Society

Wednesday

Zoe Strimpel

Black Lives Matter’s anti-Semitism blind spot

Charles Dickens was not a nice man. He was horrid to his family, remarking on the birth of one of his sons that ‘on the whole I could have dispensed with him.’ When he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior, he threw his long-suffering wife out, and sent her only three letters in the 12 remaining years of his life. Despite having one of the best imaginations in English literature, his depictions of women alternated between terrible crone (Miss Havisham) to simply prone (Esther in Bleak House). Ah well, we used to say: terrible man, brilliant books. Funny old place, the past. Well, times

Patrick West

The rise of Britain’s new class system

Television chef Prue Leith believes that snobbery is still rife in Britain, and that it’s keeping working-class people in their place. Speaking to the Radio Times this week, Leith described Britain as ‘the most unbelievably class-ridden country’. She is right, but not for old-fashioned reasons we associate with that Frost Report sketch with John Cleese and the Two Ronnies. Snobbery no longer emanates from the landed gentry or the social-climbing bourgeoise. The most overt snobbery today can be found coming from some on the liberal-left and that minority of Remainers who like to deride ‘gammons’. These are the people who for over three years – in the Guardian, on Radio

Tuesday

Claire Fox, Andrew Doyle and Inaya Folarin Iman

Racial division is being sown in the name of anti-racism

Dear fellow citizens, In the wake of the horrifying and brutal killing of George Floyd, many in the UK expressed heartfelt solidarity; widespread protests showed a genuine commitment to opposing racism. Since then, however, activists, corporations and institutions seem to have seized the opportunity to exploit Floyd’s death to promote an ideological agenda that threatens to undermine British race relations. The power of this ideology lies in the fear it inspires in those who would otherwise speak out, whatever their ethnicity. But speak out we must. We must oppose and expose the racial division being sown in the name of anti-racism. The consequences of this toxic, racialised agenda are counter-productive

Carl Heneghan

Can antivirals defeat Covid-19?

Can antivirals help us defeat coronavirus? The odds don’t look good. The use of antiviral compounds against respiratory viruses has a chequered history. Hundreds have been tested; very few have made it to market. And even fewer make a difference. What’s more, the evidence of their impact on mortality rates – the most important outcome of all – is thin. The race for a magic bullet to overcome Covid-19 has been going for months now. At least 254 treatments are currently undergoing development, ranging from antibodies to cell-mediated treatments. And there are over 3,500 trials underway. Twenty-five different antivirals are in various stages of development, with a variety of funders,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Should we be afraid of this new swine flu?

Imagine if a vaccine for Covid-19 was approved tomorrow, and that within weeks we had all been vaccinated. Would life be able to go quickly back more or less to normal? Don’t bet on it. The long shadow of Covid-19 will mean mass panic every time another novel virus comes to light. Indeed, news of such a virus comes today in a paper by a team from China’s Agricultural University published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They say they have identified a flu virus with pandemic potential, which is circulating in the pig population and has already infected significant numbers of humans who work with pigs.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Covid immunity more common than we think?

Antibody tests on random samples of the population have so far shown much lower levels of general infection than the government’s scientific advisers claimed would be necessary to attain ‘herd immunity’. In London, for example, tests have shown that 17 per cent of the population have antibodies to Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. In New York, the figure is 21 per cent. At the beginning of this crisis, on the other hand, Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, suggested that at least 60 per cent of the population would have to be infected in order to achieve herd immunity. It provides a possible explanation for why the Covid-19

Patrick West

British theatre needs to re-examine its politics

Dame Helen Mirren has called for a ‘huge investment’ in the arts, warning that the UK’s theatres are only weeks from collapse. The theatre, she said on the Today programme, is central to the ‘identity of our nation’ and ’embedded in what it means to be British.’ With live performances banned since lockdown, most people will share her concern about the future of Britain’s theatres. But the implication that theatre is intrinsic to the national character doesn’t ring true today. The only genres of live acting that have widespread popular appeal in Britain are musicals and pantomime. Otherwise, theatre is a decidedly middle-class affair these days, and a left-wing one

Dr Waqar Rashid Dr Waqar Rashid

Will more doctors speak out against the lockdown?

Over the last few months, I have watched events with growing incredulity. So much ‘normality’ has been lost, and even when measures have been eased recently, it has always been with strings attached. This makes it feel like more restrictions have appeared; at the height of the epidemic, we were still able to get on a bus or train with our faces uncovered. Not any more. Let’s be clear: the risk from coronavirus is still not zero. It cannot be for any infection. But does that risk justify the measures still in place?  While the government appears to have dropped its strategy of talking about ‘following the science’, it is clear that they are

Monday

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

With Rory Sutherland

45 min listen

Rory Sutherland is the vice-chairman of the renowned advertising firm, Ogilvy, and the Spectator’s ‘Wiki Man’ columnist. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Olivia about everything and anything from the dreadful British food of the 70s, why he loves chain restaurants, and the best and worst kitchen gadgets. As well as his incredibly eclectic and international death row meal.

David Butterfield

Countryfile is wrong about racism and the countryside

At last, with the partial easing of lockdown, we have the consolation of an escape into the countryside. There, in the unquestioning simplicity of it all, we can leave society’s struggles behind. A sweet idea, but now rather behind the times, as shown by BBC Countryfile’s recent stirring into action. In its programme last night, Dwayne Fields delivered a piece on how the countryside needs to lose its ‘barriers’ and become truly welcoming to all communities. Ethnic minorities, he worried, feel that they ‘don’t belong’ in the countryside. Fields has done a great deal to introduce inner-city communities to the countryside and is unquestionably an admirable man. But his framing

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Isn’t it time Sacha Baron Cohen got cancelled?

