Culture wars Archives | Page 4 of 16

Islamophobia in the moral maze

March 13, 2020 MelanieIslamophobia, Moral Maze, Trevor Phillips

This week on BBC Radio’s Moral Maze we discussed Islamophobia. The anti-racism campaigner and former head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips, whose own inquiry first cemented the use of the word Islamophobia into British public life, has now himself been accused of this thought-crime. On the Maze, we didn’t discuss his particular case so much as the issue of the word itself. Does it actually describe a real prejudice, or is it used to silence legitimate debate about the Islamic world? Does it seek to prevent…

Britain Culture wars

The left is eating itself in a trans culture war

March 13, 2020March 13, 2020 Melanieculture war, Guardian, Trans, Trevor Phillips

The Guardian has been convulsed after publishing an article by its longstanding columnist Suzanne Moore. Its appearance triggered a letter of protest to the editor, signed by 338 Guardian and Observer employees. Getting on for half the workforce thus believe that their readers should not have been allowed to see what Moore wrote. Cue a blazing row at The Guardian’s editorial conference, with one trans member of staff claiming as a result to be too frightened to go to work. This employee subsequently resigned after reportedly receiving anti-trans comments from…

Culture wars

The real western civilisation emergency

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 MelanieClimate emergency, global warming, Lysenkoism, science

A few commentators have begun to stumble towards the fact that the policy of becoming “carbon neutral” by 2050, as adopted by the UK and the EU, would undo modernity itself. On Unherd, Peter Franklin observes that, if carried through, the policy will have a far greater effect than Brexit or anything else; it will transform society altogether. “It will continue to transform the power industry, and much else besides: every mode of transport; how we build, warm and cool our homes; food, agriculture and land use; trade, industry, every…

Culture wars

Sanitising Soros through guilt by association

February 21, 2020 MelanieAlan Dershowitz, antisemitism, George Soros, nationalism

The law professor Alan Dershowitz has thrown a legal hand-grenade into America’s political civil war by claiming to have evidence that former President Barack Obama “personally asked” the FBI to investigate someone “on behalf” of Obama’s “close ally,” billionaire financier George Soros. He made his cryptic remark in an interview defending U.S. President Donald Trump against claims he interfered in the prosecution of his former adviser, Roger Stone. Dershowitz, a confirmed liberal, drew the ire of the left by joining Trump’s impeachment defense team —not because he’s a Trump fan,…

Audio Britain Culture wars

The cultural chasm over Britain’s place in the world

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 Melaniebrexit, climate change, national identity

I took part in a “Brexit breakdown” podcast discussion with Ian Dunt, editor of Politics.co.uk, and Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s college, London and director of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative. Chaired by podcaster James Millar, our discussion quickly developed from the eponymous issue of Brexit which so divides us. After we talked about what it meant to us and how we saw it developing, we moved into wider and deeper cultural issues. These opened up before us as an unbridgeable chasm.…

Britain Culture wars

“I need to check your thinking” said the English police officer

February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 Melaniehate crime, high court, police, transgender

At long last, an English court has struck a blow against the cultural tyranny of thought-crime and in support of freedom of speech, reason and sanity. In the High Court this morning, Mr Justice Julian Knowles ruled that the police had been disproportionate in the action they took against Harry Miller, a former police officer and a shareholder in a plant and machinery company in Lincolnshire, when they recorded as a “non crime hate incident” a series of disobliging comments he had tweeted about transgender issues. It’s worth reading the judgment in…

Britain Culture wars

Tory policies don’t look much like conservatism

February 14, 2020 Melanie"red wall", Boris Johnson, Conservatism, tradition

When Boris Johnson delivered his effervescent encomium to free trade at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich conservatives were ecstatic. At last, they cried, a real Tory prime minister! Just one week later, a great wailing has gone up from the same quarter. Horror and woe, they lament; we’ve got yet another fake Tory in No 10! People in the so-called “red wall” constituencies that used to be solidly Labour are down to earth. They are hard-working and thrifty. They greatly dislike money being thrown down the drain. Red…

Britain Culture wars

Laurence Fox faces down the idiot bullies of wokedom. Bravo!

January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 MelanieLaurence Fox, Martin Luther King, Question Time, racism

The day after I posted this blog explaining why virtue-signalling “anti-racists” were the real racists in our society, the actor Laurence Fox performed the astonishing feat of going on BBC Question Time and not behaving like an actor. That is to say, he expressed views which were sensible, reasoned and moderate – and thus brought the usual pitchfork-waving mob down on his head. In reply to audience member Rachael Boyle, a beyond-satire lecturer in woke studies who said criticism of Meghan Markle was racist and Fox was guilty of white…

Britain Culture wars

Why the “anti-racist” mob are the real racists

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 MelanieMeghan Markle, racism, Royal family

Like “fascist” and “Nazi”, the word “racist” has been so abused it has now lost its meaning. Actually, it lost its generally understood meaning when it was first coined decades back – after the mainstream left had ditched Methodism for Marxism – to replace the word “racialism”. Unlike that otherwise neutral term, “racism” is a Marxist-inspired dogma which ordains that the only people who can be held responsible for doing bad things are those with power, defined solely in terms of economics or politics, while those without such power can…

Britain Culture wars

Roger Scruton knew the precious value of freedom

January 14, 2020 MelanieConservatism, philosophy, Roger Scruton

The death of Sir Roger Scruton is a loss that our troubled culture can ill afford. He was Britain’s greatest contemporary philosopher and also its most lyrical. Much misrepresented and traduced, Sir Roger analysed, defended and embodied conservatism which he understood to a rare degree. He articulated and championed the deep connections between conservatism, the English countryside and national identity. He recognised that without a shared home and culture based on the inherited values, customs and laws of a nation state there can be no sense of “we”. Above all,…