I recently purchased a golden oldie in the form of "Which Way? Thirteen dialogues on choices facing Britain". Edited by Michael Ivens and Clive Bradley, it was published in London by Michael Joseph Limited way back in 1970. The format is simple - take a writer or politician from left and right, and invite them to write a short essay on issues such as nationalisation, tax, housing, education through to international issues. Each writer is also allowed a brief reply to their opponents text. The format works beautifully and there are some big names - Enoch Powell and Ian Mikardo... Continue reading

"A tragedy cannot be written about creatures of the jungle, only about those who try to get out of it - or those who succumb to it knowing that it is possible to transform it". The writer Alan Sillitoe, in his introduction to Robert Tressell's "The Ragged Trousered Philantropists." (Panther: St Albans, 1983), p. 9 - 10. The beauty of this quote is that it applies so aptly to our greatest comedies, most notably Steptoe & Son. Continue reading

As Labour gets a hammering in the polls, what is the problem with Sir Keir Starmer? The most simple answer is that it is obvious what Starmer is against, but unclear what he is actually for. Having won the Labour leadership as the continuity candidate, he quickly decided he was opposed to Corbynism. As the Conservatives vote collapsed, he won the 2024 general election by being opposed to Rishi Sunak, but standing on a largely empty mainfesto. Nearly a year on, and not much has changed, and now it is Labour tanking votes. As Michael Gove wrote in The Spectator... Continue reading

Browsing the website of the charity Global Justice Now, I happened to land on the list of its council, and the pen portraits of those who govern this campaign group. Global Justice Now is one of the groups campaigning against a trade deal between the United States and the United Kingdom. If you want to begin to understand these bizarre times, look at what our well-meaning campaigners do, not what they say. The trajectory of Global Justice Now's Mohammed Elnaiem speaks volumes. We are told: Mohammed is the founding director of the Decolonial Centre, a political education project of the... Continue reading

For Englishmen and women, and lovers of England everywhere: Continue reading

This is a report I worked on back in February, with the writer and journalist Andrew Gilligan. The text can be viewed online here, or read as a pdf below. Download The-Rotherham-Grooming-Scandal-and-The-Creators-of-the-Islamophobia-Definition 2025 Continue reading

Back in January I co-authored a report with Andrew Gilligan, entitled "Extremely Confused: The Government’s new counter-extremism review revealed." This revealed that the Counter-Extremism sprint, under the direction of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, was heading very much in the wrong direction, moving away from a focus on Islamist terrorism to a much wider set of issues. You can read our report online here, and download a pdf below. Download Extremely-Confused-The-Governments-new-counter-extremism-review-revealed 2025 Continue reading

Coming up with the daffodils this Spring is the new issue of The Salisbury Review, which I recommend to any visitors of this blog. It had looked as if this venerable magazine was to move to internet only, but for old fuddy-duddies like myself it has managed to maintain itself in print, and produces four issues per year. The Spring 2025 issue has an examination of "Reverse Imperialism" by Driss Ghali, which details how countries in the developing world are dependent on the monies being sent back by their diasporas in the west "Each year, immigrants send over $600 billion... Continue reading

Reading footnotes is a good habit to get into. The following quote is from Tariq Ali's 1970 book "Pakistan: Military rule or People's Power?" "The debate on what exactly an Islamic state is continues to this very day and all the bourgeois parties in Pakistan take part. We shall touch on this debate in later chapters - but only briefly: we are nearing the twenty-first century,and man has reached the moon." p. 33, fn 14. Mankind has not been on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Islam meanwhile is thriving. Indeed, so important is it in the... Continue reading

Over the holiday season I enjoyed Roger Scuton's book "Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life". Less a memoir than a series of essays on particular chunks of his life or matters of importance, Scruton grasps faith perfectly here: "Faith is not simply an addition to our repetoire of ordinary opinions. It is a transforming state of mind, a stance towards the world, rooted in our social nature and altering all our perceptions, emotions and beliefs." Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 220 Continue reading

Back in 2021 I attended a Thatcher Network conference at Newcastle University. The city was just emerging from the Covid lockdown, and staying in the left-leaning area of Jesmond, it was remarkable how impacted it was compared to small town Northamptonshire. New cycle lines and card only payment in coffee shops demonstrated a certain marking of territory that we had simply not gone through. My paper at the conference was on Margaret Thatcher and Islam, and that has now been published as an article by the Conservative History Journal. Its fair to say modern day Conservatives may be surprised at... Continue reading

I had neglected to post here a short article I wrote for the Daily Telegraph last month, on what might be called the Balkanisation of the police. We sometimes forget how rapid these changes have been - it is not that long ago the authorities in forces like West Yorkshire would struggle to recruit ethnic minority officers - now they see officers prosecuted for supporting Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas! You can read my thoughts on the Telegraph website here, or as a pdf below. Download The police must reckon with their extremism problem Telegraph 14 11 2024 Continue reading

The biggest single difference between working class people and middle or upper class people? At an individual level - confidence. I look at some of the interns I have met in Westminster, and they have more confidence in their late teens or early twenties, than I had in my late thirties. "I truly believe that confidence is learned. No one is born confident. I think confidence is dependent on how your brain functions and what you have experienced in your life. I have not read or studied anything to back this up. This is just what I think from my... Continue reading

