Society

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Anglican bishop: ‘Never trust a Tory’

It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so mind-numbingly tedious. The Bishop of St Davids, the Right Reverend Dr Joanna Penberthy, has discovered Twitter. And we’ve discovered just what goes on inside the mind of a mid-ranking Anglican bore. It is, apparently, a rather angry place — not the quiet reflective serenity one might expect from a woman of God.  The bishop is a #FBPE Remainer headbanger who wants to #GTTO (get the Tories out). She is keen to let everyone knows that she ‘will forever remain a Welsh European’ and has been happily sharing nationalist propaganda — including comments by the SNP Covid adviser Devi Sridhar, erroneously claiming that the United Kingdom

Wednesday

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

What happens now that Rhodes didn’t fall?

Oriel College, Oxford’s decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it to be just that: noise. The university’s willingness to face down activists could mark a turning point in proving that when campaigners don’t get their way, the world continues to turn. This might sound obvious but it marks a welcome change to the often depressing cycle of inevitability of protest-social media storm-surrender. All too often, it seems power really does lie with the various campaign groups, charities, and commentators pushing for change. The fact that Rhodes hasn’t fallen, whatever you might think of the man himself, shows that it doesn’t. This is why they are activists

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Keir Starmer refuses to deny taking drugs at university

Keir Starmer’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ is a sign of desperation. The Labour leader knows he must do something about the dire situation his party is in, following the disastrous defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. One of the big criticisms levelled at Starmer is that he lacks charisma. His decision to agree to be interviewed by Morgan is an attempt to do something about that, by showing people the ‘real’ Starmer. Unfortunately, though, it seems there are some things that remain off limits, not least what Starmer the student got up to during his time at Leeds university.  Morgan quizzed Starmer at least ten times on whether the

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

In defence of Naomi Osaka

‘Kawaisou’ or ‘wagamama’ (poor thing or spoiled brat)? That’s the question Japanese tennis fans have been asking ever since world number two Naomi Osaka quit the French Open, having refused to fulfil her post-match press conference obligations. The tennis superstar cited mental health problems for her reluctance to be quizzed by journalists, after which she was censored sharply, and handed a $15,000 (£11,000) fine. She was told to comply, but has chosen not to, packing her bags and leaving instead.  Osaka has said that she suffers ‘bouts of depression’ and has confessed to a chronic shyness that prompts her to wear headphones to shut out the world whenever she is at a tournament.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is climate change really causing hundreds of UK deaths?

Given the power that the daily statistics of Covid deaths have exerted over us this year, it was only a matter of time before we started being bamboozled with terrifying figures of the estimated death toll from climate change. Sure enough, the latest issue of Nature Climate Change contains a widely-reported paper by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Bern, which attempts to quantify the death toll from higher global temperatures. The scientists ran a simulation which they claim predicted what the weather would have been like in recent years had it not been for man-made climate change. They then reached the conclusion that

Monday

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Why can’t King’s College academics cope with a photo of Prince Philip?

Librarians aren’t known for causing trouble. But at our elite universities, in the grip of an increasingly unhinged culture of offence-taking, it doesn’t take much to cause trouble nowadays. This is the news that a library director at King’s College London has been forced to make a grovelling apology for emailing around a photo of Prince Philip. Hot on the heels of that student at Abertay being investigated for saying women have vaginas, this one is right up there with the most absurd campus stories to date. In a bulletin marking the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, Joleen Clarke, associate director of the university’s libraries, sent a photo of Philip and

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why should Dr Christian Jessen’s fans pay his legal bill?

Wasn’t the whole point of crowdfunding supposed to be about enabling community and artistic projects to take place? That was how I remember it being sold to us, at any rate. But no, I got it wrong. It turns out that the real point of it is to help celebrities pay their legal bills.  Dr Christian Jessen, who appears on a Channel 4 show called Embarrassing Bodies, has been ordered by a Belfast court to pay £125,000 in libel damages to former Northern Irish first minister Arlene Foster for tweeting the false allegation that she was having an extra-marital affair. It is believed that legal costs could add a further

Saturday

Joanna Williams

The problem with Prince Harry’s mental health drive

Has Prince Harry ever had a thought and not made it public? Are there feelings or emotions he has experienced but kept to himself? The latest episode of The Me You Can’t See, the Duke’s documentary series exploring mental health and emotional well-being, aired this week. Loyal viewers were rewarded with a bonus ‘town hall conversation’ show in which Harry and his co-host and producer, Oprah Winfrey, were reunited with advisors and participants from the series.  The premise of the programmes, drummed home once again in the town hall special, is that having ‘a me we can’t see’ is bad for our mental health. Full emotional disclosure is open, honest,

Lisa Bjurwald

Lisa Bjurwald, Douglas Murray and Stuart Jeffries

29 min listen

On this week’s episode, Lisa Bjurwald reports on the Swedish monarchy going woke (01:20); Douglas Murray argues that the culture wars fit the UK even less well than the US (07:00); and Stuart Jeffries interviews the world’s first AI artist. Also on the podcast: a complaints letter to the Times after their March 2020 story that Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson were considering giving their dog up for adoption. The letter, though never sent, was revealed on Friday.

Leo McKinstry

Is awarding medals to Bomber Command heroes a wise idea?

