This week Twitter has announced the launch of a new Trust & Safety Council measure which aims to prevent users from being subject to ‘abusive, hateful or unpleasant blather’. However, critics have claimed the council is really a censorship tool which will be used to stop unpopular viewpoints being aired — with Mr S’s colleague Brendan O’Neill
Don’t imagine that the campaign group ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ has gone away just because Rhodes didn’t fall. They’ve now issued a list of demands, including a call for Oxford to ‘acknowledge and confront its role in the ongoing violence of empire’. And if America is anything to go by, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
As expected, Jeremy Hunt has just announced in the Commons that he will impose the junior doctor contract after he was advised that there was no longer any chance of an agreement with the British Medical Association on the issue. And as expected, the BMA has said that it does not accept the contract and
The queues haven’t started forming outside branches in Frankfurt or Cologne yet. Even so, it is hard not to suspect that something is badly amiss at Deutsche Bank, Germany’s and indeed Europe’s mightiest financial institution, and the rock on which that economy is founded. The shares have been in freefall, and executives have been wheeled
It’s unusual for a left-leaning paper to propose wiping out an entire species. Normally they’re proposing doing the exact opposite – reintroducing species that haven’t been seen there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But in a recent column in the Observer, Eva Wiseman decided that wiping out all mosquitoes is the best solution
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Simon Barnes and the Sea Watch Foundation’s Dr Peter Evans discuss whales” startat=1400] Listen [/audioplayer]Imagine if a bunch of Bollywood celebrities turned up in Britain to protest outside steak houses, lie down in front of abattoir trucks as they tried to leave beef farms and started describing Britain as ‘barbaric’ for killing cattle.
It was never going to be an enjoyable experience trying to defend Google in front of the Public Accounts Committee following the recent row over their tax arrangements. But the company’s European President Matt Brittin came in for a particularly torrid time as he was quizzed by Meg Hillier today. As well as appearing to
If you think it’s only crybaby students who set up safe spaces in which they might hide from gruff words and ugly sentiments, think again. More of the world beyond touchy campuses is being safe-spaced too. Consider Twitter, which this week announced the establishment of a ‘safety council’ — Orwellian much? — to ensure its
A row about the way opposition parties are funded is set to erupt in the Commons today. Labour’s Chris Bryant has an urgent question in the Commons today on Short money, which, as Coffee House readers already know, is causing a rather big row among all the Opposition parties. The government’s plans to cut the
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Listen to this week’s edition of the The View From 22″] Listen [/audioplayer] In this week’s issue, Laura Pitel discusses whether the next refugee crisis emerging in Turkey could dwarf the first which has gripped Europe. Turkey has taken in two and a half million refugees – nearly three times as many as
Bernard Hogan-Howe did his best to appear calm on the Today show but it is clear he is increasingly rattled by the pressure he is under. The Met Police commissioner was on the front page of several newspapers this morning for all the wrong reasons. ‘Just say sorry’, screamed The Sun. The Daily Mail went
Since Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, the party has been dogged by rumours that George Galloway could rejoin the party. The Respect party leader — who was expelled in 2003 following his outspoken comments on the Iraq war — has called for his expulsion to be rescinded. Corbyn has refused to rule out such a move,
‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I don’t know what
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss the PM’s argument for staying in” startat=763] Listen [/audioplayer]It is normally in the final, frantic days of a campaign that a multitude of dubious claims are made. But when it comes to the EU referendum, this has begun before the date of the vote has even been
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Laura Pitel and Migration Watch’s Alanna Thomas discuss the second migrant crisis”] Listen [/audioplayer]In Istanbul, signs of the Syrian influx are everywhere. Syrian mothers sit on pavements clutching babies wrapped in blankets; children from Homs, Syria’s most completely devastated city, push their way through packed tram carriages begging for coins. Arabic adverts offer
Dearest, I’d love to have your Tina to stay — what are aunts for? — but I’m not sure if it can be managed just now. I know you’d like her to have a change of scene after that business with her maths tutor (has he gone back to his family now, by the way?)
From ‘Marching through France’, The Spectator, 12 February 1916: Finally we came to the trenches themselves, and all around was desolation and ruin. There are few more mournful spectacles than a town or village lately reduced to ruins. To what purpose were all these homes sacrificed? Why are all these good people scattered and beggared
I had been trying to get to Aleppo for ages, but was unable to do so because rebel activity had cut off the city from the outside world. Syrian government military successes at the start of January meant there was at last a safe road. I hired a driver, was allocated a government minder (very
Last week Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, tabled proposals which the government hopes will form the basis of the UK’s renegotiated relationship with the European Union. Politically, the proposals may be just the job: a new commitment to enhance competitiveness, proposals to limit benefits to migrants, recognition that member states’ different aspirations for
Nairobi Nairobi’s old avenues were designed to be wide enough for a wagon and several span of oxen to U-turn in them. Even so, in our modern era the matatu communal taxis frequently manage to create a traffic jam out of nothing so nobody can go anywhere, sometimes for hours. So I’m waiting patiently in
