“It started with a spider,” says Baroness Hale of Richmond, the former president of the Supreme Court, of her love of brooches. “A different spider, but they were always creatures. And I have never really given much thought to what creature happened to be adorning my lapel.”
Lady Hale (Brenda, to her friends), 76, might not have thought hard about what brooch she wore when she delivered the unanimous Supreme Court judgment on 24 September 2019 that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament had been unlawful. But whether she had planned it or not, that sparkly spider became emblematic of the anti-Brexit cause. Within hours, conspiracy theories were spreading about the coded criticism of Johnson’s “web of lies” that the arachnid might convey. The brooch soon had its own Twitter account, and T-shirts bearing the spider symbol were sold (with some of the proceeds going to the homeless charity Shelter). Hale denies any secret messaging, but has finally lent into the image; her autobiography was published earlier this month under the title Spider Woman.
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