When scriptwriter Gareth Roberts was 14, he called a helpline promoted by a new organisation, one dedicated to helping gay and lesbian youth. The operator tried to set him up on a date with a 19-year-old. Fortunately, the young Roberts had the wit to realise this ‘was a very bad idea’. A related organisation opened […]
In Crocodile Dundee, the scene where Paul Hogan is on the receiving end of an attempted mugging is resolved in his favour when he one-ups the mugger’s knife. ‘That’s not a knife,’ says the Australian, disparaging his interlocutor’s switchblade. ‘This is a knife,’ he adds, brandishing a ten-inch Bowie blade. Well, it’s fair to say […]
Earlier this week the philosopher Kathleen Stock waded into the national press to talk about Tories and our troubled relationship with transgender issues, using Penny Mordaunt’s tilt for the top job as commentary fuel. For Stock, the Tories’ flapping around on gender issues demonstrates ‘a special kind of indifference to half the population’, which she […]
Australia has very, very unusual voting arrangements. That’s why the realignment that political historian Stephen Davies has documented throughout Western Europe, the UK, Brazil, and the US hadn’t happened there — until last Saturday’s Federal election. And even though it’s now possible to see familiar parts moving into place, Australia’s realignment has taken a somewhat […]
Unlike many people, I had ‘Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine’ on my 2022 bingo card, but only because I’ve had ‘Russia invades Ukraine at some point’ on my bingo card since about 1994. My first novel, The Hand that Signed the Paper, is set in Ukraine against a background of that country’s tragic and bloody history, particularly […]
At one point in Winnie-The-Pooh, Pooh and Piglet start to follow footprints in the snow. The pair think they belong to a creature called a ‘Woozle’. The tracks keep multiplying, and the two become increasingly confused, until – finally – Christopher Robin explains they’ve been following their own tracks in circles around a tree, and that […]
Late last year, I came across long-form chat-show Triggernometry’s interview with science writer Will Storr. In it, Storr applies research from his latest book, The Status Game, to the emergence of what we’ve now come to call ‘cancel culture’, especially as it manifests on social media. I do not want for items to review. Most […]
There it was, sitting on the conference table in Senator David Leyonhjelm’s electoral office, glowing. Death threats are common in politics and, I have to say, usually ignored. This, however, was radioactive. Among other things, it included a vivid fantasy of smashing my then boss’s skull and stomping the bone fragments into his office carpet. […]
It’s startling how much public discourse is being driven by trans activism and trans issues. Not a week – or even a day – goes by without something trans-related scorching like a tracer bullet across the headlines. Last Saturday, transwoman Alana McLaughlan won her first MMA bout – to a decidedly mixed reception – against […]
Manners and civility provide social grease and keep the wheels of civilisation spinning. They mean Brits talk about the weather, and Canadians apologise. They’re also why Australians address their prime minister by his first name, the reason New Zealanders take sportsmanship so seriously, and they lurk behind Parisians’ well-known disdain for bad French. People who […]
Writing commentary in the time of coronavirus has been interesting in the Chinese curse sense. If you’d come to me on New Year’s Eve, 2019 and told me I’d develop a sideline in pieces on transgenderism and conspiracy theories, I’d have wanted to know what you were smoking. There is something to be said for […]
“You know,” says Jules, “cops tend to notice you driving a car drenched in blood”. It’s usually around this point that audiences, when they see Pulp Fiction for the first time, start laughing. They also typically cover their mouths, alarmed and embarrassed they’re finding someone’s head splattered everywhere…funny. “You should be on brains detail,” Jules […]
After the January 6 Capitol Riot – in a long and thoughtful piece addressing the descent of many American partisans into paranoid conspiracism – Nebraska GOP Senator Ben Sasse not only tore strips off what is sometimes called the legacy media and decried the fantasists of QAnon. He also argued that the corporate leviathans of […]
In October last year, I confessed that two forthcoming trials were making me paranoid. A ruling in one of them — Bell and Mrs A v The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust — was brought down last week and it seems my paranoia was entirely justified. Not for the first time, the legal profession […]
I suspect Nicola Sturgeon would quite like to be New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — at least when it comes to managing COVID-19. Her emulative desire extends to drawing explicit comparisons and of late has manifested in attempts to get responses out of the Kiwi leader on Twitter. The latter incident generated snippy observations […]
In May this year, Sir Keir Starmer rejected the possibility of an extension to the Brexit transition period. It’s fair to say this surprised many people, including me. Starmer was Remain’s standard-bearer during the December General Election. The architect of Labour’s manifesto promise to hold a second referendum, his commitment to Europe was never anything […]
“I thought the British accepted election results”. This comment, made to me last year, unprompted, by a Lebanese friend (Hi, Aamir!) I hadn’t seen for 20 years did two things. First, it focused my mind even more intently — if that were possible — on the job of covering Brexit for various outlets. Secondly, it […]
On Saturday, some Bristol wag (or several Bristol wags) installed a mannequin of Jimmy Savile atop toppled slave-trader Edward Colston’s plinth. Attached to it was a sign reading “None of them stopped me, and your licence paid for it”. As the latest salvo in that unhappy city’s ongoing statue wars it is difficult to top, […]
I’ve written previously for CapX on the problem of elites who behave as though they’re not subject to the law in the same way as people unlike them. With that as background, some thoughts on the Dominic Cummings lockdown scandal du jour.The lockdown rules in England permit travelling to one’s “childcare provider” as essential travel. […]
There have now been two instances of high profile public health professionals resigning after ignoring lockdown rules they advised or were responsible for enforcing. In between the health tsars falling on their respective swords, Financial Times journalist Mark Di Stefano fell on his, and for a similar reason: engaging in the sort of “gotcha” behaviour […]
