Melanie Phillips

It’s groundhog day all over again for the long-planned Holocaust memorial and learning centre in Westminster’s Victoria Tower Gardens. This huge, Brutalist construction would destroy a quiet green oasis valued by local residents. Last July, the Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that the structure was prohibited by a 1900 Act of Parliament, passed to protect the park from such developments. Yet now the government – which previously overrode Westminster council’s objections – has declared it will legislate to cancel out that 1900 law. It will thus ride roughshod over a historic legal protection for the local community. Is this really a desirable context for a project supposedly devoted to memory and law as a defence against oppressive and arbitrary power?

Once upon a time, ‘binary’ was a mathematical term. Now it is an insult on a par with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobic’, to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars. The enemy on this particular battleground is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental. This ‘binary’ distinction is accepted as a given by the vast majority of the human race. No matter. It is now being categorised as a form of bigotry. Utterly bizarre? Scoff at your peril. It’s fast becoming an enforceable orthodoxy, with children and young people particularly in the frame for attitude reassignment.

You will, by now, be familiar with the argument: that Donald Trump’s triumph in the American presidential election represents a kind of social and political apocalypse. That his victory came at the hands of fundamentally irrational, bigoted, disgusting extreme right-wingers beyond the pale of civilised values. It is axiomatic that there can’t be any good reason behind voting for him, so it is assumed that 60 million Americans were duped by ‘fake news’ which must now be suppressed altogether. In fact, the real ‘fake news’ was pumped out relentlessly by publications such as the New York Times, CNN, the Guardian and many other similar left-wing outlets which descended into hysterical denunciation of the voters’ choice.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/whysexmatters-thedeathofsportandistheeusinkingwhetherbrexithappensornot-/media.mp3" title="Melanie Phillips and Jacqui Gavin, a trans activist and civil servant, discuss gender"] Listen [/audioplayer]Once upon a time, ‘binary’ was a mathematical term. Now it is an insult on a par with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobic’, to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars. The enemy on this particular battleground is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental. This ‘binary’ distinction is accepted as a given by the vast majority of the human race. No matter. It is now being categorised as a form of bigotry.

This is the cover piece of this week's Spectator, out tomorrow: Once upon a time, ‘binary’ was a mathematical term. Now it is an insult on a par with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobic’, to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars. The enemy on this particular battleground is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental. This ‘binary’ distinction is accepted as a given by the vast majority of the human race. No matter. It is now being categorised as a form of bigotry. Utterly bizarre? Scoff at your peril. It’s fast becoming an enforceable orthodoxy, with children and young people particularly in the frame for attitude reassignment.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-death-of-childhood/media.mp3" title="Melanie Philips and Sarah Green discuss the end of childhood" startat=37] Listen [/audioplayer]In all the sound and fury about historic sex crimes against children, one crucial factor has been generally ignored. Last week, a review of the agencies dealing with the phenomenon of ‘grooming gangs’ in England said that more than 370 young girls in Oxfordshire had fallen victim to them over the past 15 years, and called for an urgent national debate into these ‘indescribably awful’ sex crimes.

Listen to Melanie Phillips and Jesse Norman discuss Paul Flowers: [audioboo url="https://audioboo.fm/boos/1746120-melanie-phillips-vs-jesse-norman-on-revd-paul-flowers"/] Yet again, one particular question has formed on lips up and down the land. How in heaven’s name could so many people have failed to spot such a spectacular abuse of a public position? We heard it first in the Jimmy Savile scandal, when the posthumous discovery of half a century of predation left people incredulous that so many had known about but done nothing to stop his serial depravities.

You can blame it on David Willetts. A while back, he published a book called The Pinch arguing that the older generation had swindled the young out of their rightful economic inheritance and should give it back. Baby boomers (those born soon after the war) had enjoyed free university tuition, affordable housing and a thriving economy. Yet the legacy they have left to the young was a crash, eye-watering tuition fees and a gargantuan national debt. The book drew a new dividing line between the young and the old. It was a manifesto for generational jihad. It was, of course, a fascinating and original thesis which has attracted many followers. But it was also deeply misleading and perverse, and grossly unfair to boomers.

Britain is a liberal and progressive utopia – and the authorities will arrest anyone who disagrees Everyone can agree that today’s Britain — which we’re always being told has become so much more liberal — is the very model of a forward-looking, tolerant society in which freedom of expression is paramount. Correct? If only. In fact, the intellectual trend in Britain is a remorseless slide towards a dark age of intolerance, reverting to a reason-suppressing, heresy-hunting culture in which certain opinions are being turned into thought crimes. Astoundingly, people are being arrested by the police — even if the case against them eventually falls — because of what they have said. They are not inciting violence or any criminal activity.