Brendan O’Neill is Spiked's chief politics writer. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, is out now.
Hilary Mantel knows her history. Her trilogy of novels on the life of Thomas Cromwell made that clear. Those dazzlingly successful books brought Tudor history to life in all its monstrous glory. So it’s a tad surprising that Ms Mantel appears not to understand the history of the European Union. This brilliant mind seems to
Do you ever get the feeling that the elites are just taking the mick? That behind our backs they’re high-fiving each other and saying, ‘I can’t believe we’re still getting away with this?’ I do. Especially on the climate-change issue. The gall of an establishment that lives it up in carbon-fuelled luxury while telling the
Labour peer Lord Digby Jones has found himself in the eye of a Twitterstorm. His error? He criticised BBC sports presenter Alex Scott for mispronouncing certain words on the Beeb’s daily Olympics show. Specifically, words ending in G. Scott is a G-dropper, he complained. She says ‘fencin, rowin, boxin, weighliftin and swimmin’, he said, and
Remember when Labour MP Clive Lewis got into trouble for saying, ‘On your knees, bitch’? It was at a fringe event hosted by Momentum during the Labour conference in Brighton in 2017. Lewis uttered the line as a joke to the actress Sam Swann. People went nuts. Labour bigwigs accused Lewis of misogyny. He eventually
It often feels like we’re living through the revenge of the talentless. Cancel culture is essentially a war of no-marks against high achievers. Think of all those faceless furious people on Twitter who want the Harry Potter books thrown in the dumpster of history just because JK Rowling thinks biological sex is real. These people
Remember when it was considered wrong for workplaces to harangue their employees about their racial origins? Ah, those were the days. Sadly, they’re long gone. Now it’s all the rage for employers to sit their staff down and berate them about their skin colour and all the problems it apparently causes. The latest workplace to
The list of things that students must apparently be protected from grows longer every day. Controversial speakers, rude comedians, sombreros (banned at the University of East Anglia in 2015 because apparently it is racist for non-Mexicans to wear them). And now, their own student newspapers. Yes, the list of terrifying things that might offend students
It’s starting to feel like the only flag you can’t fly in England is the England flag. Wave the Pride flag out of your living room window and your neighbours will gush. In fact, flying the Pride flag is practically mandatory in June, Pride month. Every town hall, school, bank and social-media site is draped
Today brings yet more proof that Liz Truss is dead right to want to withdraw government departments from Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme. The Telegraph reports that one way institutions and companies can rise up Stonewall’s ‘Workplace Equality Index’ is by ditching words like ‘mother’ and ‘father’ and using more ‘gender-neutral’ terms instead. Apparently, words like
Here’s the depressing truth about the Batley Grammar controversy: the mob has won. Angry protesters who gathered at the school gates to demand teachers be forbidden from displaying images of Muhammad have pretty much got their way. Following an external inquiry into what happened at Batley Grammar, the trust which runs the school has said such images
If you need someone to support your right to freedom of speech, forget the teaching unions. Don’t look to the commentariat. And don’t even bother with the Labour party, many of whose younger, angrier members will often be found in the ranks of cancel-culture mobs calling for someone or other to be erased from polite
Did you know that for the past three weeks Turkey has been engaged in a military assault on Iraqi Kurdistan? It’s been brutal. The Turks, who have one of the most powerful military forces on Earth, have used F-16s, F-4 Terminators and other terrifying hi-tech weaponry to pummel Kurdish positions in northern Iraq. Families have
There have been some truly dystopian spectacles during the past year-or-so of lockdowns. Cops using drones to spy on dog-walkers. Park benches sealed off with yellow tape. Curtain-twitchers dialling 999 after seeing the bloke next door go for a cheeky second jog. But this headline surely tops all of that: ‘Hugs will finally be legal
The Oscars are in trouble. People are switching off in their millions. A paltry 9.85m Americans tuned in to the 93rd Oscars on Sunday evening. Film and TV execs will be tearing their hair out. They go to all that trouble to put on a night of glamour and back-slapping and the little people don’t
So, all of a sudden the chattering classes care about football fans? Yesterday, the kind of people who usually wring their hands about the vulgar, tattooed hordes who pack into grounds and chant unspeakable things at the opposing team, posed as the champions of fans. A European Super League would be a contemptuous assault on
‘Some Christians believe homosexuality is a sin — get over it.’ I feel like this needs to be made into a poster. Or put on the side of a bus, perhaps. Because, amazingly, there are people out there who seem not to realise that traditionally minded Christians think it is wrong for a man to
The capitulation of Batley Grammar School has been a truly dispiriting sight. In response to protests by angry Muslims it has suspended a teacher for the supposed offence of showing a caricature of Muhammad to his pupils. This is an extraordinary act of moral cowardice. Batley Grammar has buckled to religious extremists, cravenly begging for
Shamima Begum is back in the news. Firstly because she’s had a makeover. She can be seen on the front page of today’s Telegraph sporting long, flowing locks, trendy shades and Western clothing. Is Shamima the Islamist now aspiring to be Shamima the celeb? Perhaps she’s angling for her own reality TV show: The Real
What has happened to forgiveness? That question hangs heavy over the Gordon Elliott controversy. He’s the racehorse trainer currently in the eye of a media storm after a photo emerged showing him sitting on top of a dead horse. There has been virtually no discussion about forgiving Elliott for this error. Instead the knives of
There’s a movement in the UK that is trying to block the building of essential new council housing. It is also agitating to stop the opening of a new coal mine, which would deprive working men and women of a good, honest way to make a living. What is this movement? A neo-Thatcherite organisation, perhaps, hell-bent
