political correctness
Even tea drinking is cultural appropriation now. Oh mea cuppa...
Even drinking tea is ‘cultural appropriation’ now
The newly refurbished National Army Museum is full of inaccuracies and post-colonial guilt
I used to love the National Army Museum in Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, which was crammed with the memorabilia of…
Why I’ve had it with Donald Trump
I feel like an obituary writer, what with Nick Scott, Roger Moore, Alistair Horne — all great buddies — and…
The mad, bad crusade against 'cultural appropriation'
It’s usually best to ignore the indignant fury of the 21st-century young. We’re used to them now, these snowflakes, posing…
For a real Oxbridge education, you now have to go to Durham
‘Should I just have done with it and tell them they’re a bunch of tossers?’ I was on my way…
Crushing, corrupt political correctness just had its Berlin Wall moment
Because we’re all so obsessed with what it was that made the Nazis tick, we tend to overlook the bigger…
Stupidity takes hold of another students’ union
I had never heard the acronym Soas before I started work at the BBC, almost 30 years ago. But as…
Love becomes hate in the twisted world of PC
Gstaad New Year’s Eve was a Rhapsody in Blue, with a clarinet glissando that promised joys to come, and the…
The only way to make a ‘safe space’ for conservatives at universities
To Edinburgh for the book festival, where I am to explain Fools, Frauds and Firebrands to respectable middle-class Scots, who…
Why the alt-right isn’t wrong
I got told off this week by a presenter on BBC radio for using a four-letter word live on air.…
Dear Mary: Every summer I go abroad when what I want is to stay in England
Q. Every summer, just when England is at its loveliest, we have to pack everything up and make a stressy…
It’s not sexist to say ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’
Bustle, an online newspaper ‘for and by women’, has published ‘six common phrases you didn’t know were sexist (that you’ll…
I came out feeling euphoric and disorientated: Young Vic’s Blue/Orange reviewed
Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…
Isn’t it puke-inducing being lectured about poverty by millionaire comics?
Going Forward (BBC4, Thursdays) is a BBC comedy about the continuing adventures of Kim Wilde, the fat, cynical but lovable…
The tangled story of dreadlocks, from Milton to YouTube
‘Why are you filming this?’ ‘For everyone’s safety.’ Those are the last words in a 46-second video that was watched…
Spectator letters: you don’t have to be politically correct to be kind
PC and abortion Sir: It is heartwarming that Simon Barnes’s son should not suffer the stigma experienced by those with…
There were no safe spaces at the dawn of democracy
Brilliant Oxford undergraduates argue that it is right to prevent us saying things they object to, because speech they do…
Dull hipsters in broad daylight – why I’m done with today’s dance music
At 19, I dropped out of university to pursue a career as a rave promoter. I went into business with…
How my disabled son has changed my mind about political correctness
Here’s another stock joke for your collection: Pembroke College, Cambridge, has cancelled a fancy dress party themed on Around the…
Moral sainthood is a bore; sinners are much more fun
Gstaad I had the rather subversive idea of offering a six-figure sum to Oriel College, Oxford. On one condition: that…
To survive as a Tory teacher, you have to keep quiet
Surviving as a Tory teacher means keeping quiet
It’s dangerous and wrong to tell all children they’re ‘gender fluid’
Children are not all ‘gender fluid’. It’s dangerous and wrong to try to persuade them that they are
Tell the truth about benefit claimants and the left shuts you down
Next month sees the release of Trumbo, a biopic about Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood…
2016 will be a vintage year for tech billionaires and jihadis
This is going to be one hell of a year, hell being the operative word. It will be the year…
Why 'safe' is Dot Wordsworth's word of the year
‘Makes me feel sick,’ said my husband, referring not to the third mince pie of the morning (in Advent, supposedly…
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