Of course it’s bad to persecute people, says Rod Liddle. But bullying has now become the latest politically correct public sector growth industry My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines ‘bullying’ in the following terms: ‘to persecute or oppress by force or threats’. The charity at the centre of this latest furore about the Prime Minister, the
Among the more neglected victims of the recession have been the authors of misery memoirs — or ‘mis-mems’ as they’re rather heartlessly known in the trade. As if these people hadn’t suffered enough at the hands of their drunken, violent and/or abusive families, the credit crunch brought more bad news. The books sections of supermarkets
Next week marks 30 years since Robert Mugabe was elected Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. Last month was 20 years since Nelson Mandela left jail. The two men have much in common. Both are nationalist leaders who fought white rule in southern Africa. Both served long periods in prison, Mandela 27 years, Mugabe 11. Both emerged
On 4 March 1980, following Zimbabwe’s first all-party elections, Robert Mugabe won overall control of the country’s new 100-seat parliament. On 4 March 1980, following Zimbabwe’s first all-party elections, Robert Mugabe won overall control of the country’s new 100-seat parliament. The result, a humiliating defeat for outgoing Prime Minister Bishop Abel Muzorewa, prompted sharply mixed
From Miami to Mogadishu; from blues skies, pastel perfection, grilled red snapper, key lime pie and margaritas to blue skies, a bombed-out cityscape, warm beer and boiled goat (the main dish in ‘the Dish’). From Miami to Mogadishu; from blues skies, pastel perfection, grilled red snapper, key lime pie and margaritas to blue skies, a
The Premier League has never been more popular — globally as well as at home, says Mihir Bose. But the explosion of money is pushing clubs into insolvency — and squeezing British players out As a global brand, English football has never been more powerful. The Premier League crosses all cultural barriers and has devotees
David Wright, the Labour MP for Telford, should get out more, he should be more inclusive. I have attended many Conservative party conferences and mingled late at night with the delegates, and I have to say it always seemed to me that the party was composed almost exclusively of scum-sucking pigs. Sometimes I would go
Mark Wood says that David Cameron would do well to ally himself with Germany’s Chancellor — Angela Merkel is a conservative realist in the Thatcher mould A new government sweeps into power and orders £20 billion of tax cuts. Fundamental tax reform to follow. Unashamedly pro-business policies are given top priority, cushioned by comforting, voter-friendly
Tearing down the statue of a megalomaniac dictator is usually a joy reserved for the citizens of a newly liberated country. But when, last month, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan ordered the removal of his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov’s Neutrality Arch, he was probably the only Turkman with any illusions of freedom. For more than ten
The growing rift between the United States and China has chilling similarities to America’s old rivalry with the Soviet Union, says Daniel W. Drezner When Barack Obama burst into the room to disrupt China’s meeting with its fellow climate change sceptics at the Copen-hagen summit, it was clear that something was not right in the
Richard Curtis’s films — rose-tinted, upper-middle-class parodies of modern Britain — are bad enough, says Stephen Pollard. But his politics are even worse There are few film-makers whose name instantly conjures up a style, an atmosphere, a set of recognisable characters, even a plot. Richard Curtis is one of them. From Four Weddings and a
Twenty years ago, Francis Fukuyama forecast the final triumph of liberal democracy and the ‘end of history’. As pro-democracy movements falter from Ukraine to China, he revisits his thesis — and asks if history has a few more surprises to spring It looked like a revolution in reverse. The announced victory of Viktor Yanukovich in
In contrast to the storming of the Bastille, the spate of revolutions which have flickered across our television screens in the last two decades have tended to adopt brand images connected with colours or plants. Most of them have wilted as quickly as they flowered. Whether Burma in 2007, Armenia in 2008, Tehran in 2009,
Easing myself into an expensive seat on a British Airways overnight flight to Dubai, I notice two empty places to my left. The plane, I was told, was full. Someone must be very late. At this point, the rogue bookmaker who operates exclusively inside my head, laying odds on life’s little challenges, pipes up: ‘It’s
I don’t think I have ever been so nervous before a telephone call. I had written to Ian Carmichael, via his agent, to ask if I could interview him for an article I was writing on the late Dennis Price, who had played Jeeves to Carmichael’s Bertie Wooster in the 1960s BBC series The World
Chair – Andrew Neil Proposing – Correlli Barnett, Simon Jenkins Opposing – Charles Guthrie, Andrew Roberts Farce very nearly visited the debate on Afghanistan on Tuesday. A parliamentary three-line whip prevented the MPs Liam Fox and Peter Kilfoyle from reaching the hall. So our ancient democracy threatened a debate on Afghanistan’s brand new one. The
‘The older I get, the more inclined I am to say those three words: I don’t know,’ says Baroness Rendell of Babergh. She turns 80 this week, and seems milder in person than in her writing. In photographs, too, she looks a bit haughty and forbidding, with incredible Ming the Merciless eyebrows. But the door
I don’t suppose that anyone is about to build a community centre in commemoration of Waad al-Baghdadi, but maybe they should. There’s one for Stephen Lawrence, constructed as a token of our disgust at what Sir William Macpherson called the ‘institutional racism’ of the Metropolitan Police. Lawrence’s murder was not competently investigated by the Old
As a general rule, it is a mistake to go through life thinking about how much one’s house is worth. In the summer of 2002, when I bought my ‘lovely end of terrace period cottage providing compact character accommodation’ in Gospel Oak, London NW5, I assumed I had managed, with unerring incompetence, to buy at
Journalists are wont to moan that the slow death of newspapers will mean a disastrous loss of investigative reporting. The web is all very well, they say, but who will pay for the tenacious sniffing newshounds to flush out the real story? ‘Climategate’ proves the opposite to be true. It was amateur bloggers who scented
