A Free Left Blog

I had a short piece published for Spiked a few days ago about the erosion of impartiality in broadcast journalism. In this piece I only had the space to relay a few thoughts I’d been having in response to various journalists’ tweets. Quoting them in full meant there was little space to develop thoughts and put them in proper context. So I thought I’d write a follow-up piece here on my blog. Clearly, the erosion of standards is a much wider phenomenon than what broadcast journalists (who are meant to be impartial according to OFCOM rules) say on Twitter. What they say there is important, for it shows us how they think, how this thinking informs their broadcasting and other things like how they tend to act as a pack, enthusiastically running with some stories but not others. However the real proof is what they do in their broadcasting – and this leaves a lot to be desired. For my part, I have now largely given up on mainstream news, bored by the subjects it focuses on and...

Claire Fox is one of my heroes; one of my favourite people in public life. And she still is. To see her name being dragged through the mud since she committed to become a Brexit Party candidate for the forthcoming European Parliament elections has been difficult to watch and to bear. David Aaronovitch started it off with a vituperative column attacking the ‘shadowy past’ of Fox and her colleagues in the old Revolutionary Communist Party who are now involved in the Academy of Ideas and the Spiked online magazine. Nick Cohen (an old lefty hero of mine) picked up the thread, denouncing her as “one of the most immoral people in public life”.   Sunder Katwala of the ‘independent, non-partisan thinktank’ British Future has been running some huge Twitter threads attacking her and her candidacy. Fellow tweeter Otto English has also been running a relentless Twitter campaign against her. Newspapers and broadcasters have picked up and reported it. The main and see...

This is the text of the speech I gave at the session about my book, ' The Tribe: the liberal-left and the system of diversity ' at the Barbican, London on Saturday 13th October 2018. It differed a little in delivery. Further details of the session and the participants are here . Hello Everyone. Thank you all for coming. Also a special thank you to Jon [Holbrook] and the Academy of Ideas for arranging this session. And another special thank you to Christine [Louis-Dit-Sully], James [Panton] and Helen [Dale] for agreeing to participate and for wading through this book of mine. I hope we can have an interesting and lively discussion about it and the issues it raises. “Questioning Diversity: discussing THE TRIBE” - at #BattleofIdeas - with @bencobley @cricri42 @_HelenDale @jimpanton - packed out!!! pic.twitter.com/NJTAQrEUEY — The Great Debate (@greatdebateuk) 13 October 2018 So, let’s get into it. What is this book all about? I’ve been reflecting on thi...