If the earth is going to die screaming, as UB40 prophesised, what political forms will emerge before it dies? For many in the environmental movement, fascism is not just a future threat, but is encapsulated in today's campaigns to save fossil fuels. Worse, those fuels themselves have always been brown - that is fascist, and never green. I think much of that world view is nonsense, and have set out a three page argument in the current Notes From the Borderland magazine, making that very point. There is also room along the way for comment on political figures as diverse... Continue reading

My current reading is this 1990 title, by the late espionage writer Richard Deacon. I am only 60 pages in, but it does seem this is an apologia for MI5 and a rebuttal of the view that the Service's Director General from 1956-65, Roger Hollis, was a Soviet spy. How else to take a book which claims one of Hollis' greatest rivals and chief inquisitor, Peter Wright "served in MI5 for a relatively short period" (p.6) Wright actually served for 21 years, being recruited as the organisation's principal scientist, going on to specialise in counter-intelligence. One joy of buying and... Continue reading

For a time, Tariq Ramadan was the epitome of what western elites felt they needed - the Muslim theologian they could do business with. You can read The decline and fall of Tariq Ramadan here, or view it as a pdf below. Download The decline and fall of Tariq Ramadan The Spectator.pdf 12 09 2024 Continue reading

I am not the sort of man who spends his time hanging about, Tom Driberg style, in public toilets (honest). And I do not, normally, take pictures in them. I make an exception though for the beautifully preserved and maintained convenience at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. Three pictures below should suffice: Anyone who remembers the toilets in Carry on Screaming, where Dan Dan The Lavatory Man meets a watery end, will understand the style here. All roads, and ferries, should lead to Bute! To read more about the history of what is described as a "jewel in the... Continue reading

I had a short article - just 600 words in the Telegraph over the weekend, concerning Iranian influence in the UK. This really ought to be addressed in Yvette Cooper's 'extremism review' currently being conducted somewhere inside the Home Office. You can read the article online here, and download a pdf below. Download Iran promotes UK extremism – it must be stopped 31 08 2024 Continue reading

I have just finished Douglas Murray's "The War on the West: How to prevail in the age of unreason" and was struck by these lines, towards the end of the book: "In the absence of anything else, the only public ethic in the West that people are encouraged to unite around is opposition toward itself." (p.265-66). It raises a very pertinent question - if Britain is divided, on what can it unite? Continue reading

There's not much to laugh about at the moment, but there was some light relief last week at the suggestion Shia cleric Sheikh Yasser al-Habib wished to buy the Scottish Island of Morsa, currently home to two holiday lettings and not a lot else. I was quoted in the Daily Telegraph article on 30 July, which called the whole idea absurd: "Paul Stott, head of security and extremism at Policy Exchange, added to the chorus of concern sparked by the reports." “It’s bizarre, but not totally bizarre, in that religious communities have bought up land in rural parts of Britain... Continue reading

How to understand Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour party he has created? In this article in The Spectator I argue that the London borough of Camden, part of which Sir Keir represents as an MP, is a lens through which Labour's beliefs and policies are best viewed. Its not the Islington of Tony Blair that is running the country, but the Camden of Sir Keir Satrmer! You can read the article online here, or a as a pdf below: Download Keir Starmer and the truth about the Camden cadre spectator 07 06 2024 Continue reading

For some reason I neglected to post on here the article on the Labour party and Islamophobia debate, which I had published back on 21 May. You can read it on the Reaction website here, and as a pdf below. Download Labour must define Islamophobia very carefully Reaction 21 05 2024 Continue reading

Yesterday I had a short piece published in The Critic on the new report by Lord Walney on political extremism. The Critic added the sub-heading 'vital but flawed' as a description of Walney - you can read his report here, and my view is on their site. I think it is great we are having these debates, and some of Walney - for example on schools and blasphemy - is encouraging. But a large part of the problem in Batley simply came down to the school, local Labour party, and the teachers union, not having the strength of their supposed... Continue reading

After a very considerable hiatus, the parapolitical magazine Notes from the Borderland is back. Issue 12 is out now, and covers an eclectic range of issues. The magazine is available in bookshops like Housmans in Kings Cross and stores stocked by Central distribution, and also via the Magazine Heaven chain. The front cover shows the disastrous National Action rally in 2015, where the far-right's finest ended up hiding in the left luggage facility at Liverpool Lime Street station, besieged by anti-fascists and surrounded by rather nervous looking coppers. Larry O'Hara and Dave Hughes question the state response to far-right terrorism... Continue reading

Is democracy in good health following the May elections? One thing that struck me was the defeat of the likeable Jamie Driscoll, formerly Labour's North of Tyne mayor and latterly an independent after being purged by Sir Keir. Driscoll stood and lost to Labour in the first election for the much bigger position of North East Mayor. This covers Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham. What's interesting about this exercise in devolved power is that it looks remarkably similar to one rejected previously by the electorate. Katie Balls wrote in the 20 April issue of The Spectator: "Metro mayors... Continue reading