Ed West writes the Wrong Side of History substack
Sometimes a combination of news stories crop up that so perfectly sum up the spirit of the age, its absurdities and hypocrisies, that there ought to be a name for it. This week, for instance, I learned that the Home Office had barred three Iraqi and Syrian bishops from entering the country, the same department
Is democracy in danger? This is the belief of a Harvard lecturer called Yascha Mounk whose thesis was profiled in an interesting New York Times piece this week. Mounk began studying the subject after writing a memoir about growing up Jewish in Germany which ‘became a broader investigation of how contemporary European nations were struggling
Many people have remarked that the image of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage posing by the former’s golden elevator doors epitomises the hypocrisy over populists attacking the ‘elites’. Likewise the Guildhall dinner in which Theresa May told an audience dressed in dinner jackets about globalisation and its discontents. These are the ‘anti-elitists’ who now stand
I feel a strange sense of schadenfreude mixed with a heavy dose of terror and uncertainty now that the American people have elected someone with no experience whatsoever who tweets things like this: Every time I speak of the haters and losers I do so with great love and affection. They cannot help the fact
Dear Democrat voters, You are probably the most influential and powerful segment of the human race today. In terms of cultural reach, you are supreme; politically you are masters of the universe; you have the ability to shape our world for good or evil, and for most of the past century you and your forebears
Among its many treasures, Brexit has spawned a new genre of think piece, the nostalgic ‘what has happened to the Britain I love’ lament in the Guardian. From an Irishwoman here; an Egyptian here; and a German, here. It is sad to see people on the Wrong Side of History clinging to a mythologised, imagined good
Is satire dying? Zoe Williams asks in the Guardian whether the shrinking of permissible speech is killing comedy. To make her point, she wonders if the mid-1990s satire The Day Today would be tolerated in 2016 and whether ‘its surrealism belongs to another age’. The spoof news show, which in some ways seems slightly prophetic 20 years later, was sometimes
Scotland may have a second referendum within three years, as many Remainers correctly predicted. If the British government makes a mess of Brexit, the Scots may be inclined to leave the sinking ship and rejoin the EU. If Britain succeeds in going it alone outside a larger federation and doesn’t suffer a huge economic setback
Today is the most important date in our history, the day on which in 1066 thousands of men fought outside Hastings and England was changed forever. By the end of the day, 950 years ago, thousands were dead, among them England’s king, Harold II, and most of the country’s leaders. As historian Elizabeth van Houts
The Tories want to turn us against migrants by dividing people between ‘us’ and ‘them’; well, let me tell you about another bunch of guys who believed in ‘us’ and ‘them’ – the Nazis. Radio presenter James O’Brien made near enough this exact parallel when he quoted from Mein Kampf to show the eerie similarities
I hate gentrification; my area was so much cooler when there were people openly selling drugs on the high street, my neighbours’ house had a mattress outside and the nice restaurants needed bouncers so the diners weren’t constantly harassed by crack addicts. Now it’s all just nice coffee shops, other broadsheet readers and arthouse cinemas.
Recall that eight years ago a number of actors brought out a video of unspeakable dreadfulness called I Pledge, calling on Americans to support Barack Obama’s election. Now the entertainment industry, always shy about supporting a fashionable cause, is back on the stump, this time rallying against Donald Trump. During a new voting campaign – featuring
Do you like Skittles? Do you like them so much you’d eat one from a packet even if you knew a couple were poisoned? Makes u think, ey? This was the analogy Donald Trump Jr made this week about refugees and terrorism, a tweet which caused anger, not least from the company that makes Skittles,
Barring a most spectacular Mossad operation – and I wouldn’t put it past them – Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected Labour leader on Saturday. There is almost nothing Labour moderates can do about this now but accept the annihilation facing them at the next election; even then, party members may still re-elect Corbyn, or choose
I felt for the first time on Sunday that Donald Trump might actually win the US presidential election. I’m not the only one moving in that direction. Hillary Clinton looks in bad shape, and while it’s one thing to be seen as dishonest, to be dishonest and sickly is not a great combination. More mostly bad news
I’m not a great optimist about the whole Brexit thing, although my colleagues would mostly disagree. It’s as if we were expecting a storm and we’re now cheering because it’s gone quiet. Strangely, eerily quiet. Anyway, like with climate change, I hope I’m wrong, and whenever I have my doubts about the whole thing, I think
I was in the Netherlands over the weekend, which is always nice; it’s a bit like England, but just better. I’ve always wanted my country to be a bit more like our neighbours, especially Germany and Holland, and that includes standardisation with European norms when they clearly make more sense. Driving on the left, for
‘More work needs to be done,’ is what people say whenever some unachievable social goal is shown to be another 200 years away. And it was said a lot this week after it emerged that women still earn 18 per cent less than men on average. As the Guardian reported: The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
A-Level results are announced today, and with it the happy news that a record number of university places have been offered. About 42 per cent of 18-year-olds in England will go to university, but we’re still some way behind the world’s leader, South Korea, where two-thirds of young people achieve a degree. And how’s that
As many people have pointed out, if someone had awoken from a coma after 30 years and learned that one US political party was in thrall to Wall St and the other to Russia, they would be confused by 2016. But then right is the new left and liberalism, being the prestige faith, is bound to attract
