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

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the differences between politics and philosophy – and how we confuse the two of them much of the time, treating what are often basic political necessities as matters of theory.     We do that in explaining our own actions, seeking justification after the fact, but also in explaining those of others, criticising them for mistakes in their ‘thinking’ when it is not always evident much thinking has taken place at all. Politics is a domain of decision-making, in the world , not detached from it. It is relentless, continuing day upon day for as long as we interact with others in society. In it, our primary reference point is not detached philosophical reflection and the theories that come out of it, but the immediate world around us, of other people and institutions and the demands they make of us. Of course, theory is embedded in this world. But we do not typically relate to it in a detached, individualised manner – that of the ‘thinker’

Sometimes as a writer on social and political issues, I get this nagging feeling that it might be a good idea to suggest what should be done in government and wider public life rather than just moaning about it. This may seem like a somewhat obvious and absurd thing to say. Surely it is the job of someone writing about public life to put forward ideas about how to make it better? I agree with this to an extent. However there are real practical difficulties. Firstly, I think the primary task of a non-fiction writer is to describe and explain what is happening fairly and accurately. This takes a lot more time, effort – and space – than people might give credit for. We have limited time and space to play with as writers – and since we tend to be writing about something, that something necessarily takes up most of our time and attention. Secondly, and perhaps more interesting, is the necessary confrontation with the world of existing policy-making and law.   Policy-making i

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 seemingly mo

Here I have pasted in a lengthy series of questions  and answers  I conducted with  the journalist Sylvie Perez for an article t hat has appeared in the March issue of the French magazine L'Incorrect .  The article discusses the transgender-feminist war that is raging away now in Britain. My comments put this in the context of what I call 'the system of diversity' in my book The Tribe . Obviously, only a few of those comments can appear in the article and I thought they were worth pasting in full on here. Questions and Answers 1/ What does the conflict opposing feminists to transgender activists tell us about the escalation in the victimhood status and overall about the leap forwards of identity politics ? Victimhood is the base of knowledge which all claims to identity group favouritism rely on. The transgender activists seem to have realised this, learning their lessons from other identity activists that maximising how victimised they appear will pay back if

In the past month and a bit I have had two articles published by the website Unherd. The first is on the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, who I have written about here before. The article is entitled ' Vaughan Williams: not simply a nostalgic nationalist ' and looks at how he doesn't conform to many of the stereotypes given to him, particularly by progressives and anti-Brexit types. The second is ' In Praise of NIMBYs ', which was published today and seeks to redress some of the bile that these committed members of the community [Not-In-My-Back-Yard-ers] receive from our political elites. I hope they are worth a read. Feel free to put any comments up here or to me on Twitter since there is no comment facility on the Unherd site. Here's a bit more VW anyway: perhaps the greatest piece he ever wrote. Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

In my book I wrote quite a bit on how efforts to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union have mobilised what I call 'the system of diversity', by aligning to a view of the world in which certain identity groups like women, gay and non-white-skinned people appear as victims of unfavoured groups like men, white-skinned people and the ethnic English. Seemingly every day brings more remarkable evidence of this. Via Twitter, James Mendelsohn has kindly sent one of the best, most concise examples I have seen so far - a video by a campaign group called Our People, Our Choice which calls itself, 'A group of young people campaigning for a #PeoplesVote on the Brexit deal!' We say no to Brexit And social mobility, grinding to a halt. We say no To the rich doing fine but the poor getting poorer Whilst parliament “negotiate”, dividing regions and communities. WATCH, SHARE & RT this powerful poem by @antoniacundy . #PeoplesVote #WednesdayWisdom pic.twitt