Patrick West

For some years now, one of the greatest worries among a certain coterie has been that of ‘misinformation’. This is the idea that the masses, left to their own devices – figuratively and literally – are unable to discern what is true and what is false. This is what has prompted the establishment of such gatekeeping bodies as BBC Verify, institutions that presume to protect the general public from the vast tides of online nonsense. Logically had ostensibly noble intentions upon its creation in 2016 The news that Britain's biggest fact-checking company, Logically, has gone into administration, will be a blow to those who think we need such bodies.

We live in a country in which petty grievances and perceived slights abound, and one in which resentments and gripes are taken seriously by the state. We saw evidence of this state of affairs in two unrelated reports this week. The first came from Leeds, where an employment tribunal found that the use of the word ‘lads’ in relation to a worker earning £95,000 a year at a farming and food production company amounted to ‘casual use of gender-specific language’, and could be legally regarded as ‘unwanted... given her account of how it made her feel’. Her level of compensation is to be decided at a later date.

This country still has a problem with a radical ideology. News that the government’s anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent, now classifies concerns about mass migration, or ‘cultural nationalism’, as a potential ‘terrorist ideology’ reveals the magnitude of this problem. And the problem in question is hyper-liberalism, a radical ideology that remains endemic in Prevent and elsewhere in the arms of the state. Far from dying out, this ideology, otherwise known as wokery or radical progressivism, has become normalised and embedded, especially in areas of government. The ideology has literally graduated from the academy and into the state sector.

Why can’t academics write properly? Why can’t they express themselves in language that normal people can understand? These are questions that have echoed through the ages, and ones that still resonate today - so much so that even academics are starting to ask them. In an address to the Hay Festival this week, Professor Kehinde Andrews of Birmingham City University lamented how the work of so many of his peers is written in ‘devastatingly bad’, ‘mind-deadening’ and ‘over-convoluted’ prose. Taking one book as an example, he asked why it ‘kept using the word “quotidien”. What does “quotidien” mean? “Everyday”. Why not just say “everyday”?

The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be. Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role model for those who used to haunt bars and pubs, and for many who still do. This cuddly, ursine and somewhat shambolic character was held in affection by viewers and all in the fictional drinking-hole – he was greeted upon his arrival with the universal salutation, ‘Norm!’ – mostly because he was just consistently funny. He would deploy killer responses to routine enquiries: ‘What'd you like, Normie?’ ‘A reason to live. Give me another beer.

Can the BBC ever be objective and unbiased? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves, sometimes in hope, often in exasperation. It’s also a question that the Corporation forever asks itself, but instead in the spirit of aspiration and ambition. So it’s ostensibly good news that it has announced plans to expand its Verify fact-checking unit. On the face of it, this initiative should result in more accountably and scrutiny in its news output. Verify was born out of insincerity and dishonesty BBC director-general Tim Davie has unveiled a scheme, on behalf of ‘the world’s most trusted news provider’, to ‘build Verify across more services globally’. Davie also wants to give it a greater role in local reporting as part of a mission to ‘nurture trust’.

Keir Starmer has finally realised that he needs to tackle rising immigration. The Prime Minister said yesterday that Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ if nothing is done. Predictably, his speech has gone down badly with the usual suspects. There may be a simple reason why some of Starmer’s critics will never see eye to eye with him on migration There may be a simple reason why some of Starmer’s critics will never see eye to eye with him on migration: their main preoccupation appears not to be with different cultures or individuals. Rather, they seem to regard human beings as parts of a bigger, more important whole. These materialists see us as cogs in the machine. This mentality afflicts materially-orientated people on both the left and right.

When hyper-liberal identity politics went into overdrive in that year of madness, 2020, one of the greatest casualties in this country was to be our police forces. This wasn’t obvious at the time, although officers ‘taking the knee’ at the foot of Black Lives Matters protestors hinted at things to come, as did their growing inclination to attend Pride events and adorn their vehicles in LGBT+ colours. Only in recent months, however, has there emerged the extent to which our police have become contaminated and compromised by this ideology. As today’s Sunday Telegraph reveals, in November 2023 officers from Kent Police arrested and detained an old man for a social media post he made warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain.

We now live in a country where, once more, it appears to be a crime to commit blasphemy. This is the inevitable and justifiable conclusion many have made following the news yesterday that a man who burnt a copy of the Koran was charged with ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ against ‘the religious institution of Islam’. The National Secular Society has been volubly alarmed at the case The charge made against Hamit Coskun, who allegedly performed the act outside the Turkish Consulate in London in February, is thought to be the first time anybody has been prosecuted for harassing an ‘institution’, in the form of Islam, under the Public Order Act.

From today, ‘Stop Brexit Man’ is free. This character, whose real name is Steve Bray, the long-standing bane of broadcasters, politicians and pedestrians on account of his persistent and clamorous pro-EU protests, has been cleared of flouting a police ban after playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit songs outside Parliament. Bray was apprehended after blaring loud music through speakers last March, when the then prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived for Prime Minister's Questions. Today, Westminster Magistrates’ Court found him not guilty of failing without reasonable excuse to comply with a direction given under a 2011 Act on ‘prohibited activities in Parliament Square’.

In case you hadn’t noticed, it's Eid. But of course you noticed. You’d have to be living in a cave not to be aware that today marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. That’s because nearly all public bodies, along with a plethora of private institutions, have been busy on social media reminding you of the fact. From the Prime Minister, the Royal Family, the Army to the BBC, all the principal manifestations of the state have been at it. Our public broadcaster put on a special Eid Live show on BBC1, followed with another programme, Celebrity Eid. Our private bodies have been following suit, with such unlikely candidates as the Formula 1 team McLaren and Leeds United football club among those joining in the chorus of ‘Eid Mubarak’.

The heavy-handed conduct of the police these days often provokes accusations of ‘Orwellian’ behaviour – and with good reason. There has been a litany of reports in recent years of people being investigated and cautioned for remarks, often made in private, that have been adjudged ‘offensive’ or 'hurtful'. In the eyes of many, we now have a de facto thought police in this country, with their disproportionate response to people’s sentiments and words indeed warranting comparisons to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Complaints that ‘London isn’t what it used to be’ or ‘London is a hell-hole these days’ are hardly original or new, but reports keep giving succour to this perception. The news that the capital has recorded its highest-ever level of mobile theft will only confirm what nostalgics and those who regularly watch TV already know: that our once-great capital is overcrowded, overpriced, crime-ridden and barely English anymore. While this stereotype is founded on much truth, I think some redress is in order, not least an infusion of nuance. By way of putting perspective on matters, here’s my story. London has unquestionably changed.