Will the heroic members of Bomber Command, who played such a vital role for Britain during the Second World War, finally get the recognition they deserve? In recent years, there has been growing pressure on Whitehall to strike a campaign medal for the RAF crews who fought during the conflict, thereby giving them the special recognition they were denied in 1946. But even if it is done with the best of intentions, is a unique award for these men – who were undoubtedly heroes – really such a wise idea, or could it set a difficult precedent? The drive to award medals was given a new impetus last week when 99-year-old George ‘Johnny’

Friday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

How Biden’s cardinals are trying to shut down free discussion

16 min listen

America’s Catholic bishops are furiously divided among themselves this week, after a liberal faction led by the Biden loyalists Cardinals Cupich of Chicago and Wilton Gregory of Washington tried to stop them discussing the question of whether the radically pro-choice president of the United States should be allowed to receive Holy Communion. The US conference of bishops is scheduled to address the whole question of the Eucharist at its meeting next month. The plan is to prepare a document that will finally decide whether American bishops will enforce the Vatican’s ban on actively pro-abortion Catholics receiving the sacrament while in a state of ‘grave sin’, as the Church puts it.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Did NHS discharges ‘seed’ Covid into care homes? A look at the data

Did Matt Hancock’s negligence lead to Covid seeding into care homes because patients were not tested before being discharged? This was one of Dominic Cummings’s more potent charges  and it brings back memories for me because I spent a chunk of last summer looking into this. In my line of work, the success rate for stories is quite low: investigate five avenues and you’re likely to find four dead ends. So you end up with a lot of data and research that’s never used, because the original premise doesn’t hold up. I was (and remain) critical of much of government policy on Covid response: it seemed horribly plausible to me that panicked NHS

Thursday

William Moore William Moore

Whodunnit? The lab leak theory is looking increasingly plausible

38 min listen

We’re still none the wiser about the origins of coronavirus, but has the lab leak theory just got more credible (00:55) Also on the podcast: are English tourists welcome in Scotland (15:25)? And is being rude the secret to success? With author Matt Ridley, virologist Dr Dennis Carroll, deputy political editor Katy Balls, hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray, journalists Harry Mount and Rebecca Reid. Presented by William Moore. Produced by Cindy Yu, Max Jeffery and Sam Russell.

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Batley Grammar and the triumph of the mob

Here’s the depressing truth about the Batley Grammar controversy: the mob has won. Angry protesters who gathered at the school gates to demand teachers be forbidden from displaying images of Muhammad have pretty much got their way. Following an external inquiry into what happened at Batley Grammar, the trust which runs the school has said such images should never be used again. This affair kicked off in March, when a teacher was suspended for showing his pupils a cartoon of Muhammad during a Religious Studies discussion about blasphemy. In an attempt to resolve this surreal situation, in which a teacher in a supposedly modern secular democracy was effectively being punished for blasphemy,

Andrew Tettenborn

The EHRC is right to ditch Stonewall

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has unceremoniously dumped Stonewall – and who can blame it? Its excuse for ceasing to pay at least £2,500 a year for the privilege of being part of Stonewall’s ‘diversity champions’ programme was that it did not offer ‘value for money’. For all the anodyne corporate-speak, it seems clear the increasing toxicity of the Stonewall brand played a big part in the decision. There was another factor in play here too. Interestingly enough, while Stonewall’s stock goes ever downwards, the outlook of the EHRC seems to be changing for the better. Getting shot of Stonewall, despite widespread acceptance of this organisation by public bodies up and down the

Annabel Denham

What’s wrong with electric scooters?

Less than a year into e-scooter trials, ministers are coming under pressure to ban the new transport technology, with concerned critics claiming they need to be made safe and the public educated on the law. Matthew Scott, Kent’s police and crime commissioner (PCC), has written to the Transport Secretary calling for a clampdown on electric scooter usage. Given the government’s fondness for the precautionary principle, it wouldn’t come as a huge shock if it capitulated to the quibbles of a tiny minority, however weak their opposition may be. There’s actually little to dislike about e-scooters. For a start, they’re no more dangerous than many other forms of transport. We don’t ban

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Covid deaths in context

What would have been your overall chances of dying in the first 19 weeks of 2021 compared with recent years? According to a measure called ‘standardised mortality’ your overall chances of dying so far in 2021 have been just 1 per cent over the average of the past ten years — that is in spite of January’s peak in Covid deaths. We have been fed a daily diet of Covid deaths for over a year now. As Professor Gordon Wishart argues elsewhere on Coffee House, this daily bulletin has become pretty pointless now that deaths and hospitalisations are so low; a monthly total would be better.  Yet even at the height of

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My plan for Belarus

A terrible thing, to be torn. Last Sunday was International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, a very painful condition affecting the nether regions of women who have just given birth. I very much wished to observe the occasion in some way, but Sunday was also World Turtle Day, which naturally commended itself to me as well. Having thought about it, my hope was that those suffering from obstetric fistulae and the turtles might put aside whatever differences they may have and waddle together in a show of unity and I could commend them both at the same time. Better still, however, would have been if last Sunday had been designated

Harry Mount

In our narcissistic age, nothing beats good manners

Last week, a 20-year-old student came into my office, looking for work experience this summer. He was so polite — in a shy, understated, non-oily way — that I was very keen to help him. It was like meeting a time-traveller from the 1950s: no showing-off, just a gentle display of intelligence teased out from behind his veil of self-effacement. He even washed up his cup after I’d told him he didn’t need to. I must introduce a Teacup Test for future interviewees, to see what they do with the cup at the end of the interview. It’s inspired by the Escalator Test, invented by a colleague at the Evening