[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_14_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Peter Hitchens and Douglas Murray discuss Iraq and Isis” startat=52] Listen [/audioplayer]To hawkish right-wingers, but also to many militant liberals, the antidote to the problem of Isis is clear: the application of military power to defeat the jihadists and lay the foundation for a humane and stable political order, beginning in Iraq but
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_14_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Peter Hitchens and Douglas Murray discuss Iraq and Isis” startat=52] Listen [/audioplayer]Iraq is a bloody mess. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has extended its hold from eastern Syria into western and northern Iraq, massacring Shi’ites, Christians and Yazidis wherever it can. Meanwhile in Baghdad there has been a constitutional crisis, with
I am sure we’re all in agreement that watching videos of adults abusing children is wrong. At least outside the halls of BBC light entertainment (historically speaking) such a consensus must exist. So how has it become not just right, but seemingly virtuous, to watch and then promote pictures of big bearded men chopping off
When I helped bring the Modern Slavery Bill to parliament I thought here, surely, was a piece of legislation that the PM would want to own. Three women — Theresa May, the Home Secretary; her then special adviser Fiona Cunningham; and Philippa Stroud, Iain Duncan Smith’s special adviser — had all worked for a Bill
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_14_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Ed West and Ryan Bourne discuss the moaning middle class” startat=1402] Listen [/audioplayer]Almost from the moment the coalition came to power four years ago, a mood of deepening grievance has gripped parts of the middle class, fuelled by a sense that they have been the biggest losers from the government’s austerity programme. They
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_14_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Andrew Brown and Daniel Trilling discuss the cult of Richard Dawkins” startat=788] Listen [/audioplayer]The other day I wrote something to upset the followers of Richard Dawkins and one of them tracked me down to a pub. I had been asked to give a talk to a group of ‘Skeptics in the Pub’ about
Imagine, for a minute, that you’re a frog — a pro-science frog. You’re so pro-science that you’ve decided to donate yourself to it. You sign the consent forms, climb into the barrel and await your fate. It’s all quite exciting, you think, as you travel the bumpy road to the lab. A huge sacrifice, but
This summer, I returned to Haiti for the first time in ten years. I was itching to see how the Caribbean republic had changed after the terrible earthquake of 12 January 2010. This time, I would not be travelling by jitney, lorry or fishing boat, but in taxis and air-conditioned tourist coaches. Port-au-Prince, the capital,
It’s a terrible moment, the realisation that you’ve spawned a monster. Parenthood, it becomes clear, has wiped stylish holidays off the agenda for a good few years. Somewhere like St Moritz, for instance, won’t thank you for polluting its elegant slopes with Bratbot 5.1. Then you stumble across Nira Alpina, and your desperation disappears. The
