Tom Slater is the editor of Spiked.
In the past 12 months a curious thing has happened: student politics, for decades the most irrelevant, cut-off sphere of public life, has become headline news. The explosion of campus censorship – the primary means through which twentysomething politicos vent their political passions today – is followed, reported on and critiqued by greying commentators on a
In a 2012 interview on Newsnight, foul-mouthed LA rapper Tyler, The Creator told a churlish Stephen Smith that the point of his music was to ‘piss old white people off like you’. Now, the old white people at the Home Office seem to have proved him right, by banning the rapper – real name Tyler
Jerry Seinfeld’s takedown of the political correctness of today’s youth should give us all pause for thought. In an interview on US radio, the sitcom and stand-up star said that college campuses have become a no-go area for comedians. ‘I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, “Don’t go near
You can’t be on a campus for more than 10 minutes nowadays without hearing about inclusivity. Universities and students’ unions are mad for it. At the University of Sussex, a statement declaring that ‘The Union is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive environment’ has to be read, aloud, before every students’ union meeting. Students
‘If you’re not a socialist before you’re twenty-five, you have no heart; if you are a socialist after twenty-five, you have no head,’ goes the old, oft-misattributed saying. But if you’re a Green party supporter on a university campus today, you’re more likely to have no friends. It was reported last week that the Green
One month on from the Charlie Hebdo massacre, free speech is still under attack. The outpouring of public revulsion at the bloody silencing of ‘blasphemous’ cartoonists after the attack was inspiring. It was a visceral display of support for the right to speak one’s mind – as crudely, offensively and blasphemously as one chooses –
