Patrick West is a columnist for Spiked and author of Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche For Our Times (Societas, 2017)
To smear your opponents as fascists or Nazis has always been the perennial temptation of those who seek to terminate an argument – or have no argument of their own. It’s the last resort of the callow, the ignorant and the desperate. And it’s an argument that just won’t go away. They’re doing this –
Most people deplore bad behaviour in public and gratuitous breaches of etiquette and manners on trains and buses. Few would disagree with comments made yesterday by the shadow transport secretary, Richard Holden, that ‘inconsiderate and obnoxious behaviour blights the lives of the travelling public’. Yet many, contrariwise, would disagree with his proposal to remedy this
The appearance of vigilantes on the streets of Bournemouth certainly represents a worrying development. What is less widely-known is that civilian law enforcers have also started to appear on the streets in London. London is now exhibiting much the same problems that have been in incubation elsewhere for years I only became aware of this
A new phrase to have arrived in earnest this year has been ‘two-tier’ justice, relating to the perceived government and judicial approach to crime based on someone’s politics or background. But it’s worth bearing in mind another parallel approach to justice that’s been with us even longer: the growing eagerness to prosecute people for what
After yesterday’s landmark decision on the Bell Hotel in Epping, the next question must be: where do we go from here? What is essential to understand is that yesterday’s High Court judgement was what might be called an ‘Al Capone reckoning’. One ultimate actor, the state, and by extension the government, has been humbled on
Flags have become a contentious and defining issue of this year. You only have to witness the furore that has surrounded the increasing proliferation of the Progress Pride and Palestinian flags in this country to recognise this. So it was only a matter of time before that other increasingly common sight, flags denoting pride in
Many people are now terrified to say what they think, voice unfashionable opinions, or even let slip the wrong words, having seen what happens to those who do. As we witness in the headlines with unremitting regularity, uttering something potentially offensive might cost you your job or prompt a visit from the police. This is
The latest complaint made against Generation Z is that its members now frequently assume a blank, glassy-eyed expression of indifference and boredom. The ‘Gen Z stare’, as it’s known, has become so prevalent among those born between 1997 and 2012 that it’s now a source of habitual frustration and annoyance among their elders – the
If there is one wholesale conclusion to be drawn from the Afghan resettlement scheme scandal, it’s that a problem we have today is not so much a profusion of ‘misinformation’ but rather the suppression of genuine information. In Britain now, it’s not ‘fake news’ that causes widespread resentment and anger, but moves made by successive
Science is no longer regarded or respected as an objective pursuit, one in which the principle of impartiality is sought with due diligence. This is the inference we can make from comments made by Ella Al-Shamahi, presenter of the new BBC science series, Human. ‘We do have to be a little honest,’ she says, ‘to
Britain has a widespread and collective mental health problem – but it’s not what you might think. Specifically, it’s that many people believe themselves to be mentally unwell when actually they are not. What’s more, society and the state have been prone to taking them at their word on this matter for far too long. We’ve become
Most people hate their jobs. This is a sad, unfortunate fact of life. But it happens to be an eternal truth. Throughout the course of human history the overwhelmingly bulk of mankind has toiled to live, rather than having the good fortune to follow their dreams. Even when this is the case, when people elect
For some years now, one of the greatest worries among a certain coterie has been that of ‘misinformation’. This is the idea that the masses, left to their own devices – figuratively and literally – are unable to discern what is true and what is false. This is what has prompted the establishment of such
We live in a country in which petty grievances and perceived slights abound, and one in which resentments and gripes are taken seriously by the state. We saw evidence of this state of affairs in two unrelated reports this week. The first came from Leeds, where an employment tribunal found that the use of the
This country still has a problem with a radical ideology. News that the government’s anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent, now classifies concerns about mass migration, or ‘cultural nationalism’, as a potential ‘terrorist ideology’ reveals the magnitude of this problem. And the problem in question is hyper-liberalism, a radical ideology that remains endemic in Prevent and elsewhere in the arms
Why can’t academics write properly? Why can’t they express themselves in language that normal people can understand? These are questions that have echoed through the ages, and ones that still resonate today – so much so that even academics are starting to ask them. In an address to the Hay Festival this week, Professor Kehinde
They were a stalwart of Britain’s towns and cities from the 1970s until their disappearance in 2007 – and now Virgin is set to bring its Megastores back to the high street. According to the Times, the Virgin Group has in mind at least one central London site as a possible location for a new Megastore. Its
One of the main accusations levelled at the trans movement is that the tidal wave of youngsters claiming to be gender dysphoric in recent years is a form of social contagion, especially among rich, progressive households. Katharine Birbalsingh, the former government social mobility tsar and head of Michaela Community School in northwest London, seems to
The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be. Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role
Can the BBC ever be objective and unbiased? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves, sometimes in hope, often in exasperation. It’s also a question that the Corporation forever asks itself, but instead in the spirit of aspiration and ambition. So it’s ostensibly good news that it has announced plans to expand its Verify
