Who really lost, and why?
By now it’s becoming obvious to most people that 13 years of Tory rule, with or without Lib Dem or DUP help, has been a disaster for almost everyone except the super-rich, and at...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Age like wine, age like milk?
This morning I was alerted to a video on Twitter by an Internet personality who calls himself “The Sunnah Guy”, a young man with no apparent qualifications dishing out advice to whomever might be...
Clients made Twitter what it is
Today it was finally made official that third-party Twitter clients are to be locked out of the system, rendering them useless unless they are rewritten to use other social media platforms, such as Mastodon...
Why are there conspiracy theories around traffic reduction schemes?
A couple of weeks ago the Canadian philosophy professor Jordan Peterson claimed on Twitter that a traffic reduction scheme in Oxford amounts to a scheme by which “idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat...
Afghanistan and women’s education: why is it even a debate?
In the past week the Taliban, who seized back control of Afghanistan from the corrupt and ineffectual US-backed government last year, issued a decree banning women from the country’s universities, after already having shut...
An unfortunately necessary upgrade
Last week, the government announced that a proposed upgrade to the M3 motorway’s junction with the A34 outside Winchester, a cause of major delays going back years, had been accepted for consideration by the...
NUS and antisemitism on and off campus
Last Friday the BBC published a report by Hazel Shearing, its education correspondent (inexplicably filed under “Young Reporter” (a term normally used of student reporters, which she isn’t), about antisemitism in and around universities...
Review: Farha
Farha is a 90-minute film set somewhere in Palestine in 1948, just as the state of Israel is being set up and the British mandate forces are withdrawing (we see them briefly, as children...
It’s not just about cooking
I saw this post on Facebook this morning from someone who calls himself “Shaikh JJ”, a Canadian living in Istanbul. I should add at this point that although we know what he looks like,...
Do Jews “not count”?
Last week, the 90s comedian David Baddiel recently presented a documentary on the place of Jews among Britain’s minorities and the question of why, as he sees it, Jews are left out by identity...
Twitter’s collapse would be a great loss
This weekend, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, shuttered the company’s headquarters and told staff they would have no access until Monday. This has prompted widespread fears that the site is about to...
Hatred is not a phobia
The term Islamophobia was popularised, as I recall, in the 1990s to refer to hostility to Muslims in the European context. The logic behind it seems to be that people were hostile to Muslims...
Snow elephants versus democracy
On Tuesday it was announced on Twitter and via the Jewish Chronicle, before it was announced on the organisation’s own website, that the National Union of Students’ President, Shaima Dallali, who had been accused...
On the takeover of Twitter
So, this past week the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, the CEO of the Tesla car company, finally went through. Musk has announced that he plans to reform the rules of Twitter to...
Welcome to Islam. Now prepare for schnookdom.
There’s a scene at the end of the mob film Goodfellas, the last few seconds after Henry Hill, the lead character who has had a ringside seat on the edge of the New York...
Tory members should not pick our PM
So, this coming week, for the second time in as many months, it looks likely that our next prime minister will be selected by Tory party members from two candidates chosen by MPs. The...
Starmer should not be parroting Hindu nationalist talking points
Last week the Labour leader Keir Starmer, who polls suggest is now likely to easily win any general election held in the next couple of years (and one is due no later than December...
Muslims, parents and nursing homes
The last couple of days there has been a big row on “Muslim Twitter” about people putting their elderly parents in nursing homes and whether that makes them bad Muslims or ungrateful children or...
Get real about the Royals!
The Queen died Thursday before last and was buried today. As with Prince Philip last year, we saw the BBC cut off all its programmes at the flick of a switch to go to...
Marxism versus Zionism: is it even a competition?
Recently there was a debate among Muslims on Twitter whether Marxism was a bigger danger to Muslims, either in terms of their life and liberty or their faith, than Zionism. Abdullah al-Andalusi firmly said...