The great physicist Richard Feynman once said: “Outside of their particular area of expertise scientists are just as dumb as the next person.” Well, it transpires that that is the case with film directors too, and Ridley Scott proves the point. When challenged about the historical inaccuracies in his recently released biopic of Napoleon, Ridley […]
Why Ridley Scott Is Wrong Read More »
One of the latest examples, among the dispiriting many, of ideology taking precedence over historical truth is the row that has detonated over the claim by University College London’s Dr Jenny Bulstrode that Henry Cort, who is credited with inventing a ground-breaking iron-making process in 1784, actually stole the idea from Jamaican slaves. Bulstrode’s claim
The ‘Decolonisation’ of History Read More »
In a time when the commissars of English wokery, those self-flagellating haters of their own country and culture, are doing their relentless best to topple English heroes through bad history, there is something charmingly forgivable about a person defending her English hero, albeit also through bad history. To whom am I referring? Phillipa Langley, the
Holding Out for a Hero Read More »
Recently, the Financial Times revealed that Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ new book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, is littered with passages lifted from other sources, including that dubious fount of knowledge, Wikipedia, without the correct acknowledgement such as quotation marks, footnotes and a bibliography. Reeves has, of course, denied plagiarism and her office has defended
Why Rachel Reeves’ Book Blunder Really Matters Read More »
The veteran BBC broadcaster John Simpson has been busy recently defending the BBC’s decision not to label Hamas a terrorist organisation, despite the horrific pogrom it unleashed on 7 October and despite calls for the BBC to change its stance made by politicians, journalists and the public. According to Simpson, ‘terrorism’ is a loaded word
Dear BBC, Spare Us Your ‘Neutrality’ Read More »
It was the American Dream to go West and make one’s fortune. In the early Nineties, it was still the Dream to go West, this time to the furthest West where the cities of the Pacific coast offered the brightest economic futures. As the great cities of the Midwest and the East Coast were suffering
The US Wastelands of Wokery Read More »
Cognisant of its dwindling membership, the Church of England is in survival mode, adopting fashionable ideologies in an attempt to remain ‘relevant’ whilst maintaining a semblance of orthodoxy to keep the pew-dwellers happy. The latest example is of the Anglican charity, United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG), pledging £7m to Barbados over the next
Reparations for Slavery? A Moral and Practical Stupidity Read More »
Of all kinds of humour, political satire is the one that authoritarians tolerate least, for it has the habit of releasing suppressed feelings of defiance among the governed that might coalesce into rebellion. Two Serbian journalists, Srdja Popovic and Mladen Joksic, demonstrated this way back in 1998 with a prank. They and colleagues from the
No Laughing Matter: the Scottish Government’s Latest Assault on Free Speech Read More »
Martha Gill’s recent article in The Guardian (‘A Tory MP wants a minister for men. How about one for white people, heterosexuals and the upper classes?’, 9 September) is a masterpiece of hypocrisy, fallacy and ignorance. It is an exercise in fragile feminism. So, what is her problem with MP Nick Fletcher’s idea of appointing
A Minister for Men? It Makes Perfect Sense Read More »
What to do with the word ‘evil’? It is the ultimate description of the depraved depths to which some humans descend. Here we find infanticides, serial killings and genocides. Here we meet Ian Brady, Ted Bundy and Adolf Hitler. Yet our age’s anodyne response is to avoid the word altogether. We are the philosophical descendants
Lucy Letby: The Return of Evil Read More »
