Tuesday , March 19 2024

Tag Archives: UK Current Affairs

Faith, Doubt and Brexit

A warning about the disturbing fundamentalism of Continuity Remain and the anti-Brexit crusaders In the course of arguing on Twitter this evening, I received back the following piece of friendly psychological analysis from a longtime follower and antagonist. The text reads: “You are almost always wrong, as if you’re from another …

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Don’t Expect The Independent Group To Rescue Britain’s Broken Politics

Chuka Umunna? Former choirboy, but most definitely not the Messiah… In my limited spare time since commencing law school, I have been attending a wonderful Bible study group for graduate students, organized by the university’s Catholic Student Center. Having plodded our way methodically through the New Testament, last week we …

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I’m Sorry, Is Brexit Boring You?

Laughing at Britain’s Brexit woes might be justified if other countries were successfully tackling the pre-eminent problem of the early 21st century — reconciling meaningful democracy and self-determination with the imperative for global regulation and governance. But since no-one else has bothered to pick up the torch of destiny, maybe it’s …

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Lessons On Populism, From Bono

How to solve the “scourge” of European populism? CNN’s Fareed Zakaria makes a pilgrimage to Kiev, to consult with the geopolitical oracle known as Bono Every now and then you read an article so astonishingly un-self aware, so counterproductive, so open to attack and ridicule on multiple fronts that it …

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People’s Vote Celebrities Burnish Their Woke Credentials By Giving False Hope To Remainers

As celebrities and failed politicians gathered for another central London protest against Brexit, their unchanging tactics make clear that this is more about burnishing their reputations as right-on culture warriors than sincerely trying to persuade the British people to change course John Harris has long been about the only writer …

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Lee v. Ashers Baking Company, A Victory Against Compelled Speech

Today saw a victory against compelled speech and authoritarian government, but fewer and fewer voices on the Left are in the mood to celebrate The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down a decision in Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd, the UK’s equivalent of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in the United …

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The Perfect Storm: When Continuity Remainers Meet NHS Worshippers

When all else fails, Continuity Remainers invoke the NHS in their last-gasp attempt to win support for their “People’s Vote” The past few years have seen an inexplicable surge in the release of implausible, cheaply-produced disaster movies, aided by the falling costs of CGI, with plots based on supersized or …

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Architects Push Back Against Cultural Appropriation Concept Creep

While some professions seem to be capitulating to the mores of millennial fragility and safe space culture without a shot being fired – including some of the industries once thought least likely to go soft – it is good to see at least one group pushing back. Sensing a looming threat from a Guardian Op-Ed which …

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Sandi Toksvig, Gender Martyr

It is a far, far better thing that she does… High drama in Britain, as vaguely-known personality Sandi Toksvig reveals – at a meeting of the Women’s Equality Party – that she is not being paid the same as her predecessor, the much more widely known Stephen Fry, to host …

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Unsurprisingly, The “Disparate Impact” Test Reveals That Brexit (And Everything Else) Is Sexist

Leftists to women: “Don’t you worry your pretty little minds with complicated talk about geopolitics, democracy or the long-term national interest – just think about Brexit in terms of whether you stand to gain or lose government benefits and entitlements” It must have seemed like a godsend to whichever scheming …

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Conservative Party Policy Renewal: 1000 Ways To Die Trying

Rather than attempting to forge a compelling, coherent vision for Britain rooted in conservative values, our dithering Prime Minister is soliciting a thousand disjointed policy suggestions from every vested interest and armchair crank in the nation. This is not leadership. Having been on the road since 14 March of this …

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Is #Brexit Sexist?

When anti-Brexit hysteria and identity politics collide… As the question of Britain’s future relationship with the European Union is folded ever more deeply into our ongoing culture war, it continues to be the establishment centre-left – that bipartisan group who broadly support the status quo of the past two decades …

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Who Is Truly Marginalised? – Part 2

Champions of intersectional identity politics in academia, culture and government have accrued near-hegemonic societal power for themselves by exploiting both the real and imagined oppression of certain groups on whose behalf they boldly presume to speak Last month, I wrote a short reflection on who is and is not effectively marginalized …

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Review: The People vs Democracy

“The People vs Democracy” goes further than many other books which claim to “explain” Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, showing that it takes both sides – outraged establishment centrists as well as populist insurgents – to successfully undermine liberal democracy. Political renewal depends on the former group finally …

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Matthew Parris, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown And Turbo-Charged Brexit Derangement Syndrome

Warning of economic Armageddon didn’t work, and nor did peddling ludicrous conspiracy theories about government perfidy. So now, prominent Remainer opinion-setters are resorting to tear-stained pleas that Brexit is so personally stressful as to be injurious to their mental health One of the more annoying aspects of modern political journalism …

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No, Jesus Would Not Demand Open Borders

Those who make a Christian case for open borders and uncontrolled mass immigration do not apply the same altruism they demand of society to their own personal lives, and neither would tearing down national borders improve the common good. Those who use their faith (or even more cynically, the faith …

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Who Is Truly Marginalised?

The marginalization of people and the marginalization of supposedly harmful ideas are very different phenomena, and the continued existence of the former neither requires nor excuses the latter Rod Dreher has a great reflection on his blog about who and what viewpoints in our present society are truly marginalised. Unsurprisingly, he …

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Political Tribalism And #Brexit

Political tribalism is usually discussed as a pathology afflicting low-information voters and preying upon the working class, but since the EU referendum we have seen many leading pro-EU figures from the political, journalistic and academic elites – people who often make a great show of their education and superior capacity …

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Conservative Renewal: A Glimmer Of Light In The Darkness At CPS

Faint signs of optimism for the future of British conservatism, and an opportunity to pitch Stepping Stones 2022 The other day, after hitting “publish” on another one of my increasingly repetitive blog posts pressing the case for positive renewal within the British conservative movement, a friend had this to say about me: …

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