Patrick West is a columnist for Spiked and author of Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche For Our Times (Societas, 2017)
Britain has a widespread and collective mental health problem – but it’s not what you might think. Specifically, it’s that many people believe themselves to be mentally unwell when actually they are not. What’s more, society and the state have been prone to taking them at their word on this matter for far too long. We’ve become
Most people hate their jobs. This is a sad, unfortunate fact of life. But it happens to be an eternal truth. Throughout the course of human history the overwhelmingly bulk of mankind has toiled to live, rather than having the good fortune to follow their dreams. Even when this is the case, when people elect
For some years now, one of the greatest worries among a certain coterie has been that of ‘misinformation’. This is the idea that the masses, left to their own devices – figuratively and literally – are unable to discern what is true and what is false. This is what has prompted the establishment of such
We live in a country in which petty grievances and perceived slights abound, and one in which resentments and gripes are taken seriously by the state. We saw evidence of this state of affairs in two unrelated reports this week. The first came from Leeds, where an employment tribunal found that the use of the
This country still has a problem with a radical ideology. News that the government’s anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent, now classifies concerns about mass migration, or ‘cultural nationalism’, as a potential ‘terrorist ideology’ reveals the magnitude of this problem. And the problem in question is hyper-liberalism, a radical ideology that remains endemic in Prevent and elsewhere in the arms
Why can’t academics write properly? Why can’t they express themselves in language that normal people can understand? These are questions that have echoed through the ages, and ones that still resonate today – so much so that even academics are starting to ask them. In an address to the Hay Festival this week, Professor Kehinde
They were a stalwart of Britain’s towns and cities from the 1970s until their disappearance in 2007 – and now Virgin is set to bring its Megastores back to the high street. According to the Times, the Virgin Group has in mind at least one central London site as a possible location for a new Megastore. Its
One of the main accusations levelled at the trans movement is that the tidal wave of youngsters claiming to be gender dysphoric in recent years is a form of social contagion, especially among rich, progressive households. Katharine Birbalsingh, the former government social mobility tsar and head of Michaela Community School in northwest London, seems to
The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be. Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role
Can the BBC ever be objective and unbiased? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves, sometimes in hope, often in exasperation. It’s also a question that the Corporation forever asks itself, but instead in the spirit of aspiration and ambition. So it’s ostensibly good news that it has announced plans to expand its Verify
Keir Starmer has finally realised that he needs to tackle rising immigration. The Prime Minister said yesterday that Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ if nothing is done. Predictably, his speech has gone down badly with the usual suspects. There may be a simple reason why some of Starmer’s critics will never see eye to
When hyper-liberal identity politics went into overdrive in that year of madness, 2020, one of the greatest casualties in this country was to be our police forces. This wasn’t obvious at the time, although officers ‘taking the knee’ at the foot of Black Lives Matters protestors hinted at things to come, as did their growing
We now live in a country where, once more, it appears to be a crime to commit blasphemy. This is the inevitable and justifiable conclusion many have made following the news yesterday that a man who burnt a copy of the Koran was charged with ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ against ‘the religious institution of Islam’.
A great exhortation of our times is the need to ‘be kind’. It manifests itself among those who cry ‘refugees welcome’, who urge for ‘compassion’ for the feelings of those deemed oppressed, and for those who regard Paddington Bear as the embodiment of everything good in the world. More sinisterly, however, this mentality still shows
Many people have been celebrating after the Supreme Court’s declaration that the definition of a woman will indeed be based on biological sex. Some have heralded it as signifying the end of radical trans ideology, or even the end of woke politics altogether. All this remains to be seen. What we certainly won’t see, however,
From today, ‘Stop Brexit Man’ is free. This character, whose real name is Steve Bray, the long-standing bane of broadcasters, politicians and pedestrians on account of his persistent and clamorous pro-EU protests, has been cleared of flouting a police ban after playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit songs outside Parliament. Bray was apprehended after blaring loud music
Barely a month seems to pass without a public exhortation to ‘raise awareness’ about the plight of some marginal section of society, or for some worthy cause on behalf of the vulnerable. If you find this trend tiresome, irritating or indeed stressful, then help is at hand: April has seen the arrival of Stress Awareness
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s Eid. But of course you noticed. You’d have to be living in a cave not to be aware that today marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. That’s because nearly all public bodies, along with a plethora of private institutions, have been busy on social media
The heavy-handed conduct of the police these days often provokes accusations of ‘Orwellian’ behaviour – and with good reason. There has been a litany of reports in recent years of people being investigated and cautioned for remarks, often made in private, that have been adjudged ‘offensive’ or ‘hurtful’. In the eyes of many, we now
Complaints that ‘London isn’t what it used to be’ or ‘London is a hell-hole these days’ are hardly original or new, but reports keep giving succour to this perception. The news that the capital has recorded its highest-ever level of mobile theft will only confirm what nostalgics and those who regularly watch TV already know:
