Rex Bob Lowenstein would make a bad politician
As I mentioned two posts back about the niqaab controversy, Boris Johnson found an ally in the former (and possibly future) UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who made a comment on BBC London radio to...
Author: Matthew Smith
Another lesson in diplomacy
As Muslims face the consequences of Britain's one-time "top diplomat" insulting an ethnic minority (and, by extension, the women of a number of the countries where Britain could do with having friendly relations) and...
Niqaab row brings out the ‘Muslimanders’
Two days after the controversy over Boris Johnson comparing Muslim women who wear the niqaab to letterboxes and bank-robbers became big news, the party is facing calls to demand an apology from him (which...
Boris Johnson’s latest insult (and the Muslims who unwittingly side with him)
Yesterday, in one of Boris Johnson's new columns for the Telegraph (which you may recall the paper made a big announcement of after he resigned as foreign secretary), he registered his half-hearted opposition to...
Corbyn and Anti-Semitism versus Brexit
The Labour anti-Semitism crisis has not disappeared from the headlines after yet another week. It is noticeable now that the issue has moved on from any specific incident of anti-Semitism by any Labour politician...
Why don’t they call it rape?
Yesterday some of the papers reported that, according to a report by the charity Save the Children, child migrants mostly from sub-Saharan Africa were "being sexually exploited" or in earlier versions "selling sex" in...
Does polygamy cause violence?
A few months ago The Economist put out a video on its Facebook page which tried to make the case that polygamy made a society more violent and prone to civil war. I noticed...
Existential threat? What?
In the latest chapter of the Labour anti-Semitism row, three British Jewish newspapers have published a similar front page and editorial condemning the Labour leadership for refusing their demand to adopt an international definition...
Labour and the IHRA: Listening does not mean submitting
This past week, the Labour Party's National Executive Committee adopted a modified version of a definition of anti-Semitism proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, modified in the sense that four 'specific' examples of...
No “vive la France” from me, sorry
Yesterday, France won the World Cup and the day before, England lost the third-place play-off match to Belgium after losing a semi-final to Croatia last Wednesday. I had not been following the matches all...
Racism, not fascism
As the depredations of Donald Trump's immigration forces continue in the USA and his visit to the UK is supported by nakedly mendacious propaganda in the Daily Mail (see right), it is fashionable to...
One big no, many small yeses
This week two cabinet ministers (David Davis, for Brexit, and Boris Johnson, foreign secretary) resigned, and a handful of junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries also resigned over the government's "Chequers" Brexit plan formulated...
Who says the Left hates the white working class?
I saw a post on Medium last weekend, "Burning Down the House: Identity Politics and its Discontents", which posited that white working-class voters who had voted for politicians like Donald Trump had faced "a...
NHS deaths and “blame culture”
Last week a report was published by the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS), commissioned by the NHS Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, about the death of Nico Reed (right), a young man who...
Encouraging obesity?
Yesterday I came across a report in the Daily Telegraph claiming that a study from the University of East Anglia (in England) had suggested that the normalisation of overweight models and "plus-size" clothes ranges...
Racist da’wah (and “crazy British Muslims”)
Over the weekend a video surfaced of an Asian Muslim street preacher telling his fellow local Muslims (also mostly Asian) that as well-brought-up people who come from respectable families, they should not be talking...
Christopher Chope, upskirting and Parliamentary games
A Tory called Christopher ChopeGave perverts everywhere hope.‘Hooray!’ said these twits,‘We can film women’s bits!Maybe next make it legal to grope?’ — Jonathan Coe (@jonathancoe) June 15, 2018 Yesterday a bill was expected to...
The White People’s Party
Over the last few months there have been some low-profile media stories about Islamophobia at various levels of the Conservative party. Yesterday there was an interview on the Independent with a former Tory parliamentary...
First impressions: Garmin Dezl 780
The new 7" Garmin truck navigation unit, the Dezl 780, is being released some time this month according to Garmin's website; you can buy it through Amazon now. I got mine last Sunday after...
Green light for gridlock
Today the government gave its backing to plans to expand Heathrow airport in west London by building an extra runway to the north-west of the existing site, with all the necessary access roads and...