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Did the pictures of Boris Johnsons third, secret wedding charm and disarm you? Spellbound, were you, by the images showing his barefoot bride in a crown of fresh flowers and a rented designer dress (45)?

Millions clearly were. Anything resembling the frock was sold out online. In one masterstroke, these two made themselves into the nations sweethearts.

Those devastating accusations made by Dominic Cummings, Carries costly flat makeover paid for by the Cabinet Office, lies daily tossed out by key government ministers, were all forgotten as the sun shone down on the couple. Cynicism was as unwelcome as a fart at the laden table.

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For voters interested in gung-ho pursuits, the Government lays on daily brawls in public spaces between the un-woke proud patriots, protectors of buffed histories and defenders of the realm and their imagined enemies.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, a man of low presence and low cunning, appears to be on a cultural cleansing mission. Arts and heritage institutions and academia are packed, or so he feverishly believes, with Marxists and other traitors. Board members suspected of being liberal, left or egalitarian are being edged out and replaced with men and women loyal to the Governments agenda.

A new Heritage Advisory board has been created, chaired by Trevor Phillips, the black Briton most trusted by the great and the good from left to right. He agrees with Mr Dowden, who wants institutions to retain and explain symbols of contested histories. How will establishment bowdlerizers explain slavery and the oppression of the powerless in this country and the colonies?

A new, large survey by Ipsos Mori for the Policy Institute at Kings College, London, found that 44 per cent of those polled think politicians invent or exaggerate culture wars as a political tactic. Furthermore, only a minority are not proud to be British, or are uncomfortable with the pace of change.

These findings will not discourage right wing- media outlets or government ministers and their well-chosen friends in high places. They will carry on serving their own interests indefatigably.

Juvenal, a Roman poet from the early second century, fretted about the way people, diverted by bread and circuses, were failing in their civic duties to hold rulers to account. Our population is similarly appeased with circuses, even though millions are wretched or falling into indescribable hardships.

Among them are two million private renters who will no longer be protected from eviction at the end of this week. According to the homelessness charity Shelter, 72 per cent are terrified of losing their homes. They have already cut back on heating and food bills. Their children are hungry.

Shelter, where I once worked, was set up in 1966, a time when the country had a massive housing crisis, slum dwellings, and an unseen, unheard underclass few cared about. Ken Loachs film Cathy Come Home, which depicts a young, homeless family and was shown in that year, shamed and aroused the nation. During the pandemic, 37,000 people sought help from Shelter. But today most folk are indifferent to their plight and pain.

Our state schools are falling ever further into disrepair. Tory and collation governments alike have delayed embarking on this major, urgent project and now the bill has reached 11bn. Just before lockdown I went to one school in the East End of London. The toilet walls were black with damp; there had been a rat infestation in the kitchen and the classrooms were truly grim. To the governing elite men like Ian Duncan Smith, George Osborne, David Cameron, Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak these lost and failed children must be collateral damage, or perhaps sacrifices to appease the gods of capitalism.

According to government estimates from March this year, up to 14.5 million people one in four were in poverty in 2019-20. The Big Issue reports that another 700,000 people were plunged into hardship during the pandemic.

The Chancellor has given some state help to needy households, but not nearly enough. More than 3 million self-employed citizens have had nothing.

The Trussell Trust, which runs 1,200 food bank centres, had distributed 2.5 million food parcels in the year between April 2020 and March 2021, the equivalent of more than two parcels every minute and vastly more than ever before.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror recently reported that Sunaks billionaire wife claimed 100,000 in furlough money last December; while Samantha Cameron claimed thousands to pay her staff. Mr Johnson and his missus got 27,000 of posh organic food delivered to them in unmarked bags, some of it paid for by the wife of a Tory donor, according to the Daily Mail.

Britons should be full of wrath, but most are occupied by the frolics of Mr and Mrs Johnson and performative populism, both calculated, organised diversions. How can anyone with a conscience feel proud of this outrageously manipulated democracy.

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Boris Johnsons wedding and the culture wars are designed to distract us from the UKs spiralling poverty - iNews