Patrick West

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 have a de facto thought police in this country, with their disproportionate response to people’s sentiments and words indeed warranting comparisons to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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: that our once-great capital is overcrowded, overpriced, crime-ridden and barely English anymore. While this stereotype is founded on much truth, I think some redress is in order, not least an infusion of nuance. By way of putting perspective on matters, here’s my story. London has unquestionably changed.

Henry Kelly was a well-loved personality in Britain. The Irish television and radio presenter, who died this week, came to prominence in this country in the 1980s in the ITV show Game For A Laugh, consolidating his popularity on BBC’s Going For Gold and on the airwaves as a presenter on Classic FM. And intrinsic to Kelly’s appeal was his unmistakeable Irish persona. Kelly has been variously described in his obituaries as ‘jovial’ and ‘ebullient’, blessed with ‘humour’ and a ‘cosy Dublin charm’. Such appraisals could have easily been invoked to described Dave Allen or Terry Wogan, his co-patriots who also endeared themselves to the British public, entertainers who similarly embodied a benign Irish stereotype.

It was inevitable that the announced cut to Britain’s international aid budget would cause a stir. The curtailment earlier this month of the USAID programme provoked outrage among progressive voices worldwide, despite the fact that scheme funded some dubious causes. Why, then, would our compassionate classes react any different? Yesterday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer explained that his plan to increase defence spending would be partly balanced by a reduction in the aid budget, from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of GDP. Some of his Labour colleagues aren’t happy.

Teaching working-class young men that they benefit from ‘white privilege’ is having a detrimental effect on a generation of boys, leading to feelings of negativity and worthlessness, and driving them into the hands of dangerous influencers such as Andrew Tate. This is the claim made by Sam Fender, the best-selling, 30-year-old musician from North Shields. As the singer told the Sunday Times yesterday, this teaching has resulted in boys from poor white backgrounds being ‘made to feel like they’re a problem’, with those from ‘nowhere towns’ being ‘shamed’ and told they weren’t underprivileged because of their skin colour.

Left-wing activists are less likely to understand or listen to people with conservative beliefs, compared to the rest of the population. They are more inclined to view them negatively, and to dismiss them as having ‘been misled’ in forming their opinions. This is the revelation on the front page of the Guardian today. Reporting on a study by the political group More in Common, it relates how the liberal-left are ‘out of step’ with most people in the country when it comes to cultural matters and immigration. When it comes to conservatives in particular, progressives are more prone to misunderstand them, criticise them and even refuse to campaign alongside them.

It was only a matter of time before the rollback of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies in the workplace provoked a backlash. Following an ongoing reversal on the matter in recent months, seen on a global scale at Google, Facebook and Amazon, and here in Britain at BT and Deloitte UK, the head of the Co-op group has spoken of her alarm at this development. As reported in the Guardian over the weekend, Shirine Khoury-Haq, the CEO of the retailer, warns of the grave implications of this turnaround: The medium-term consequences for institutions that employ DEI policies are already proving deleterious Rolling back on DEI isn’t just an internal business decision, it has real-world consequences.

Nearly half of Generation Z believes that Britain is a racist country, and a similar proportion say that they aren't proud to be British. This is the grim finding of a study published in the Times yesterday, based on a YouGov survey and research by the opinion consultancy Public First of 18- to 27-year-olds. The revelation sits in stark contrast with a study undertaken by the Times twenty years ago, in which 80 per cent of young people said that they were proud to be British. The discrepancy is even more stark when contrasted with a general consensus that Britain has become a less racist and more racially-aware place in the intervening period.

Teenagers today are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, and that is a very bad thing indeed. This was the unmistakeable message conveyed by a story in the Times yesterday. Citing a report published by the Commission into Countering Online Conspiracies in Schools, it related how ‘conspiracy theories are rife in classrooms’. Young people, we're told, are more inclined to trust social media influencers than the government when it came to news sources and forming their views of the world. Teachers ‘need urgent support’ to prevent children ‘falling down rabbit holes online’ and succumbing to ‘misinformation’ they discover therein.

Help the aged. Really, someone should help the aged. By this I don’t mean the poor pensioners who’ve been hit by the cut to their winter fuel allowance. Nor do I mean the Baby Boomers who are unfairly maligned for having bought a house when it was affordable to do so, and have held on to it ever since. I mean that generation who came of age in the 1960s and are still trapped in that decade. Like the callow youngsters they march with, they speak in a sloganeering, agitprop language befitting of the student union This was in evidence yesterday when the MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell agreed to be interviewed by police following a pro-Palestinian rally in London on Saturday.

Tony Slattery was outrageously funny. And he was funny because he was outrageous. The actor and comedian, who died yesterday aged 65, may have belonged to that unhappy category of performers who were ‘troubled’ – tormented by insecurities and afflicted by addiction – but he also joins that distinguished pantheon of entertainers who made their mark for their rude and bawdy humour. Slattery was described as a ‘lost anxious teddy bear’ Slattery first came to public attention in the late-1980s as a panellist on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is Anyway?, a programme that entailed playing out scenes in the style of a movie, programme or genre decided by the audience or the host, Clive Anderson.

There was much jubilation yesterday among advocates of free speech following the news that Mark Zuckerberg is to relax restrictions on free expression on the social media platforms owned by Meta, including its most popular site, Facebook. This initiative will include doing away with politically-biased ‘fact checkers’, lifting restrictions on contentious political topics, and adding a function similar to ‘community notes’ on X. Social media has always been part of the problem.

Is there a problem with Islamophobia? The problem is the word ‘Islamophobia’ itself. What does it actually mean, and what does taking the word and its existence at face value entail? Many do assume that Islamophobia is out there in Britain, and that it needs to be addressed. When it was in opposition, the Labour party adopted its definition as drawn up by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims. It states: ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.