Brendan O’Neill is Spiked's chief politics writer. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, is out now.
No one should ever be arrested for what they think or say. It is remarkable – and depressing – that this still needs to be said in the 21st century. But it seems it does. Over the weekend we witnessed an alarming, almost medieval act of censorship. A woman was dragged away by cops for
I am a republican, always have been, and yet I now feel a great sense of loss. And not only because a 96-year-old mother, grandmother and great-grandmother has died, which is always an occasion for sadness, whether the deceased was a monarch or an ‘ordinary’ member of the public. No, also because Elizabeth II represented
Can we all take a moment to marvel at the courage of Joe Lycett? Imagine the cojones it must take to go on the BBC and make fun of the Tories. How truly stunning and brave. Roll over Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks – there’s a new comedy insurgent in town. I’m being sarcastic, clearly.
I’ve read some batty celebrity profiles in my time. But that piece about Meghan Markle in the Cut takes the biscuit. It is almost unbelievably preposterous. It shines a glorious if unwitting light on the narcissism and outright daftness of the right-on celeb set of which Ms Markle is now kween. Where to begin? How
Celebrities used to dread being outed as gay. Now they seem to dread being outed as straight. Consider Harry Styles. The poor fellow seems to live in constant fear of being exposed as a boring old heterosexual. Mr Styles, the current king of pop, dances around questions about his sexuality. It’s ‘outdated’ to define your
So according to Iran it is Salman Rushdie’s own fault that he got stabbed. It had nothing to do with the vile death warrant issued by Iran’s own ayatollah in 1989. It’s unrelated to the fact that the fatwa was reaffirmed in 2005. It’s not because Iran’s Revolutionary Guards once said ‘the day will come
We are all praying that Salman Rushdie will be okay. What happened in Chautauqua in New York today is indescribably appalling. An author, a man, stabbed in the neck just as he was about to speak on freedom of expression. This attack is a vile affront to liberty and to the principles of an open
If you find yourself wondering over the next few days why it is so swelteringly hot, I have an answer for you. It’s because of rich people. It’s because of those wealthy elites with all their gas-guzzling vehicles and reckless holidaymaking. It’s their fault you’re sweating on the Tube. This infantile claim really is being
I see there’s much chortling over the fact that Rishi Sunak once said he had no working-class friends. It was in 2001, for a BBC series called Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl. In a resurfaced clip, Sunak, who would have been 21 at the time, says: ‘I have friends who are aristocrats, I have
I know it’s the season of ‘dunking on Boris’, which is fine. He deserves a bit of dunking for the errors of judgement he made over Partygate and Pinchergate. But if only for the purposes of brief respite from all this Boris-bashing, I think we need to reflect on the one good thing he did. The
There’s a new heretic in town. It’s the great Macy Gray. Ms Gray has uttered that most blasphemous of beliefs – that a man can never become a woman, even if he has his bits lopped off. Cue the pointing of fingers and howls of ‘BIGOT!’. If this were the 15th century this is the
Here’s something I’ve learned over the past few days. The right loves the working classes when they’re voting for Brexit, but it hates them when they go out on strike. When they strike, they’re wreckers, a pox on the nation. They’ve clearly been led astray by their smooth-talking union bosses. So what if there was
Arron Banks, the pugnacious Brexiteer, has lost his claim for defamation against Carole Cadwalladr, the darling of the Brexit-loathing bourgeoisie. Banks brought the action in relation to two public utterances made by Ms Cadwalladr. First, her TED talk of 2019, in which she said: ‘And I’m not even going to go into the lies that Arron
Bradford was chosen last week as the UK’s City of Culture for 2025. This week, Bradford Cineworld – as well as a number of other cinemas around the country – announced that a new movie called The Lady of Heaven was being pulled from schedules following protests by angry Muslims. So is this what we can expect from a
I have long thought that if Life of Brian came out today, it wouldn’t be Christians kicking up a fuss about it — it would be trans activists. When Monty Python’s classic tale of a man mistaken for a Messiah came to cinemas in 1979, people of faith weren’t happy. They saw it as taking
There’s a meme that goes: ‘I, for one, welcome our new overlords.’ It’s a paraphrase of a comment made by Kent Brockman, the newsreader on The Simpsons, and it’s intended to signify submission to some crazy powerful force. I couldn’t help but think of that line when I saw the photo of Sinn Fein president
Is waving the Pride flag compulsory now? The Idrissa Gueye scandal suggests it might be. Footballer Gueye did not play for his team, Paris Saint-Germain, on Saturday because he declined to wear a new top on which the players’ numbers are emblazoned with the Pride colours. How dare he. Reject Pride, get shamed. Gueye is
Do you really care that Keir Starmer had a curry and a beer while working late in April last year? Be honest. Does the image of Sir Keir tucking into a masala with colleagues keep you up at night? Do you find yourself distracted from the cost-of-living crisis by visions of Starmer having a San
The attack on Dave Chappelle last night was chilling. Sure, Chappelle wasn’t hurt. His attacker, having encountered the ire of Chappelle’s quick-witted security team, seems to have come off a lot worse. But the fact that controversial comics are now being physically accosted is deeply concerning. It suggests that the new intolerance, the widespread distaste for
The meltdown over Elon Musk’s acquirement of Twitter is my favourite world event of 2022 so far. It is delicious. I could sustain myself for years on the sight of commentators and activists wringing their hands to the bone over the possibility that – wait for it – there might be a smidgen more freedom
