A Free Left Blog

On one level Virgin Trains’ decision to stop selling the Daily Mail is quite a trivial matter. The company is a private business and can decide not to sell whatever it likes. But there is also a serious aspect to this, for it shows how some of our major public-facing organisations (including businesses like Virgin and the retailer Paperchase ) are explicitly taking the ‘progressive’, liberal-left side in our Culture Wars, and using what control they have over public space to stop the views of opponents from appearing. According to the story in PR Week , Virgin Trains announced its decision in a memo to staff last year, saying, “There’s been considerable concern raised by colleagues about the Mail’s editorial position on issues such as immigration, LGBT rights, and unemployment. We’ve decided that this paper is not compatible with the VT brand and our beliefs. We won’t be stocking the Daily Mail for sale or as a giveaway.” As we can see, the statement is explicitly poli...

‘Segregation’ is quite an emotive word, especially now with thoughts of Nelson Mandela and apartheid fresh in our minds. But segregation in practice isn’t such a simple issue as many people make out. A report from Universities UK offering guidance on how to deal with external speakers has ignited quite a storm over the issue of segregation, specifically over a hypothetical case study example of   a religious speaker wishing for his event to be segregated according to gender. It’s probably worth quoting the scenario (not quite in full): “A representative of an ultra-orthodox religious group has been invited to speak at an event to discuss faith in the modern world. The event is part of four different speeches taking place over the course of a month exploring different approaches to religion. The initial speaker request has been approved but the speaker has since made clear that he wishes for the event to be segregated according to gender. The event organiser has ...

International Women’s Day on Friday 8 th March was quite an interesting 24 hours to be a man on the Left. I found it mostly depressing and demoralising though. I used to support the broad feminist agenda, but have become increasingly concerned by the particularly strident, strict and aggressive brand of feminist politics that has taken over: almost exclusively confined to the Left of course. Sexism is a serious, continuing and pressing concern in our society, but the kind of treatment it is getting from feminists threatens to distract from and undermine any effective attempts to address it. This treatment is now overwhelmingly ideological, focusing on sexism as something systemic ; indeed sometimes known as ‘patriarchy’. The divisive brand of politics that comes with this should be familiar to us from the Culture Wars between Left and Right in North America: it is highly emotive in its language, quick to cast blame and careless about where the blame lands. The ...