Theodore Dalrymple

Would Richard III have claimed PIP?

23 March 2025 4:10 pm

Looking at the list breaking down the reasons for which people are granted Personal Independence Payments (PIPSs), up to £180…

Britain has become a pioneer in Artificial Unintelligence

17 March 2025 5:00 pm

In some countries, the study and pursuit of Artificial Intelligence (AI) proceeds apace, while in this country the practice of…

The real problem with mental health benefits

23 February 2025 5:01 pm

A contributory factor to the continuing impoverishment of Britain is psychiatric diagnosis – or rather, the superstitious official belief in…

Britain is not addicted to punishing criminals

9 July 2024 8:55 pm

Mr Timpson, the new prisons minister, is the head of a company that employs about 600 ex-prisoners, and this is…

It’s time to eliminate the concept of ‘mental health’

2 March 2024 5:30 pm

The concept of mental health is a hypochondriac’s, narcissist’s, shirker’s and social security fraud’s charter: for who can prove that…

Are we prepared for the end of obesity?

19 August 2023 10:00 am

Sixty years ago, my biology teacher told me (so it must have been true) that after the war, some Americans…

Why are we letting dangerous criminals roam the streets?

28 January 2023 6:34 pm

If you repeatedly ask someone to do something that is inherently, and obviously, impossible, and then blame him for not…

In defence of repression

25 September 2022 12:46 am

There is a modern superstition that for every terrible experience suffered there is an equal and opposite psychological technique that,…

How we fell for antidepressants

21 August 2022 4:00 pm

The French novelist, Michel Houellebecq, with his accustomed acuity about modern culture, titled his last novel but one Serotonin. By…

Parole is unfair and unworkable. Let’s abolish it

20 January 2018 9:00 am

The furore over the parole granted to John Worboys, the rapist taxi driver, misses the point entirely — that the…

Love rats

9 September 2017 9:00 am

 Paris A rat’s not called a rat for nothing, and — as we are repeatedly told — we are never…

Diary (Part II)

7 May 2016 9:00 am

On the day I left Australia after an enjoyable month at the Centre for Independent Studies, the Guardian newspaper (which…

Diary

16 April 2016 9:00 am

On arrival in Sydney for a stint with the Centre for Independent Studies, I am ensconced in the bourgeois bohemia…

Why Britain (and Europe) depends on migrants

26 March 2016 9:00 am

It’s not about economics. It’s about our snobbish, slobbish culture

How we drive our children mad

21 March 2015 9:00 am

If Britain has a crisis in children’s mental health, it’s easy to see why

Don't tax sugar - it doesn't make you fat. Gluttony does

11 January 2014 9:00 am

Obesity isn’t a matter of addiction. It’s a question of self-control