political correctness

Once you get over its political correctness, Netflix’s Godless is a cracker

9 December 2017 9:00 am

Boy came to me the other night in a state of dismay. ‘Dad, I just turned on Match of the…

Everyone’s doing a mea culpa these days — except me

25 November 2017 9:00 am

The faux Leonardo that sold for 400 million greenbacks — plus a 50 million fee for Christie’s — was a…

When did fiction become so dangerous?

4 November 2017 9:00 am

The assignment of books for review has always been haphazard. Fellow fiction writers can be tempted either to undermine the…

Goodbye London, Reykjavik here I come

4 November 2017 9:00 am

I have a message for the London mayor, Sadiq Khan: you and your policies stink! While the fuzz are busy…

The dwarves of death who control your TV

30 September 2017 9:00 am

My own fault, I suppose, for turning on the television. Not an action I undertake very regularly these days, because…

High life

26 August 2017 9:00 am

When the Germans smuggled arguably the world’s most evil man into Russia 100 years ago, they did not imagine the…

Don’t like our diversity agenda? You’re fired

12 August 2017 9:00 am

Earlier this week, a technology website published an internal memo written by a Google employee called James Damore criticising the…

Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Marx’s detritus

15 July 2017 1:59 pm

Yassmin Abdel-Magied recently published a piece in The Guardian Australia lambasting her critics as being merely ‘afraid of a young…

I came out feeling euphoric and disorientated: Young Vic’s Blue/Orange reviewed

28 May 2016 9:00 am

Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…

Isn’t it puke-inducing being lectured about poverty by millionaire comics?

28 May 2016 9:00 am

Going Forward (BBC4, Thursdays) is a BBC comedy about the continuing adventures of Kim Wilde, the fat, cynical but lovable…

The tangled story of dreadlocks, from Milton to YouTube

9 April 2016 9:00 am

‘Why are you filming this?’ ‘For everyone’s safety.’ Those are the last words in a 46-second video that was watched…

There were no safe spaces at the dawn of democracy

19 March 2016 9:00 am

Brilliant Oxford undergraduates argue that it is right to prevent us saying things they object to, because speech they do…

Dull hipsters in broad daylight – why I’m done with today’s dance music

19 March 2016 9:00 am

At 19, I dropped out of university to pursue a career as a rave promoter. I went into business with…

How my disabled son has changed my mind about political correctness

19 March 2016 9:00 am

Here’s another stock joke for your collection: Pembroke College, Cambridge, has cancelled a fancy dress party themed on Around the…

Moral sainthood is a bore; sinners are much more fun

13 February 2016 9:00 am

Gstaad I had the rather subversive idea of offering a six-figure sum to Oriel College, Oxford. On one condition: that…

To survive as a Tory teacher, you have to keep quiet

6 February 2016 9:00 am

Surviving as a Tory teacher means keeping quiet

It’s dangerous and wrong to tell all children they’re ‘gender fluid’

30 January 2016 9:00 am

Children are not all ‘gender fluid’. It’s dangerous and wrong to try to persuade them that they are

Tell the truth about benefit claimants and the left shuts you down

16 January 2016 9:00 am

Next month sees the release of Trumbo, a biopic about Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood…

2016 will be a vintage year for tech billionaires and jihadis

2 January 2016 9:00 am

This is going to be one hell of a year, hell being the operative word. It will be the year…

Why 'safe' is Dot Wordsworth's word of the year

12 December 2015 9:00 am

‘Makes me feel sick,’ said my husband, referring not to the third mince pie of the morning (in Advent, supposedly…

How we ended up ‘cisgender’

7 November 2015 9:00 am

‘That’s not how you spell “system”,’ said my husband triumphantly, pointing with his whisky glass at a placard inveighing against…

I went to Pedro’s Tex Mex Cantina to claim my racist sombrero

17 October 2015 9:00 am

Pedro’s Tex-Mex Cantina is a fantastical shack near a ring road in Norwich. It was recently asked to stop handing…

Turning back refugee boats saves lives - as Australia found out

12 September 2015 9:00 am

Turning back boats saves lives

Spectator letters: Mental health and assisted dying

5 September 2015 9:00 am

Suicide and assisted dying Sir: As a mental health practitioner, I am grateful to Douglas Murray (‘Death watch’, 29 August)…

Warning! Can seriously damage your health

The contagious madness of the new PC

29 August 2015 9:00 am

Obsessive searching for hurt and offence will create it where once it never existed