Over the weekend I sat down to watch Hillbilly Elegy, the controversial film currently available on Netflix, expecting it to be terrible. The reviews are almost universally bad – scathingly bad – pointing to this true personal story of one man’s escape from poverty as wrong, wrong, wrong. I was Read more…
“I wasn’t to know that it was a normal thing for somebody to be read a bedtime story. It’s something I’d only seen in films. But films are films, not reality.” These are the words of footballer Marcus Rashford yesterday on launching his latest campaign: a book club that aims Read more…
It was announced last week that the actor, Laurence Fox, and London Assembly Member, David Kurten, are launching new political parties. Mr Fox’s ‘Reclaim’ party, launched on the back of £5 million of donations, while Mr Kurten’s ‘Heritage Party’ is said to have attracted substantial investment too. That two political Read more…
The concept has been laughed off by some as a vanity project, yet it reflects the inability of the right-wing mainstream to produce a viable challenge to wokeness and identity politics. Actor and singer-songwriter Laurence Fox is forming a new political party. Fox, best known for his performance as Detective Hathaway on Lewis, Read more…
BY DR NEIL SHASTRI-HURST As autumn approaches across Ankara, dark clouds gather over the Eastern Mediterranean. This is the latest storm brewing involving President Erdoğan. The escalation in tensions between Greece and Turkey, following the recent discoveries of potentially rich subsea oil and natural gas deposits, is merely the latest Read more…
One might have been forgiven, before Covid-19 entered our national consciousness, for thinking our government would be well prepared to handle whatever new illness nature could throw our way. The UK government prides itself on the extraordinary resources it has available and our world-leading healthcare services and research capabilities. Yet Read more…
BY SERENA LIT The Hammersmith Bridge has stood for almost two centuries, providing the people of West London a vital crossing point on the Thames. Having been closed to cars since April last year, its closure to all pedestrian, cyclists and river traffic last month was a devastating blow. What Read more…
BY JOEL RODRIGUES There are many figures in British political life who have had an immense impact on the Brexit process, from the politicians who pushed for a referendum, to the activists and campaigners who saw through the win for Vote Leave. But there is an unlikely figure who, in Read more…
BY JAKE SCOTT President Reagan famously remarked that the most chilling words in the English language were, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. I was broadly in favour of the lockdown measures at the beginning of this year, but now that they have turned us into a Read more…
Few ideologies have inspired such frequent premature eulogies as free-market capitalism. The economic system which has succeeded across cultures and geographies and millennia is berated by its critics as harsh, immoral and exploitative. With each major technological development, the naysayers prophesise its collapse and replacement with some utopian economic system. Read more…
BY HENRY HILL After a month and a bit of sweet freedom, the nation is gearing up for what looks increasingly like a return to lockdown in the months ahead. Whilst it’s unlikely to be the full-fat, don’t-leave-your-home version we saw in the first few weeks, the grim messaging from Read more…
BY JIM BARRINGTON In the minds of many people, certain BBC presenters have overstepped the mark on numerous occasions. Social media has allowed such individuals to express personal opinions and, because of their high profiles, gain considerable numbers of followers. Things, however, may be about to change. The BBC’s new Read more…
BY CHRIS ROSE Like him or loathe him, Tony Blair was the last Labour leader with sufficient charm to appeal to ordinary members of the public. Yes, his lines were often rehearsed, and there was a terrific glint-eyed cynicism to it all, but he had an easy manner which impressed Read more…
BY RAMSHA KHAN Barely a day goes by without an attempt by the woke left to cancel another person, event, or thing. J K Rowling. Rule Britannia. Charles Darwin. Our society and culture is under constant assault from people who don’t respect history, don’t respect freedom of speech and thought, Read more…
BY SERENA LIT It is a quintessential British bonding experience to enjoy a joke at the expense of our quasi-sometimes-maybe allies stationed across the English Channel. It has become a somewhat entrenched part of our national identity. Nevertheless, even the truly gallophobic among us couldn’t possibly sustain the argument that Read more…
BY SIR JOHN REDWOOD The BBC are their own worst opponents. Their recent cancellation of a couple of much loved old songs that are famous worldwide and have not before caused protests led many of their former BBC news/Radio 4 audience to anger or despair. They are so dominated by Read more…
BY MOLLY GILES The BBC has capitulated to the argument that the words of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Brittania are laden with colonial overtones and should be abandoned. Instead, orchestral-only versions will be played. The BBC’s continued politicisation of the Proms is deeply ignorant – something which Read more…
BY HARRY WILKINSON The furore over the downgrading of predicted A Level grades has disguised a far more important issue. That is, what exactly are our students learning? The answer, according to the latest figures is increasingly Psychology, Sociology and Media Studies. On Monday, I posted what I had thought, Read more…
BY ETHAN THOBURN As the furlough scheme comes to an end this autumn, it is paramount that we get the economy back up and running, especially after it was announced that the British economy had shrunk, in terms of GDP, more than any other developed nation in the West. Boris Read more…
BY EMILY BARLEY While politicians and security specialists scramble to mitigate the dangers posed by Russia and China, a threat closer to home and with the political and legal links more appropriate for a like-minded ally slips under the radar. EU member state Romania has gone rogue, with its renamed Read more…