Nation 1.0? It never was
There was an article last Tuesday in the Irish Times by Janan Ganesh: Britons don't pine for Empire; they just want to be left alone, which claims that the people of 'Deep England' who...
Category: Politics
Labour an “Apartheid party”? Really?
There's an article in today's Mail on Sunday by Dan Hodges, a Blairite columnist and former GMB union and Labour party staffer (and son of Glenda Jackson), proclaiming that anyone who remains a member...
The alt-right’s Barry Kent
Readers of a certain age will remember the character of Barry Kent from Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole series of books about a young man growing up in the Midlands (of England) in the 1980s...
Brexit: Back to the 16th Century?
Last Tuesday, there was a programme on BBC Radio 4 in which Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist who was a strong Remain supporter, compared the present Brexit situation with the Elizabethan era, in which...
On the problem of proving hate
Yesterday I saw a post on the Disability Hate Crime Network group on Facebook about a crime in which a 'vulnerable' man was kept captive and tortured for more than a week by a...
The electronics ban: malice or stupidity? Protectionism or security?
Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that 'large' electronic items such as tablets and laptops were to be banned from US-bound flights on some airlines, all based in the Arab world or Turkey, from airports...
If in doubt, blame Corbyn
The other day I saw an exchange on Twitter between some Labour activists in which Jeremy Corbyn got the blame for Theresa May's announcement that the ban on new grammar schools was to be...
Melanie Phillips has her history wrong
There is an article in the Times today (paywalled) in which Melanie Phillips proclaims that the Scots and Northern Irish have no right to secede at the expense of the "authentic", "ancient" British nation...
Short memories
One of the signs that you're getting older is that you start to become aware that there are adults who weren't even born when you became an adult, or at least don't remember the...
Milo is just a professional jerk
Last week Milo Yiannopoulos (AKA Milo Andreas Wagner), once the darling of the "alt-right" and of a sizeable chunk of the American Right, suddenly fell from grace as a result of someone drawing attention...
Foreign criminal scum!
The Sun are OUTRAGED this morning because an “American strangler”, as they call him, has been deported from the USA to this country after serving nearly 40 years in a New York state prison...
Blair not the man to lead Brexit fightback
The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, today gave a speech in the City of London in which he declared that Brexit could be defeated if the people who opposed it "rise up" (the...
Citizenship is not just a visa
Today three members of the notorious 'grooming gangs' who raped and sexually abused girls in the Rochdale area lost an appeal against deportation to Pakistan. Two of the men, who were jailed in 2012,...
Trump has no business in any parliament
The speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, has made himself unpopular (again) with a number of Tory MPs for announcing that he will not allow Donald Trump to address the Commons if and when...
Trump’s election is no ‘rejection of elites’
In yesterday's Observer, there is a piece by one John Daniel Davidson, identified as "a senior correspondent for the Federalist" who lives in Austin, Texas, defending Donald Trump from claims that he is a...
Time for Europhiles to divide and rule
So, in the last few weeks Jeremy Corbyn has shown his true Euro-Sceptic colours, issuing a three-line whip to order his MPs to vote in favour of the government's bill to trigger Article 50...
Why couldn’t Dean Saunders get a secure hospital place?
Last Friday an inquest jury gave its verdict in the case of Dean Saunders, who killed himself in Chelmsford Prison in January 2016 having been remanded there having injured his father who tried to...
Jill Saward, the Press and civil liberties
Last week Jill Saward (pronounced Say-ward), best known for having been the victim of the notorious "Ealing Vicarage" rape attack in 1986 in which she was raped and subjected to other sexual assaults and...
Does Sleaford really matter much more than Richmond?
Why Sleaford matters more than Richmond – CapX Last week there were two by-elections in the UK triggered by resignations of MPs. One was in Richmond Park, in which Zac Goldsmith had resigned from...
Why ban National Action?
Today the Home Secretary announced that she intends to proscribe the Far Right group National Action, which she describes as "a racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic organisation". An organisation can be proscribed if the home...