Ash Hirani, founding signatory of Don’t Divide Us, writing here for The Conservative Woman, considers some of the unhelpful and corrosive features of our current public discourse – features that close down and oversimplify when we need plurality, complexity and tolerance: The most disconcerting of all recent behaviours is the willingness, and even zeal, to […]
Local anti-democracy in action: Brighton and Hove
DDU supporter, Adrian Hart, writing here for The Brighton Society, provides a detailed, eye-opening illustration of how local town hall technocratic elites treat the people they are supposed to represent with disdain. From imposing building plans that are intended for someone’s benefit, but not the majority of local residents, to a plan to turn all […]
The Accusation of Islamaphobia Silences Dissent
Khadija Khan argues that the accusation of Islamphobia is used as a political weapon.
How Can Anyone Take The Race Lobby Seriously?
Rakib Ehsan in Spiked, and signatory of DDU’s open letter, points to the anti-democratic, wholly ideological response of some of the CRED Report’s critics: Then there is UK Black Lives Matter. UK BLM strives for the eventual abolition of the police in the UK – even though fewer than one in five black Brits would […]
‘Lived Experience’ Is A Sin Against Literature
Ella Whelan at The Telegraph argues that Janice Deul’s complaint that the original choice of translator for Amanda Gorman’s poetry amounts to a sin against literature as well as ride roughshod over the poet’s own judgment: Deul claimed that her concern wasn’t just Rijneveld’s skin colour, but the Booker-winner’s lack of experience in spoken-word poetry […]
The Battle For Eton’s Soul
Toby Young at ‘The Spectator’ considers the implications for Eton’s educational ethos, as well as for the dismissed Mr Knowland, when the head chooses safety over independent critical thought: As he (Mr Knowland) wrote in his letter, if we prioritise emotional safety over intellectual challenge and censor any views that might make students or teachers […]
The Age Of Cant
Theodore Dalrymple at the City Journal considers the differences between the humbug of cant and hypocrisy, which at least has the saving grace of being the tribute vice pays to virtue, and finds the dominance of cant today is illiberal, anti-intellectual and authoritarian: Leaders in cant are not inquirers after truth but seekers of power, […]
Arts Policy Should Return To Keynes’ Vision
Manick Govinda at SDPtalk argues against an arts policy whose model of artists and cultural institutions is closer to a school teacher whose aim is to ensure the public make ‘the correct’ interpretations; an attitude exemplified in the justifications for delaying the Philip Guston exhibition at the Tate Modern: A recent example concerns the planned […]
Parr For The Course
Graphic designer and photographer Howard Sherwood considers the case of Martin Parr, whose response to accusations of being racist, along with little or no institutional support, has been resignation, public apology and a demand for the offending book to be destroyed. If artistic institutions continue to side with activists, whose demands curtail freedom of artistic […]
On Freedom Of Speech and The Culture Of Offence
Like others before him, in France and elsewhere, Samuel Paty was murdered because he offended. Nico Macdonald at medium.com argues we need to be free to offend and that well-intentioned attempts to protect certain ethnic or religious groups from the feeling of being offended, results in an infantilisation that can be profoundly destructive for everyone: […]