BY ROGER WATSON A Philosophy of Preservation in a World Obsessed with Change Karl Marx’s famous declaration—inscribed on his tomb and drawn from his Theses on Feuerbach—reads: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” Yet this call to action, once revolutionary, may have outlived its usefulness. In its place, Continuism, an emerging philosophy, offers a … Continue reading Continuism
BY STEWART SLATER Two-and-a-half thousand years ago, a man turned his back on the high position birth had given him and retreated to a life of solitary asceticism in the forest. Known then as Siddhartha Gautama, he is better known today as the Buddha, and an estimated 500 million people follow his teachings. Ninety years ago, a man died in poverty (due, in no small … Continue reading In Defence of Misfits and Loners
BY RICHARD TAYLOR Labour’s plans to implement 20% VAT on private education may have even wider unintended consequences for UK PLC than already well set out in multiple reports. First, let me say that I think this new tax is Keir Starmer’s equivalent of Tony Blair’s fox hunting legislation – ill-conceived, transactional and damaging to the UK. For anyone who supports it, I am still … Continue reading Australia’s Next Export Success – Private Education?
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN A few years ago, I wrote about the circular firing squad of Identity Politics: ‘Leftists by embracing identity politics have become the new racists – they have become so blinkered in the self-destructive, inward-pointing, circular firing squad of postmodernist neo-Marxism that they have lost the ability to see or understand how intolerance shapes politics’ I stick by the analogy. Today we see … Continue reading The Circle Falls
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I am acquainted with two talented painters. Both have failed. One paints works that appear unfinished and vague. The other paints pieces that seem beyond optimal – like the drawing rooms of clutterers, who display too much porcelain or dangle trinkets from over-decorative curtain finials, he overpaints past the point of optimum into an unrealistic and ragged chintz. By the former artist … Continue reading Ex Optimal
BY GARY MCGHEE My mind has recently been perplexing over the fact that a lot of my old muckers on the Left are stuck in a narrow ideological time-warp. Melanie Phillips outlined her journey and her escape from the Left and from woke Feminism in an interview recently where she describes it as a passage from a fantasy world to reality and the real world. … Continue reading Unreconstructed Fantasies
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Political correctness can be so stifling and inelegant. Originating almost a century ago in Russia with the term politicheskaya pravil’nost, it undermines Western values and builds needless barriers. It is a net which its clumsy proponents designed for all to be trapped in. However, like that other macro and unhelpful fishing practice, bottom trawling (no, don’t go there) – which destroys far … Continue reading Politically Incorrect Positives
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN In 1972 in Venezuela a meteorite killed a cow, but no one knew about it for years because the farmer ate the cow and then used the meteorite as a doorstop. It is curious how some people are drawn towards publicity and others, for whatever reason, shy away from it. It can be the same within the ebb and flow of British … Continue reading Red Underground
BY STEPHEN PAX LEONARD Writing in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde spoke of the ‘Oxford manner’. It was all fine and good to come down with a decent class of degree and take your Blue in water polo, but what really mattered to him was whether a graduate who had been ‘granted leave to supplicate’ had an appreciation of the ‘Oxford … Continue reading One for the Books
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN BLM Activist: “You are privileged.” Me: “Why?” BLM Activist: “You went to public school.” Me: “Did I choose to go to public school?” BLM Activist: “Err, no.” BLM Activist: “Still, you are privileged.” Me: “Why?” BLM Activist: “You are white.” Me: “Did I have any say in my whiteness or you in your blackness?” BLM Activist: “Err, no.” BLM Activist: “But let’s … Continue reading Interview with a BLM Activist
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN It is in the best interests of the country to continue to expose the anti-Semites who flourished under Jeremy Corbyn’s (for want of a better word) leadership of the Labour Party. Having publications such as the Jewish Chronicle expose anti-Semites like the toxic Bristol University professor David Miller and the lunatic Editor of The Canary, Kerry-Anne Mendoza, is beneficial but not sufficient. … Continue reading King Solomon’s Choice
BY QUENTIN PIGG Sad to say that during my school years I never did have the chance to read 1984, nor its sister novel Animal Farm. My teacher opting instead to impose the illiterate, misandrist filth that is ‘The Colour Purple’ upon our impressionable eyes and tender ears – well, I say impressionable, there was a video circulating amongst the boys at that time of … Continue reading Libraries’ Descent to Marxism
Peter Tatchell is a British human rights campaigner, best known for his work with LGBT social movements. How Britain perceives Tatchell has changed drastically throughout the years and it is perhaps fitting that the trajectory of our opinion has been inverse to the public’s view of his nemesis – hero turned villain, the recently departed Robert Mugabe – who Tatchell famously tried to citizen’s arrest. Once … Continue reading An Interview with Peter Tatchell
BY STEPHEN PAX LEONARD Ripples of laughter could be heard from the Senior Common Room where undergraduates dressed in ‘I am a feminist’ hoodies wrestled on the sofas. The LGBTQQIAAP+ dinner had just finished, and the students had retired to the SCR ‘safe-space’ to let off steam and gossip about who they found ‘dangerous’. This was not Oxford. The SCR sherry and newspapers were long … Continue reading University Has Changed, Parents
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The word “privilege” has been co-opted by the Marxists alongside words which used to be marvellous, like “liberal” and “progressive”. Privilege – once a motive for thankfulness – is now just another weapon in their postmodern arsenal of intersectionality. It’s the favoured baseball bat with which these comrades club their prime targets – white men – around the heads. Especially when white … Continue reading The Myth of Privilege
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is too much noise. Too much dissembling going on. And there are too many lies by politicians and in the media. Take the example of last night’s Cooper bill which was passed by one vote. The #FBPE crowd were cock-a-hoop. Yet this bill cannot prevent a no deal Brexit. The Cooper bill necessitates our Prime Minister asking the European Council for … Continue reading Cutting Through the Noise
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I am getting fed up to the back teeth with the comments of hard-line British leftists about Venezuela, now the country is back in the news as the socialist tyrant Maduro’s days dwindle: What is going on in #Venezuela, why sanctions on the country are responsible for its economic demise and how the left must respond with the call to end such … Continue reading Free Flights to Caracas for Corbynites
BY DAVID EYLES Most of us are mystified by the current course of events. There seem to be so many contradictions in politics and elsewhere. In fact, many contradictions seem to have become political even when they had nothing to do with politics in the first place. For example, the simple matter of deciding what sex you are has now been subdivided into a myriad … Continue reading The Post Modernist Final Solution
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Across the road from my office is a café run and owned by a communist lady. We have become good pals at the local gym. She supports Corbyn and is not for turning. I enjoy teasing her for selling millionaire shortbread and Coca Cola. She gives me as good as she gets and asks me which wall I’d like to be shot … Continue reading Café Marx
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The Americans are way ahead of us Brits when it comes to fighting the culture wars. Their films are better quality, their best e-warriors have ditched their bedrooms for studios and content can be found across the board adopting one or another worldview. The Americans even have the #WalkAway movement, which is beginning to really grate with the enemy…. “Once upon a … Continue reading The BBC Must Fall
