Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
Yesterday, the government announced that most if not all the current rules and restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of Coronavirus, including the requirement to wear masks in enclosed public spaces and to keep...
A theme I keep coming across in discussions of the Britney Spears conservatorship case is the presumption that she is in this predicament because she is a woman. Yesterday I came across a meme...
The other day a parent I follow on my social media, whose autistic daughter has been out of school for much of the past several years, mentioned a programme that was on Radio 4...
A couple of weeks ago I saw a video shared of a driver of a large car using his vehicle to damage someone’s bike (nearly injuring the cyclist’s leg in the process) before driving...
Last week Prince Harry’s and his wife Meghan’s second child was born, and they named her Lilibet Diana. The second name refers to Harry’s mother; the first to his grandmother, the Queen. The name...
Last week the BBC announced that the long-running hospital drama Holby City is going to be terminated next March. The reason given was that the BBC was looking to produce dramas that “better reflect,...
Earlier this week it was reported that the mobile app What3Words, used to generate ‘unique’ three-word codes for any location so as to direct rescuers or the emergency services and is used by some...
A couple of weeks ago there was a documentary on BBC1 that exposed how, in the 50s and 60s, young Black children were routinely sent to schools for the “educationally sub-normal” because of the...
The “politics of suspicion” is a term often heard in Muslim circles: it means a culture in which people are held responsible for the deeds of those with the same beliefs as themselves, and...
Today I learned that Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London who has had his term extended for an extra year because of the pandemic and who is standing for another four-year term, plans a...
Yesterday (Friday) the BBC broadcast a Feedback programme largely dedicated to the public reaction to the corporation’s decision to suspend most of its programming the Friday before last to broadcast the announcement of Prince Philip’s death and not resume normal programming for several hours and in some cases days.
Today Prince Philip died. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was the Queen’s husband and had the title Prince Consort and was known as the Duke of Edinburgh. He was probably best known for...
The other day the British radio presenter Shelagh Fogarty tweeted asking her followers if a text she had received, telling her she had a parcel to collect but to click a link and “confirm...
This week a teacher at a school in Batley, Yorkshire was suspended after showing his year 9 (aged 13-14) pupils, some of them Muslims, a cartoon originating with the French magazine Charlie Hebdo depicting...
Last week, in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard in London, for which a police officer has been charged and is in custody, a lot of women have been sharing stories about...
Last night I saw a thread on Twitter from an individual called “Autismomum” in which she talked of burning the documents about her child’s school life in case they were discovered by the child...
This past week it’s been suggested by the writers Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (or Alibi-Brain as she’s known in these parts) and Simon Jenkins (in the Guardian) that the Queen should make some of her vast...
This morning I watched a video on YouTube about a plan to build an Underground line that would link King’s Cross and Victoria stations, major London rail terminals serving the north-east and south respectively...
Last week the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that Shamima Begum, the “ISIS bride” who ran away from home to join the self-styled Islamic State aged 15 in 2015, had no right to come back...
Jewish Privilege is a myth by Giles Fraser (from Unherd) In this article Giles Fraser, a London vicar married to an Israeli, complains that Jews are commonly left out of definitions of ‘BAME’ (Black,...