Ed West writes the Wrong Side of History substack
Steven Pinker famously observed in The Blank Slate that ‘Sophisticated people sneer at feel-good comedies and saccharine romances in which all loose ends are tied and everyone lives happily ever after. Yet when it comes to the science of human beings, this same audience says: Give us schmaltz.’ The same is true of the politics
I love Twitter. Just like the historian Dan Snow, I find the social media site to be an overwhelmingly positive experience, and a great place to make friends and acquaintances and share ideas. Sure, most of the friends I’ve made are as politically insane as I am, but that’s the inevitable result of any service
For those people already bored with the interminable European question, Radio 4 might get unbearable over the next few months. Yesterday morning the subject was being discussed, in the context of David Cameron’s ‘deal’, and someone from Brussels was explaining that ‘more Europe’ was needed to solve the migrant/refugee crisis. She never got to explain
If I was in charge of the Home Office I’d employ someone whose sole area of expertise was Hitler’s Germany and whose only job was to keep an eye out for any vague echoes of Nazism, however fatuous, in the working practices of the government or its contractors. This would have avoided Monday’s controversy over asylum
While watching MPs in the House of Commons debate banning a politician they find disagreeable, my first thought was to wonder how this chamber once ruled one-quarter of the globe. If Trump becomes president we could not ban him from visiting; if he doesn’t, he doesn’t matter anyway. Either way, having controversial or even obnoxious
Ross Douthat’s 10 points about immigration is recommended reading for anyone sitting on the fence or who tends towards the open border position; even if you disagree, you’ll at least have an idea of what the opposition believe. Personally I agree with it all anyway and my opinions on the subject are as frozen in aspic
One of the things that repeatedly comes up with David Bowie fans talking about their hero is how much he meant to people living in small towns or suburbs. For adolescents who felt confined by stuffy suburban mores and maybe felt themselves a bit different, Bowie must have felt like a lifeline. Personally I grew
I consider myself to be bad at making predictions, but one of the obvious things about the migrant crisis last year was that public sympathy for the Syrians, spurned in particular by the image of the drowned 3-year-old boy Aylan Kurdi, would soon evaporate. A large number of men from war zones moving into an
I was in Toys R Us in Brent Cross the other day with my kids, pondering the true miracle of Christmas — that thanks to capitalism, global poverty has halved in just a generation, and we are now able to feed, clothe and shelter record numbers of people — and buy them lots of presents.
Why is it that the sight of a huge, thrusting rocket ploughing through virgin space at 25,000 kmph makes me feel so good? As for seeing a real astronaut with a Union Jack on his arm, how can anyone not be moved? Englishman Tim Peake launched into space just after 11 AM yesterday, alongside Russian Yuri
If anything positive comes out of the Syrian crisis, and I appreciate it’s like looking for silver linings in the Great Storm of Jupiter, it is that it has brought the European nations together as never before. Perhaps the last time that England, France and Germany fought in a major campaign together was the Third Crusade in
Niall Ferguson wrote a piece recently comparing Europe’s situation to that of the Roman Empire during its late, decadent, sexual pervert days: Here is how Edward Gibbon described the Goths’ sack of Rome in August 410AD: “ … In the hour of savage licence, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed …
These are the Arab countries the Foreign Office currently advises it is safe to visit: Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Jordan. Call this list A. These are the Arab countries the Foreign Office currently advises avoiding travel to, or to some regions at least: Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, the Lebanon,
Actress Frances Barber has complained about her taxi driver after a night out in town, tweeting: https://twitter.com/francesbarber13/status/668598758473654272 The man had allegedly told her she was ‘disgustingly dressed’ and that ‘women should not be out at night’. This was after she had remarked about the weather being cold. That’s the problem with liberalising the taxi market
Assuming we haven’t been vaporised by Vlad, the Oldham West and Royton by-election takes place next week, and Labour are seriously worried. Ukip’s odds to take the seat have fallen to 11/4 and as this observation from a campaigner explains, much of this seems down to the Corbyn effect. Labour have huge problems with their
Watching the increasingly bleak and depressing Peep Show the other night I was pleased to note that my on-screen alter ego Mark Corrigan is a big fan of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, which is I think my all-time favourite documentary. To me Civilisation, and the then controller of BBC2 who commissioned it, David Attenborough, represent what
I hope anyone who sees footage of the two shrieking women at Yale and Missouri will finally concede that political correctness is not ‘all about politeness’. It’s about power, and always has been. The Yale hoo-ha started because the authorities failed to take seriously a letter from the university’s ‘Intercultural Affairs Committee’ warning about Halloween fancy dress costumes
The suspiciously handsome Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was asked on Wednesday why it’s important to have a gender balance in the cabinet. As the Times of India reported: ‘It’s an incredible pleasure for me to be before you here today to present to Canada a cabinet that looks like Canada,’ Trudeau told reporters after he
This time of year features my two least favourite festivals, Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night, but the build up to Remembrance Day gives it a run for its money. I don’t mind Halloween being commercial, pagan, fake, foreign and likely to increase diabetes levels, so long as it’s for children; I just don’t know when October
We all know that relations with Russia are at their lowest ebb since 1991, when Boris Yeltsin brought down Communism during one of his alcoholic blackouts. What’s becoming increasingly clear, though, is that there is a new ideological cold war – and I’m not sure we’ll win this one. The German approach to dissent over
