Tate

Recently (and light-heartedly) I asked my husband how he found me during menopause. I knew I had suffered as a result of my hormonal chaos, with two years of insomnia, stress and anxiety from the age of 49, but I was sure that I'd skilfully concealed the inner turmoil pretty well, and my family had been left unscathed. Turns out, those years weren't as emotionally straightforward for him as I'd thought!

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Clara Gaspar in the Daily Mail's newsroom for the best part of a year. We learned each other's coffee orders, shared each other's coughs and colds - I'd go so far as to say we even became friends. So it came as a surprise when, in this newspaper, she announced she would sooner be caught alone in the woods with a grizzly bear than a man. Could it really be that every time she looked over at me, she'd rather see the razor-sharp gnashers of a wild beast? It turns out she isn't alone. Clara's article cites a remarkable YouGov poll claiming that more than half of 18 to 29-year-old women agree they would rather chance upon a bear than a male stranger if alone in a wood.

Trying to manage other people's minds and opinions is a tricky business, and free societies have generally steered away from it for the past few centuries. England's greatest monarch, Elizabeth I, declared she would not 'make windows into men's souls', during the era of ferocious religious disagreement between Catholics and Protestants. It remains one of the wisest things ever said by any political leader. If we wish to diverge from this historic common sense, we need good reasons to do so. Many will argue that the terrorist threat, hideously displayed in the London bombings of July 7, 2005, provide that reason. Such merciless carnage cried out for strong measures to ensure that it was not repeated - even measures that weakened our long traditions of freedom of speech and thought.