How helpful of the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to reveal that there are two or three people in America who are happy to join in a sing-along containing the line ‘Liberals, what we gonna do? Inject them with the Wuhan flu.’ Trouble is, it really only was two or three people. If Baron Cohen really was trying to expose the American right as a violent mob, his infiltration of a rally by the Washington Three Percenters, described as a Trump-supporting, pro-gun group, was a miserable failure. Baron Cohen’s wheeze was to pose as a bluegrass singer and to take to the stage and try to whip up the crowd by

Alastair Stewart

How the High Street can bounce back after Covid

The death of the High Street has been greatly exaggerated before, but could this really be it for our town centre shops? The ease of Amazon has made life under lockdown bearable and has tempted people away from popping to the shops. As a result, more and more shops are boarded up. Even large companies aren’t immune, as demonstrated by the collapse into administration of shopping centre giant Intu. But there might still be a way for our High Street shops to defy the odds. When I ventured out to the shops last week for the first time since March, I was anxious: I knew it wasn’t going to be like Bournemouth

Debbie Hayton

The silencing of Graham Linehan

You may not have heard of Graham Linehan but you will be familiar with his work. Linehan is the creator of Father Ted and the IT Crowd, among other comedy shows. And in the wake of the attacks against JK Rowling, he is the latest high-profile person to have been targeted by the mob for speaking out on the issue of transgenderism. Over the weekend, Linehan was booted off Twitter. His apparent crime? To tweet the words: ‘men aren’t women tho’. His post, in response to a message from the Women’s Institute wishing their transgender members a happy Pride, was too much for Twitter. Now Linehan has been permanently suspended, it would seem, for saying among other

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How the Nazis pioneered ‘cancel culture’

Two well-known women were degraded last week as Britain continues to be ethically cleansed. The first was Nancy Astor, whose statue in Plymouth was dubbed with the word ‘Nazi’. The second was Baroness Nicholson, honorary vice-president of the Booker Prize Foundation, who was relieved of her duties after her views on trans issues and gay marriage were judged insufficiently respectful. ‘The issues are complex but our principles are clear,’ the Foundation said in justifying their decision. ‘We deplore racism, homophobia and transphobia and do not discriminate on any grounds.’ Is there any difference between those who defiled Astor and those who demeaned Nicholson? Only, it would appear, that the latter are

Sunday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The rise of coercive progressivism

What has followed the killing of George Floyd did not begin with the death of a man under the knee of a police officer. The rioting and the statue-toppling, the shunnings and the firings, the institutional genuflections and the gleeful marching through newly conquered territory are the fruits of ideas and impulses long in germination. Critics interpret these events as the work of either a political movement or a new religion, but it is more accurate to say that it is both. A secular millenarianism is trying to tear down the liberal order and erect in its place a new order that we might call coercive progressivism. It is an

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The problem with Burnley’s ‘White Lives Matter’ banner

‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ said the plane’s banner as it circled the club’s stadium just after the teams had ‘taken the knee’ in support of Black Lives Matter. I must admit that my very first reaction on hearing the news was pleasure at the idea that the self-righteousness of Black Lives Matter was being guyed.  My second, more considered response is that the banner was bad — and for precisely the same reason that BLM is bad. It takes a statement which any decent person would consider true and turns it into a weapon of race war. Of course black lives matter. Of course white lives matter. The question is:

Friday

Laurence Wilkinson

Will Cambridge University finally stand up for free speech?

When Dr Priyamvada Gopal, a University of Cambridge academic, tweeted ‘White lives don’t matter’ and ‘Abolish whiteness’ in response to a banner reading ‘White lives matter Burnley’ being flown over a Premier League match, it certainly provoked a response. Dr Gopal was quickly inundated with horrific personal and racial abuse, but she stuck to her position, arguing that she was appropriately addressing systemic racial inequality. It wasn’t long before the University of Cambridge weighed in with a strong statement defending Gopal, without explicitly mentioning her. ‘The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial, and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Black Lives Matter: the deadly combination of violent activism and thought police

18 min listen

In the current episode of Holy Smoke, my guest Professor Richard Landes – a historian specialising in apocalyptic movements – explains what is so clever, and so dangerous, about the modus operandi of Black Lives Matter. As he says, it allows people to indulge their own fantasies, even if their visions of the future are incompatible. So millennials, encouraged by intellectually lazy politicians, business leaders and churchmen, can persuade themselves that the toppling of statues will clear space for a multiracial utopia. The far-left thugs of Antifa, meanwhile, can fantasise (more plausibly, alas) about the collapse of capitalist society. And a new generation of black activists can develop their nebulous

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

How should we feel about compensating slave-owners?

Should Britain have compensated slave-owners? At first glance, the question seems ridiculous. Comedian London Hughes asks if we think it’s ‘disgusting that when slavery ended, the UK government paid out millions to former slave owners as a way of saying sorry’. Academic Jason Hickel notes disapprovingly that British taxpayers ‘were paying reparations from the abolition of slavery in 1833 all the way to 2015…but to the *owners* of slaves rather than to former slaves themselves’. Even the BBC is questioning the ‘whiff of self-congratulation’ around the abolition movement. But while nuance may be unfashionable, some issues deserve careful treatment. Whether compensating slave-owners can be viewed as a moral good depends