Instant Articles Archives | Page 2 of 6

Britain united against terrorism and hate? It’s a lie

June 27, 2017June 27, 2017 Melanie

As reported here, a study by the University of Oslo has found that most anti-Jewish violence in France, Sweden, Germany and the UK is committed by Muslim extremists. This is all the more striking considering that Muslims currently make up only relatively small proportions of the populations of these countries. Scarcely less notable (though no surprise to some of us) is that left-wing violence was the next largest category of anti-Jewish attacks, with right-wing violence trailing into insignificance. Only in Germany were right-wing attacks more numerous than left-wing ones, and…

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How we’ve turned into a shameless society

June 27, 2017June 27, 2017 Melanie

As government became utterly shameless, people stopped trusting it. Yet at an individual level shame is seen as a relic of an outdated moralistic age when people were told how to behave. In fact, our era is intensely moralistic. It’s just that what is disapproved of has changed. Anyone rejecting an ideological shibboleth is vilified as racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, climate-change denier and so on. Such people aren’t being shamed over what they do but what they are. The aim is not to change their behaviour but to disbar them…

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An open door is swinging for the Anglosphere

June 25, 2017June 27, 2017 Melanie

A couple of days ago, I appeared on BBC TV’s This Week show talking about whether the Anglosphere, the shorthand term for the English-speaking world led by Britain and America, was in decline given the ongoing uproar over Brexit and President Trump. You can watch this discussion here. Since my remarks were very compressed, what follows here is a fuller version of my observations – or what I would have said had I not been confined to such a short space of time. The Anglosphere has been in decline for…

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The fight to the death in Britain and America

June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 Melanie

Both Britain and America are afflicted by a mortal sickness. Britain recently suffered three Islamist attacks in as many months, killing scores of people. Earlier this week, a white man drove a van into Muslims outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, north London, injuring nine. One man who collapsed before the attack died at the scene. Islamist attacks are habitually said to be either random acts of terrorism or the fault of the West. Muslims disclaim communal responsibility and talk instead about promoting harmony. Yet after Finsbury Park the media,…

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Politicising tragedy

June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 Melanie

In the wake of the terrible Grenfell Tower fire, has the tragedy been hijacked and turned into an anti-democratic weapon of street-protest and class war? Listen to me discuss this here with fellow-panellists Claire Fox, Anne McElvoy and Shiv Malik on last night’s edition of BBC Radio’s Moral Maze.

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We don’t need an emoter-in-chief

June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 Melanie

BBC TV’s Newsnight has a two-minute “Viewsnight” spot for mini-polemics. Watch me arguing here that requiring political leaders to emote in public doesn’t make society a nicer or kinder place.

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Class warriors are cynically fanning the flames

June 20, 2017June 21, 2017 Melanie

It’s clear that the hard left thinks it now has the chance to mount a coup. Aided and abetted by large sections of the media, which have presented Corbyn’s election defeat as a victory, they have set out to foment insurrection on the streets in order to overturn the result. This strategy was plotted before the Grenfell fire. Now it is enabling these agitators to incite hatred and violence by claiming that the Tories didn’t just steal the election but have committed murder. A fearsome tragedy is being cynically politicised.…

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Britain is no longer a liberal country

June 16, 2017June 21, 2017 Melanie

Tim Farron resigned this week as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party for a shocking reason. He was hounded from office because he held traditional Christian views. “The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader,” he said. “To be a leader, particularly of a progressive liberal party in 2017 and to live as a committed Christian and to hold faithful to the Bible’s teaching has felt impossible for me.” In media…

The social responsibility inferno

June 15, 2017June 21, 2017 Melanie

The accounts of the terrible fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower in west London in the early hours of yesterday morning are unbearable. It seems that dozens of people perished, including entire families. The mind can scarcely process the images of trapped residents screaming for help or hurling themselves or their children from the 24-story block of flats in the desperate attempt to escape the burning building which went up like a tinderbox in a matter of minutes. The causes of this catastrophe are not yet known. Nor can we yet…

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Britain’s electoral “youthquake”

June 14, 2017June 22, 2017 Melanie

Young people voted in unprecedented number in Britain’s recent general election. Is this an unalloyed good thing for democracy or a further symptom of divisive group politics? Listen here to me debating this on BBC Radio’s Moral Maze with fellow-panellists Claire Fox, Shiv Malik and Anne McElvoy.