Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.
I went to the Battle of Ideas at the Barbican last weekend, a free speech festival organised by the Brexit party MEP Claire Fox, and listened to an interesting discussion about Life of Brian. The Monty Python film is exactly 40 years old, having been released in the UK on 8 November 1979. The opinion
I’ve been contacted by a professor at a leading Russell Group university who is worried about the spread of progressive dogma in the UK’s higher education sector. He highlighted last week’s report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission which claimed that around a quarter of students from ethnic minority backgrounds at Britain’s universities have
In February last year, Spectator Life ran an article by Douglas Murray on the arrival of a new group of unorthodox thinkers who were challenging the dogmas of the authoritarian left. People who maintained, among other things, that there are fundamental biological differences between men and women, that free speech is under siege on campus
Nicola Sturgeon, who claimed this week that ‘Scotland is rich enough, strong enough and big enough’ to take its place ‘among the proud, independent nations of the world’, is a slippery fish. She claims the case for Scottish independence will be strengthened by the UK’s departure from the European Union and yet she campaigned for
The Guardian ran a story on its website today headlined: ‘Hate crimes doubled in England and Wales in five years.’ Alarming if true, but is it? The story is based on some data released by the Home Office today which, on the face of it, does appear to show the number of hate crimes increasing.
I ventured out into Westminster earlier this week to take a look at the Extinction Rebellion protest and it reminded me of the Edinburgh Fringe. I don’t just mean the sheer number of people in fancy dress, such as the Red Rebels with their red robes and white face paint, or the men in gas
I’m writing this from the Conservative party conference where Boris’s attempt to ram home the message that he’s the only party leader capable of getting Brexit done is being drowned out by the claim by Charlotte Edwardes, a Sunday Times columnist, that he squeezed her thigh under the table at a Spectator lunch 20 years
No doubt there will be plenty of black humour at this year’s Tory party Conference — not least because it will be a kind of counter-cultural festival, taking place in the teeth of the Establishment’s attempts to cancel it. Who knew we were the real hippies? It’ll be like Woodstock for the over-65s. But if
I cannot recall a week in which Britain’s private schools have received better PR. The Labour party has pledged to scrap them because of the huge advantages they confer on their pupils — including ‘lifelong networks for the powerful’, according to Owen Jones. Presumably that’s a reference to Jeremy Corbyn, who, thanks to his private
I don’t recall exactly when I first met David Cameron, but it must have been in Oxford in 1985 shortly after the beginning of Michaelmas term. I was a third year at Brasenose studying PPE and he was a first year, also doing PPE. I remember him being friendly and down to earth and canny
In 2015, Daniel Markovits, a professor at Yale Law School, delivered a commencement address to that year’s graduating class in which he attacked the idea of meritocracy. It was, he said, a gilded cage that imprisons the elite and leaves the rest feeling excluded and undervalued. For Markovits to make these remarks at one of
I think my colleagues on the pro-Brexit side of the aisle have been a little unkind in their response to John Bercow’s announcement that he’ll be standing down as chief referee in the House of Commons. Yes, he’s clearly done everything in his power to make life as difficult as possible for those MPs who
I didn’t think the smug triumphalism of the Remainer Alliance could get any more nauseating, but this afternoon it did. I’m thinking of John Bercow’s announcement that he’s stepping down as Speaker of the House of Commons and the 90+ minutes of sycophantic tributes from all those MPs who think the electorate made a grave
If there is to be an election before we leave the European Union, some kind of non-aggression pact between the Tories and the Brexit party is essential. Without it, the risk is all too obvious: that pro-Brexit voters will be divided, allowing pro-Remain candidates to win, even in some constituencies where a clear majority are
The Remainers are celebrating after Tuesday night’s defeat of the government and writing Boris off as a busted flush. ‘Johnson’s Brexit strategy in ruins as anti-no deal MPs inflict defeat,’ says the headline on this morning’s FT. But I’m not convinced this was such a bad night for the Prime Minister. Boris’s response to Tuesday’s
The reluctance of the Conservative party to take credit for the success of its education reforms is a source of increasing bewilderment to me. With each passing year, the A-level and GCSE results of free schools and academies provide yet more evidence that liberating state schools from the dead hand of local authority control has
Who knew the Royal Mint, of all places, had been captured by the cult of political correctness? According to the Mail, the Mint’s Advisory Committee decided not to put Enid Blyton on a 50p coin to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death because she is ‘a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded
I’m on holiday with my family in Turks and Caicos, and maintaining my current weight is proving difficult. Regular readers will recall that I lost about half a stone at the beginning of 2018, after an army of offence archeologists started sifting through everything I’d written, dating back more than 30 years, looking for evidence
I’m on holiday with my family in Turks and Caicos, and maintaining my current weight is proving difficult. Regular readers will recall that I lost about half a stone at the beginning of 2018, after an army of offence archeologists started sifting through everything I’d written, dating back more than 30 years, looking for evidence
The Glorious Twelfth this year, signalling the start of the grouse-shooting season, was overshadowed by a Labour party press release demanding a ‘review’ into driven shooting. Labour’s shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman left people in little doubt as to what she expected this review to conclude. ‘The costs of grouse shooting on our environment and
