The New Conservative

Roger Watson

people wearing multiple masks

We’ve All Got the Flu

They tried to terrify us with Covid-19 and, sad to report, it largely worked. Most of the population cowered under the cosh of the public health experts, stayed indoors, socially distanced, wore masks and got vaccinated. Some people remain convinced that Covid-19 was an existential threat and that, had it not been for the one-way […]

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Gun reform

Australia Does a Dunblane

There are few things worse in governments, corporations and societies than the mentality that ‘something must be done’. Mostly because nothing needs to be done or that which is done is entirely the wrong thing. Following the dreadful shooting incident in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996 – tennis star Andy Murray was one of the children

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Backyard comedy club

Comedy Like It Ought to Be

My jaws are still aching this morning following the Free Speech Union Comedy Benefit at the Backyard Comedy Club last night in Bethnal Green. This was comedy like it used to be: offensive, insightful and most importantly, hilarious. The Free Speech Union, the brainchild of Toby Young (now Viscount Young of Acton), was formed after

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Old man writing furiously

From the Man Cave XXIII

I am sitting in the man cave besieged by a legion of brass monkeys, wearing two face masks and praying that my GP will not have run out of flu jabs before I can get down there and roll my sleeves up. We are entering – indeed we may already be in the midst of

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Old man writing furiously

From the Man Cave XXII

Once again, the man cave is in Italy. I wanted to title this one in Italian, to show how cultured and cosmopolitan I am, but apparently, there is no direct equivalent of ‘man cave’ in Italian. The nearest I could get was Dall’uomo delle caverne, meaning ‘from the caveman’, which I take as a compliment.

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Covid

The Covid Inquiry Whitewash

It has finally arrived, all thousand-plus pages of it: the second UK Covid-19 Inquiry Report. Years in the making, tens of millions of pounds in cost, and delivering exactly what it was constructed to deliver. Not truth, not accountability, not a sober assessment of what happened, but a carefully curated political document in which the conclusions were pre-determined

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Old man writing furiously

From the Man Cave XXI

One is back in Blighty and freezing one’s nuts off in the man cave. The temperature has dropped, and an ‘Orange Weather Alert’ was issued last night to ensure that we all knew that it was going to be cold. Seems that the government and their perpetual mouthpiece the BBC, seem to think that nobody

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