When I applied the idea to poetry I saw how prescriptive we can be – particularly as readers – in our assumptions about the influence of gender on writing.

That is to say that when we think we're telling the truth we're actually using worn-out figures of speech.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

Fresh thinking, instead of stale arguments, has rarely been so badly needed.

They think in outworn categories and follow habits and assumptions that are not, or only rarely, based on fact.