Mind the gaps (not just the gender gap)
Earlier today someone flagged up an event taking place next Monday by which female travellers on the Berlin public transport system will pay 21% less than men (€5.50 rather than the usual €7.00) to...
Author: Matthew Smith
Christchurch: Reckoning for the Right
Last Friday, in the early hours of the morning UK time but in the early afternoon local time, a far-right terrorist entered two mosques in Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, with automatic rifles emblazoned...
Good manners won’t save us from hate
Yesterday a Muslim YouTuber who goes by the Scottish Revert Teacher published a video saying that Muslims really were not really doing enough to improve the image of Islam in terms of the way...
Autism, driving, and changes to British notification rules
Last weekend, by chance, some of us found out that people with autism spectrum disorders (principally Asperger’s syndrome) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) were required to notify the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing...
Policing the boundaries
During the launch of the Independent Group, while it was still a breakaway faction from the Labour party, there was an exchange on a morning TV show between Tom Bowers, the author of book...
Dump him!
This is about a letter to Pamela Stephenson Connolly, the Guardian’s agony aunt for all things sexual. The letter is from a 27-year-old woman who had developed an eating disorder as a result of...
What good will splitting the Labour party do?
So, last week it finally happened, the split that had been rumoured for several months: seven Labour MPs, initially, resigned the whip. Rather than forming a new party or just joining the Liberal Democrats,...
Yes, we do talk about the family
Why won’t Remainers talk about family? (Giles Fraser, Unherd) In this article the Anglican clergyman talks about how modern British society has palmed off the duty of caring for its elderly on to paid...
George Galloway should not be readmitted to the Labour party
A longer post on the new ‘independent group’ formed by breakaway Labour and Tory MPs is in the works but I heard something today which has disturbed a lot of people that I know...
Grenfell: who failed, really?
This evening there was a half-hour Channel 4 Dispatches programme about the role of the fire brigade in the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017, in which more than 70 people died when the tower...
Report: The importance of ethnography in FGM storytelling, SOAS, London
This event took place at SOAS, part of the University of London, last night (15th February) and was organised by the university’s “Fem Soc”. It brought together some long-standing anti-FGM campaigners along with a...
Shamima Begum: should she be allowed back?
In this morning’s Times there is an interview with Shamima Begum, one of three girls from east London who ran away from their families to join ISIS, or at least live in ISIS territory...
How effective will the ULEZ be?
This April a new low-emission zone, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), will take effect in central London. This will mean that drivers or owners will have to pay a charge to drive a...
Books aren’t clutter and a cactus is just a plant
Today my social media was abuzz with people, mainly women, laughing uproariously at a picture sourced form the Daily Mail in which an “interiors therapist” with a background in feng shui, named Suzanne Roynon,...
Mail’s Corbyn exposé is pathetic
Today, the Mail on Sunday devoted more than a dozen pages to a new ‘exposé’ of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, in a feature which declares him “unfit for office”, most of it culled...
Two fundraisers: a well and a mosque
This morning a British rapper, Blaine “Cadet” Johnson, from south London was killed in a car accident on the way to a show at Keele university in Staffordshire. He was 28. Some people I...
Why aren’t more young women feminists?
Earlier this week I saw a piece on the BBC news website asking why more young women do not identify with feminism or as feminists. According to a 2018 YouGov poll, 34% of women...
Yes, the severely autistic do need a voice, but …
Recently a new organisation has been set up in the USA, the National Council on Severe Autism, based in California and run by a combination of parents and academics, a combination which has attracted...
Should we cut ties with Saudi Arabia?
Yesterday there was a debate at Intelligence Squared in London on whether the West should cut ties with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia because of its use of torture and such crimes as the...
Review: Skipping School (Dispatches, Channel 4)
Last night, at the rather late hour of 10:15pm, Channel 4 broadcast an hour-long Dispatches programme, presented by the children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, about concerns that home-schooling is being used as a cover for...