1121 days ago
It is always the way that the woke of one generation will be devoured by the woke of the next. Who could imagine that feminist icon Germaine Greer and the heroic gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell might find themselved “no platformed” on British campuses, the marxist madrassas at the cutting edge of the woke revolution? The “crime” of both Greer and Tatchell was not to understand the pyramid of victimhood and thus to question even some of the demands of those currently perched at the top of the pyramid, the Transgender community. As we discovered yesterday with lesbians who do not want to have sex with a “woman with a penis” such challenges are just not allowed and are, at once, branded as hateful and bigoted.
1461 days ago
This week, the journalist Suzanne Moore was forced out of her highly paid job at the Guardian. Her crime was to question certain of the more radical demands of the trans agenda in relation to women‘s rights. Moore was not fired. No, this is 1984 so instead vast numbers of her colleagues wrote to management saying her views upset them. Knowing she was in peril of being written out of the script, Moore walked.
1607 days ago
Before anyone kicks off because they may not like my conclusion, let us be clear, Black Lives Matter as a slogan is fine. However, White Lives Matter really is, at best, meaningless gibberish. You need to put this into context.
2387 days ago
I do not look back at my old University with some of the unbridled love that others show. Indeed, at times of stress, my nightmare is of again sitting finals and being even more at sea than I was the first time around. About once a week James Delingpole remarks about how our alma mater has gone to the dogs and, he has a point, it does seem to be a nest of silliness these days.
2430 days ago
Across the West the story is the same. Offended snowflakes object - or in some cases far worse - and craven academics cancel events or no platform speakers. This is a matter I am now all too familiar with after giving this most excellent talk at Bath Spa University. It is surely only a matter of time before some liberal arts faculty somewhere organises a book burning. Today's demonstration of the Orwellian nature of the liberal arts campus of today comes from McMaster University in Hamilton Canada.
2501 days ago
One of the few joys of the transgender madness, promoted by the elitists of the liberal media, and now raging across the West is seeing uber PC lefties such as Germaine Greer and Peter Tatchell fall foul of this new lobby, no platformed and accused of bigotry becuase they just cannot keep up. Want to avoid such a fate? Thankfully I can help.
2613 days ago
This is a bit sensitive as the Mrs is a senior lecturer at Bath Spa. This morning I wished her well as she headed off to campus to fill the empty heads of impressionable millennials full of left wing nonsense and told her that I hoped she enjoyed the book burning or whatever else was planned by her cowardly employer today. For Bath Spa is in the news.
2634 days ago
I have noted many times before how free speech no longer exists on campuses across the West. If you pursue a politically correct strict liberal orthodoxy you can say what you want. Anything goes. All men are animals and wannabe rapists, white folks must be ashamed of all their crimes and so are innately evil racists. Heterosexuals should be under-represented in Parliament. Trans is the new normal. Its okay to say you want to assassinate President Trump. The Jewish state acts like Nazis and has no right to exist. All those statements are, to me, obscene and/or untrue but on campuses across Britain and the US they are repeated and accepted as fine every day.
Those who dare to disagree whether they be evil conservatives such as Ann Coulter or uber-liberals like Germaine Greer or the great Peter Tatchell ho just slipped up (usually on Trans issues) then you get no platformed. Try saying something really controversial like the British Empire did a lot of good (which it did), Britain did more to abolish slavery than any African state has ever done (again true) or that climate change is pure fiction (which it is) and as an academic, your career is toast even if the remarks are made in private.
The latest lunacy comes from Edinburgh where a spiky law student Robbie Travers responded to news that the Americans just dropped a vast bomb on ISIS fighters with a facebook post
2649 days ago
So much for free speech and the left. A group of high school students were on a day out in Washington DC. one of the girls in the group was wearing a Donald Trump baseball cap and another a T shirt proclaiming her support for POTUS as you can see below. Then, after a hassle free day, they visited Howard University.
2723 days ago
In the 1930s Nazi Germany organised the burning of books that the State considered degenerate. The state, or rather the party, got to decide what everyone else should read. Back then the British left stood for free speech. How that has changed.
2744 days ago
That we have to pay for the Guardian's sister outlet, the BBC via a poll tax is bad enough. Its output is low grade and often biased. But now the BBC wants to get you fired if it does not like your views. Hey George Orwell you missed this one in 1984...
2816 days ago
Emmeline Pankhurst, Countess Markievicz, hell even Germaine Greer, these were feminists who fought for something important and fought bravely. And still the struggle is not over. In many parts of the world women are treated shamefully, as sex slaves, as second class citizens as folks who have no rights. Think of FGM, think of the battles of Saudi women to have a voice and to avoid execution for crimes that are not crimes if you are a man, think of the way ISIS treats female captives. Gosh there are some real battles feminists - whether male or female - still need to fight.
2866 days ago
Once upon a time, on both sides of the Atlantic, those on the liberal left believed in free speech and liberty. Back in the era of Mccarthy it was we on the right who were, correctly slammed, for stifling debate. I like to think that was an glitch in that for most of us who believe in a small state, freedom of expression is a given, it is part of the DNA of our thought set. It is the Big State loving left that wants to decide what the little people should think and say.
3153 days ago
Australia's foreign minister Julie Bishop has opined that she thinks that it is in Australia's interests that Britain stays in the EU and votes no to Brexit. Meanwhile 99.9% of Britons think that it is in Britain's interest that Aussie nonce Rolf Harris is shipped back to Australia ASAP. As a convicted felon he'd be following a well worn path and frankly there's no reason why the old kiddie fiddler should be allowed to stay here. While we are at it can the Aussies take Germain Greer back as well?
What on earth