Hardly Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms, you might think. But amidst the global crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Great Barrington Declaration has caused epic controversy. This scientists’ petition, calling for a different strategy to manage the novel coronavirus, opposes the group-think that has led to a tightening ratchet on citizens’ liberties with consequent economic carnage. Campaigners against … [Read on]
First they came for Tommy Robinson. Then they came for Brexit activists. And then they came for doctors and nurses at anti-lockdown rallies. Who will be next, in the tightening ratchet on British liberties? There was no outcry by politicians about the police brutality at Trafalgar Square on 26th September, just as in 2018 little concern was expressed about the … [Read on]
While attending the anti-lockdown protest at Trafalgar Square last Saturday, I crossed the road to the Caffe Nero. In a queue I chatted to a pleasant couple in their 60s behind me. When it was my turn, I ordered a double espresso and produced a fiver. The young European guy serving told me that I must pay by card. Now, if … [Read on]
While the BBC excises classic comedies and variety shows from its archives for offensive racial stereotypes, the musical genre of rap has seemed immune to cancel culture. Glorifying drugs, misogyny and violence, its lyrics are a profusion of the ‘n’ word and ‘motherf******s’. If you were to quote these verbal volleys on Twitter you would risk a ban, or perhaps … [Read on]
Robert Oulds and Niall McCrae are joint authors of this blog and Moralitis: a Cultural Virus (Bruges Group, 2020). On a sunny Saturday morning, the queue outside Waitrose on the main thoroughfare in Chiswick basked in a glow of self-satisfaction. Dozens of casually-dressed, trendy urbanites displayed their social justice credentials by ‘taking the knee’, a ritual show of support for … [Read on]
Silence speaks louder than words. Nonchalantly, Peter Hitchens strolled through the cobbled streets of Oxford University, pursued by a baying mob. Dozens of students, a multicultural mix, were led by a young black woman hollering with menace through a megaphone. A cinematic production would have looked down from high, showing the honey-stone quads and dreaming spires, and the man who … [Read on]
The veneration of George Floyd shows how rapidly a supposedly rational and civilised society can degenerate into mass hysteria. As a mental health expert at a London university, I have studied social phenomena and mental health throughout my career, but I never expected to see my country in such danger from a collective psychosis. When reason and feeling for fellow … [Read on]
After an orgy of desecration of imperial heritage by the Black Lives Matter campaign, Guardian writers had much to celebrate. In drunkenly righteous exuberance, they gloated on Twitter as statues were vandalised and police officers got what they deserved for a history of racism towards black people. Perhaps foolishly on the part of Metropolitan Police Chief Cressida Dick and senior … [Read on]
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