Review: The Left Behind
The Left Behind is an hour-long BBC Three drama in which a young man who is facing homelessness as a result of his family’s eviction and gets very rapidly groomed into racist violence, leading...
Author: Matthew Smith
We can’t blame ‘Wahhabis’ for everything
In response to Boris Johnson’s article from 2007 on what he regarded as being ‘wrong’ with the Muslim world, and how Islam itself was to blame for it, the Guardian printed an article yesterday...
Public interest?
So, last week the British ambassador to the USA resigned after Donald Trump wrote tweets denouncing him after his emails were leaked, thought to have been done by a Brexiteer mole who is out...
Anti-Semitism in context
There was a piece by Gordon Brown, the former chancellor of the Exchequer and prime minister, in the Guardian last Saturday demanding a “more radical” approach to the issue of anti-Semitism in the Labour...
Of mice, men, mockingbirds and caged birds
Today I saw a piece in the Globe and Mail, a Toronto-based newspaper, in which a professor at York University (the one in Toronto) called for schools to change the way they teach the...
Restorative justice is no substitute for prison
Recently I came across a long thread (starting here) arguing against ‘carceral’ (prison-based) responses to serious crimes and, in particular, rape. The argument is that the justice system serves the state’s purpose, which is...
999 (is no joke)
Last Saturday I was driving an articulated lorry down the M1 in Derbyshire, on the way back from delivering a trailer load of Mars bars to a depot outside Chesterfield, and I saw a...
It’s in the Times.
Last week a detailed report into three stories ‘researched’ and written by Andrew Norfolk, the Times’ chief investigative reporter, was published, all of which involved Islam or Muslims, painted them in the worst possible...
My Jewish friend, your Asian friend
Yesterday I came across the outgoing edition of the Spectator at Smith’s and there were about four articles hymning Boris Johnson in anticipation of his crowning as prime minister, as was expected when it...
Boris Johnson and the Stasi
So, last weekend the story broke of a row between Boris Johnson, the man who looked until then as if he was certain to become the leader of the Tory party and Prime Minister,...
Is Greater London really London?
Yesterday I saw an article on Medium from Bob Pitt, a socialist writer who used to run Islamophobia Watch, on why Boris Johnson was able to twice win the mayoralty of a city often...
The distraction of in-car touch screens
From Popular Mechanics, via OSNews: When I’m in charge of a car company, we’re going to have one strict rule about interior design: Make it so it doesn’t cause you to crash the car. You’d...
The sickening prospect of Boris Johnson as PM
Like many people following the Tory party leadership contest, I’ve been filled with a sense of dread that we are looking at Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and the man who, as...
Don’t call us haters
This past Eid, the recurring problem of spurious moon sighting reports emanating from Saudi Arabia and Muslim institutions overseas declaring ‘Eid’ the following day on the basis of them reared its head yet again....
Muslims, Eid and the sanctimonious vegan
This past Eid, the American-based Vegan advocacy group that calls itself People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) posted a series of tweets suggesting that Muslims should have a “vegan holiday” because “animals...
What do the anti-Corbynites even want?
So, last night there was a by-election in Peterborough following the recall of a Labour MP who spent time in prison after a conviction for lying about a speeding ticket, and it was widely...
Rwanda and radicalism (and a little geography lesson)
Yesterday the Spectator, a British conservative-leaning political journal (which was formerly edited by Boris Johnson and printed a series of very prejudicial articles about Islam and Muslims during that time) published an article on...
Small towns, small islands, small minds
Yesterday this tweet was posted by the comedian and actor John Cleese, which (not for the first time I might add) gave rise to the widespread suspicion that Basil Fawlty, much as he may...
Alastair Campbell and the Labour loyalty rules
Yesterday the former Downing Street communications director under Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, was expelled from the Labour Party for openly declaring that he had voted for the Liberal Democrats in last week’s European elections....
A few notes on the European election results
So, last night we finally found out the results of the European parliamentary election result, in which we in Britain had voted on Thursday but whose results we could not be told until all...