What is a revolution anyway?
I've been seeing trailers on BBC TV for a documentary on the changes being forced upon Saudi Arabia by the new crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman (his father, the actual king Salman is believed...
Author: Matthew Smith
Cold callers getting more sophisticated
Earlier today while drinking my coffee I got a call from a woman who told me that there was some sort of payout waiting for me as a result of a vehicle incident that...
Abortion and Down’s syndrome: I’m with Kasich
In an article for the website Global Comment, the British feminist writer Phillipa Willitts this week opposed the new law in the US state of Ohio that bans abortion where a foetus has been...
Things that don’t mean optional
Earlier last week (before the story about the multiple rapist John Worboys being released from prison) the news was dominated by two stories, one about health and one about transport. The first was that...
Opposition to the state of Israel is not racist
Why anti-Zionism is seen as antisemitism | Letters | World news | The Guardian This is a letter in today's Guardian from Joseph Pearlman (who appears to be an economist at City of London...
Look after your health, and fight for your healthcare
Earlier today Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner who was choked to death by New York police for illegally selling cigarettes in 2014 (one of a series of unarmed Black Americans, mostly men,...
Amazon Tetris?!
Scrolling through the timeline of "somebody that I used to know", I saw a tweet which had been retweeted more than 25,000 times as of this writing and which has even been the subject...
On Muslims, Christmas and other holidays
The other day someone posted an image to Facebook of two Christmas displays accompanied by a slogan to the effect that Muslims aren't banning Christmas — this is how they do it in Malaysia...
Why is speeding not a taboo?
There's a video up on the BBC News website asking the above question, namely why speeding is not a taboo as drink driving became as a result of years of public campaigns including regular...
The best places to be average
A study commissioned by Halifax (part of the big HBOS banking group but formerly a mutual building society) has found that the district of Hart in Hampshire is the best place to live in...
Otto Frank and the editing of Anne Frank’s diary
An online women's publication called "The Establishment" last year published an article attacking the editing of Anne Frank's diary by her father, Otto Frank, for publication in the 1940s after the death of the...
How Labour’s researchers passed up a chance to expose Tory racism
Yesterday Theo Bertram, a former advisor to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, posted a tweet thread (starts here, ends here) on his work as part of Labour's research team during the 2005 general election...
ISIS terrorists, wannabes and “peace in Muslim societies”
So, today a man detonated a bomb in New York, at the Port Authority bus terminal. The man, a 27-year-old from Bangladesh who lives in Brooklyn and was a cab driver before his licence...
Anti-Semitism and the ‘woke’ Muslim
Last weekend I had a brief exchange with three women on Twitter, two Muslim and one Jewish, after one of the two Muslims retweeted a conversation about Jews versus Blacks and why the first...
Whose side is Tell MAMA on?
I've long been suspicious of the motives and loyalty of "Tell MAMA", the project set up to monitor and report on hate crimes against Muslims. It's not that it's a bad thing for there...
Why ‘Islamophobia’ is relevant
I've had an 'Islamophobia' category on this blog for as long as I can remember (my first post in it was about Oriana Fallaci in September 2006). Much of my work in writing it...
Hijab and primary school girls: not compulsory, but …
In the past week the 'issue' of primary school age Muslim girls wearing hijab to school has been on the front pages of some newspapers as the chief inspector of schools announced that her...
Home-schooling: the Muslim and autistic perspectives
The Sunday Times reported today (gleefully as you might expect) that Alexandra Spelman, the head of Ofsted, the British schools inspectorate, had announced a plan for her inspectors to ask primary school-age girls who...
The dregs
A few years ago you may have noticed lots of people adding "Pleb" to their name on their social media accounts. This followed the Tory chief whip being accused of calling a police officer...
On ‘fixing’ disability
Molly Burke, a blind YouTube vlogger, posted a video of her speech last month at the London (Ontario) Music Hall as part of an evening on "Belonging" organised by the Walrus, a Canadian magazine...