Andy Shaw is the co-founder of London's free speech comedy club 'Comedy Unleashed'.
The NHS App is playing a vital role in keeping us safe. It monitors those around us and identifies potential risk. We are alerted to the danger, given the right advice, and then compelled to take immediate action. It would be a pity if this multi-billion pound investment wasn’t utilised to its full potential to protect
Boris Johnson has announced that the government will permit hugging from Monday 17 May. In subsequent weeks, it is expected that permission will be granted for people to hold hands, kiss and, perhaps, engage in even more intimate acts of mutual appreciation. However, the authorities remain cautious about mutant variants and their ability to spread
Soon, we will have to show vaccine passports to pass through covid checkpoints placed outside workplaces, football grounds, theatres and pubs. Until recently, we only needed to flash a passport when we entered a foreign country. Now, it seems, that the outside world will become foreign to us, unless we can prove that we’ve had
The Union Jack is back. No TV interview with a government minister is complete without a flag and their departments have been ordered to hoist them above their offices. Soon our country will look like a never-ending Golden Jubilee street party, but with neither refreshments nor festivities. We’d all like a street party, but many are
Many of us have been watching in awe at the profound impact that Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview has had on the fight against endemic injustice. There has been an outpouring of empathy for the Duchess’s suffering at the hands of the British. Not only has she had to live through the public spectacle of a
Ursula von der Leyen’s threat to impose a ‘vaccine border’ in Ireland may have taken the world by surprise but was her erratic behaviour really so unprecedented? Having found herself at the helm of an organisation that has worked tirelessly to remove borders and preserve the free movement of people, she decided it was time
On the one year anniversary of the arrival of the Covid virus in the UK, the government has introduced strict quarantine measures to stop the virus arriving again. The shock discovery that the virus mutates in other countries, as well as our own, has prompted the government to incarcerate travellers as they step off their
Definition: A person who questions the beliefs of others Lord Sumption, is a sceptic. The former Supreme Court judge has questioned the government’s lockdown policies and raised uncomfortable questions: ‘are we punishing too many for the greater good?’; ‘is the life of my grandchildren worth more than my own, because they have much more of
In an attempt to modernise, the National Trust has arranged for its staff and volunteers to be “reverse-mentored” by school children about the links between National Trust properties and slavery and colonialism. Pupils have been drafted in to uncover the “uncomfortable truths” of Britain’s shameful past and give lessons to the adults who preserve its
Most men have been appalled at the abusive behaviour unveiled by the #MeToo movement. We have reflected on past indiscretions, salacious conduct and incidents of raw maleness and we feel shame. We wish to show contrition and demonstrate our commitment to feminism but we just don’t know how. We feel excluded by third-wave feminism and
How did we arrive in this new golden era? We have advanced, become more open-minded, more accepting and more considerate. On the whole, people are treated as equals, regardless of gender, race or sexuality. We cherish our freedom. We like to be treated, and treat others, as individuals. However, you must understand the world from
Left-wing people in the olden days Left-wing people used to like working-class people. Lots of left-wing people used to be working-class people. These people were known as socialists and joined trade unions. Sometimes working-class people used to frighten left-wing people, but they pretended that they weren’t frightened and were nice to them. Left-wing people supported
