What exactly is the point of the Oxford Professor of Poetry? And will Wole...
‘People are terribly interested in the election,’ said Christopher Ricks before his 2004 inaugural lecture as Oxford Professor of Poetry, ‘but then not terribly interested in the lecture, which I’m...
View ArticleMany people feel their life is worthless. The Assisted Dying Bill tells them...
As Charles Killick Millard conceded, there was an issue about grandparents. Millard, the leading figure of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society back in the 30s, realised that people might...
View ArticleThe Assisted Dying Bill was crushed today, thanks to doctors and disability...
The best speeches on the Assisted Dying Bill today were intelligent and sensitive – but not terribly new. The arguments were more or less the same as those in every debate on euthanasia for the last...
View ArticleThe Prevent strategy has finally reminded the NUS why free speech is worth...
It is a startling about-turn. The National Union of Students, who have played a considerable role in the dismal recent history of campus censorship, are suddenly sounding as though they have ingested...
View ArticleThe tragic truth behind the ‘ShoutYourAbortion’ hashtag
Try as I might, I can’t make myself furious about the #ShoutYourAbortion hashtag. It is, above all, cause for sadness. Many of the stories women tell about their abortions are, in some form, about...
View ArticleBritish universities have a duty to defend the ‘unsafe’ space
In the ever-noisier debate about campus censorship, one party has been noticeably silent: the universities themselves. Last week, the journalists Julie Bindel and Milo Yiannopoulos were forbidden to...
View ArticleFree speech is the natural ally of transgender rights
Transgender men and women have a powerful story to tell. Their experiences are often heartrending: we should be appalled that nearly half of young trans people have attempted suicide. Meanwhile, there...
View ArticleThere’s nothing irrational about patriotism
In the run-up to Remembrance Day, my local branch of the Quakers has been displaying a sign on the front door. It reads, with ever-so-slightly combative bold type: ‘Remembering all who have lost their...
View ArticleRevealed: Osborne’s Budget giveaways for Tory marginals
Back in March, the Plymouth Herald was delighted by ‘a Budget with plenty for Plymouth’. As Mark Gettleson noted on Coffee House at the time, Plymouth is a ‘hyper-marginal city’: both its seats are...
View ArticleWhy is the National Audit Office chairman defying his own code of conduct?
Everybody skims over a document at some point: when you’re asked to agree to terms and conditions before accessing wifi, you don’t always look too carefully at the details. But you might hope that the...
View ArticleBritain needs Christianity – just ask Alan Partridge
Are we really, as David Cameron claimed in his Christmas message, a country shaped by ‘Christian values’? Yesterday’s Evening Standard poll – which found that shopping is three times more integral to...
View ArticleBriefing: what’s behind the junior doctors’ strike?
What’s the objection to the new contract? It applies to all junior doctors – that is, doctors who aren’t consultants and GPs – and would change how they’re paid. The major concern is about ‘unsocial...
View ArticleTaharrush Gamea: has a new form of sexual harassment arrived in Europe?
The Swedish and German authorities say they have never encountered anything like it: groups of men encircling then molesting women in large public gatherings. It happened in Cologne and Stockholm, but...
View ArticleBriefing: What is the EU ‘red card’ and will it make any difference at all?
The ‘red card’ on proposed EU legislation has been hailed by David Cameron as a breakthrough; the ‘Stronger In’ campaign have put it at the top of their list of renegotiation successes. But it already...
View ArticleDan Walker’s creationism shouldn’t disqualify him from breakfast TV
According to the Times, Dan Walker, the new BBC Breakfast presenter, is ‘a creationist’. A ‘senior BBC figure’ is quoted as saying that this ‘nutty’ belief would make life difficult for Walker if,...
View ArticleWho is to blame for Brexit?
With Italy facing a referendum that could unseat its president, the EU’s member states in furious conflict over immigration, and Hillary Clinton looking like an increasingly shaky last line of defence,...
View ArticleThe strange similarity between Donald Trump and Pope Francis
Pope Francis (R) meets with US President Donald Trump during a private audience at the Vatican on May 24, 2017. US President Donald Trump met Pope Francis at the Vatican today in a keenly-anticipated...
View ArticleTheresa May’s climbdown on corporate excess is a major retreat for the Tories
‘Mayism’, whether it left you in admiration or despair, at least seemed like an identifiable philosophy. It was concerned with…
View ArticleArgentina is the latest battleground in a global war over abortion
People in favour of the legalization of abortion demonstrate outside the National Congress in Buenos Aires on August 01, 2018. - Despite no consensus was achieved in the senate commissions, the...
View ArticleAlabama’s abortion ban is a moment of hope
Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, signed into law on Wednesday by governor Kay Ivey, is a real moment of hope. The principle…
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