Going wherever the evidence leads
I was interviewed for an interesting and thoughtful BBC Radio Four programme about the changing political allegiances of British Jews, presented by Jo Coburn. It contains some poignant personal reminiscences, fascinating historical and political nuggets and no small anguish at how this tiny community’s ingrained nervousness as the target of bigotry has now soared once again to a high level. You can listen to the programme here.
Read MoreThe new defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has provoked a virulent onslaught from which not even his pet tarantula has been able to save him. His offence was to state that Britons who have fought for Islamic State abroad were rightly being hunted down and killed to ensure they never returned to Britain from Libya, Iraq or Syria, the breeding grounds for plotting attacks in the UK. “A dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain,” he said. Outrage! The lethal use of force should always be a last resort. Sometimes,…
Read MorePalm Beach, Florida, Friday Twenty-four hours after President Trump’s watershed speech recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, there has been predictable Palestinian violence and equally predictable, almost unanimous condemnation from Western European leaders and the western left. What needs to be understood is that the former is symbiotically connected to the latter. As I said in my blog post yesterday, the Palestinians use violence in order to get a reaction that advances their agenda. Until now, the west has duly obliged. For a variety of reasons including fear, ideology and bigotry…
Read MoreMany Remainers behave as if they have been bereaved and are still in deep mourning. By contrast Brexiteers, other than being fearful of betrayal, are full of cheer. How could it not be so? After decades when the UK’s ability to govern itself through its own laws and policies was relentlessly sliced away, it’s now getting this back. How can regaining democratic sovereignty be anything other than a source of joy and positive vision? Faced with this inconsolable distress, one must in all compassion suggest a course of grief counselling.…
Read MoreThe surprise publishing bestseller of the autumn is the slim volume The Secret Life of Cows. The author, Rosamund Young, chronicles the life of Stephanie, Ivor, Olivia, Alice, Jake and the rest of the herd on her Worcestershire organic farm. She regards every bovine as an individual with a distinctive character and a full range of emotions and experiences. Their lives, she writes, are as full and varied as our own. The secret life of cows may be richer than we realise. The secret life of humans, however, is more…
Read MoreIt is certainly important for religious bodies, like everyone else, to be sensitive to the needs of those who don’t fit in. Being inclusive, however, does not mean giving powerful interest groups the right to remake society in their own image. Which is precisely what’s happening. The church hierarchy fails to grasp that secularism is a direct attack on the bedrock principles of Christianity. Secularism would ditch Biblical precepts in favour of radical autonomy, replacing normative morality and even physiological reality by subjective emotion and remaking the world in the…
Read MoreThe British government is currently experiencing some, ahem, internal turbulence. The Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, told a parliamentary committee last week that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British woman currently in jail in Tehran accused of being a British spy, had been “simply teaching people journalism”. This totally undercut her defence that she had merely been in Iran on holiday, and added fuel to the Iranians’ charge that she had been running a journalism course aimed at spreading anti-Iran propaganda. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was promptly dragged back to court where Johnson’s remarks were cited…
Read MoreEarlier this week, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely was almost prevented from speaking at Princeton University after left-wing Jewish students claimed her work “causes irreparable damage to the prospects of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Meekly genuflecting to this preposterous claim, Princeton Hillel, no less, abruptly canceled her invitation. The day was saved by Chabad, which provided a venue in which Hotovely could speak. Hillel officials subsequently apologized for this disgraceful episode, adding that this was “an isolated incident.” Well no, it isn’t. I had an identical experience…
Read MoreI am delighted (and somewhat amazed) to report that I have won the UK Bar Council’s print and on-line Legal Reporting Award for my piece on the tragic Charlie Gard case last July. The piece was first published as a blog post here and the Sunday Times published an updated version that weekend here. You can read the Bar Council’s press release about this award here.
Read MoreConsternation! The tsunami of sexual allegations that is still gathering force looks like it may wash away the Netflix series House of Cards, to which I am hopelessly addicted. Its star Kevin Spacey, who plays a monstrously corrupt US president, has been accused of sexually abusing young men working on the show. He is accused of similar behaviour at London’s Old Vic theatre where he was artistic director for more than a decade. Kevin Spacey remains a great actor and revived the Old Vic. None of the charges against him…
Read More
