Brendan O’Neill is Spiked's chief politics writer. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, is out now.
If you think it’s only crybaby students who set up safe spaces in which they might hide from gruff words and ugly sentiments, think again. More of the world beyond touchy campuses is being safe-spaced too. Consider Twitter, which this week announced the establishment of a ‘safety council’ — Orwellian much? — to ensure its
‘Do you really not like Hillary Clinton, or are you just sexist?’ Cosmopolitan actually asked that question last week. Claiming that much anti-Clinton commentary is ‘gender-specific’, with Hillary frequently described as ‘dishonest’ or ‘shrill’, the mag asked Clinton’s critics to search their souls to see if they really do oppose Clinton the politician or just hate
As if to make a massive display of their dearth of self-awareness, Twitter feminists have spent the past few days nagging the Oxford English Dictionary over its definition of the word ‘nagging’. They have also rabidly denounced its definition of ‘rabid’. And they have deployed shrill lingo to slam its definition of ‘shrill’. To nag
The shamelessly censorious MPs and petition-signers who want Donald Trump banned from Britain are basically saying: ‘Oh my God, he wants to ban people from entering America! This is so outrageous we must ban him from entering Britain.’ Can these people hear themselves? The thing they claim to find repulsive in Trump — that he
That’s it. The nanny state has won. The nudgers and naggers are victorious. The buzzkilling, behaviour-policing new elite that sees smoking as sinful, boozing as lethal and being podgy as immoral has conquered the political sphere. Its miserabilist writ now extends even into a political zone where once it held no sway: Boris Johnson’s brain.
Everyone is paying tribute to David Bowie’s musical feats, as well they should. Seldom, if ever, has one man made such a massive, beautiful dent on pop music and pop consciousness. A gender-bending, genre-hopping genius, deserving of all the accolades coming his way today. But I want to pay tribute to another of Bowie’s feats,
How’s this for dark irony: throughout 2015, ‘white male privilege’ was the buzzphrase on every rad tweeter and liberal hack’s lips, as they fumed against the easy, pampered lives allegedly enjoyed by human beings who had the fortune to be born with a penis and pale skin. Railing against ‘white men’ and their cushy existences
At No 5 in the Spectator’s most-read articles for 2015 is Brendan O’Neill’s cover piece describing ‘Stepford Students’: those who want to shut down debate when it involves people they disagree with and arguments they don’t like. Brendan spotted this phenomenon in 2014 but his article returned to our best-read list this year as more and
What Oliver Letwin wrote in that 1985 memo to Thatcher was ugly. But you know what is also ugly? The forced extraction of an apology from Letwin for the things he thought and said three decades ago, when the political world was a very different place. The attempt to drag Letwin’s name into the gutter
If you hear any of your friends refer to the rise of Podemos in Spain as a revolution, please buy them a dictionary for Christmas. For far from representing the sweeping aside of the political establishment by a new, angry class in society — which is what a revolution is — the success of Podemos speaks to
This has been a difficult year for me. For I have been compelled to break a pact I made with myself when I was 18 years old and do something I promised I would never do, something which goes against every cell and fibre of my being. I’ve defended a leader of the Labour Party.
These figures should send a chill down the spine of anyone who values basic human dignity: in England in 2013, 2,018 newborn babies were taken from their mothers and put into the care of the state. This represents a huge hike from five years earlier, in 2008, when 802 newborns were taken into care. To put
What’s with the orgy of fawning over Hilary Benn’s Syria speech? It was eloquent, yes, but content-wise it reminded me of those historical re-enactment shebangs where sad men in their fifties try to inject meaning into their lives by pretending to be a Viking in a field for a couple of hours on a Saturday
First things first: there is no force in Heaven or on Earth that could induce me to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and his sad brand of sixth-former state socialism. In fact, as someone who believes in freedom and growth, the idea of ever giving my beloved ballot to the illiberal, eco-miserabilist Labour Party, regardless of
George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, with its backtracking on the slashing of tax credits, leaves a huge question hanging over 21st-century Britain: who has the cojones to do something about the destructive culture of welfarism? Anybody? It seems not. Both the supposedly small-state right and the apparently pro-work left have become bizarrely reluctant to address the
Just when you thought uptight, fun-dodging, thought-policing millennials couldn’t get any worse, they go and brand yoga as racist. Apparently, when white people bend themselves bonkers while humming or thinking happy-clappy thoughts, they’re not only being self-punishing saps: they are also ‘culturally appropriating’ a practice that has ‘roots in Indian culture’. That’s according to student
Dear Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Re: Urging Action by Indian government to Safeguard Freedom of Expression in Great Britain As a writer committed to protecting and defending freedom of expression around the world, I am extremely concerned about the growing intolerance towards critical voices who challenge orthodoxy in Britain. As your three-day state visit to the
Just when you thought the self-important, ban-happy uber-bureaucrats who run student unions couldn’t get any worse, they go and No Platform a guy who fought with the Kurds against Isis. Yes, not content with expunging lads’ mags from campus, crying for the censorship of everyone from Germaine Greer to Dapper Laughs, and wailing about Robin
The keyboard weirdos bombarding Labour MP Jess Phillips with threats, after she scoffed at the idea of marking International Men’s Day with a debate in parliament, are cretins of the highest order. Pathetically hiding behind made-up names and cartoon avatars, they harangue a politician for saying something they disagree with. Not by saying to her
I was against the Iraq War. And I’ve been against Tony Blair ever since I first clapped eyes on his moisturised, illiberal countenance, all teeth and no soul. (In 1996 I was standing on street corners selling a magazine that said ‘Tony Blearghh!’ on its cover, while every other lefty was hailing him a messiah
