Universities
The lost boys
Britain’s forgotten demographic
Greco-Roman wrestling
Can the Classics escape the grip of their past?
Full stream ahead
From time to time, every industry must adapt to some inconvenient technological advance. Suddenly, some part of what you offer…
The Spectator’s Notes
My parents told me that their wartime childhoods were punctuated by the expression: ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’…
Six weeks is too long for an election campaign
The number of parties represented in national election debate multiplies. There are now seven crowding on to television podiums and…
Campus free speech is a thing of the past
Not that long ago, the sorts of views that were verboten on a university campus were genuinely out-there and nasty:…
Universities don’t need to be lectured about racism
I’ve been contacted by a professor at a leading Russell Group university who is worried about the spread of progressive…
Adversity is the new diversity – and it disadvantages everyone
To clear up any confusion, American SATs are closer to A-levels than to British primary-school SATs. In my day, this…
Men are playing with fire by having drunken sex
It is late, on a wet Tuesday evening in November, and I am driving home, listening to endless talk of…
Why I hate ‘the n-word’
One of the depressing aspects of writing a column attuned to social hypocrisy is so rarely running short of new…
Free speech is officially dead in British universities
When I first read about plans for a new academic periodical called The Journal of Controversial Ideas, I got the…
Sending more people to uni isn’t the answer
Imagine a world where employers judged applicants solely on their dress. Anyone in frayed clothes or scuffed shoes would never…
The neo-Marxist takeover of our universities
According to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, America’s universities have succumbed to ‘safetyism’, whereby students are protected from anything that…
Our great universities are struggling – but not because of Brexit
British universities have serious problems. The recent strikes protesting against a sudden reduction in pension rights were unusually effective, and…
You can’t beat Corbyn with Miliband – but the Tories are trying to anyway
Tuition fees have all but killed the Liberal Democrats. The breach of their manifesto pledge to abolish the charges, compounded…
The curious star appeal of Jordan Peterson
Last Sunday night a capacity crowd of mainly young people packed into the Emmanuel Centre in London. Those who couldn’t…
Letters: the tyranny of ‘equality of outcome’ in education
Equality of outcome Sir: Rod Liddle exposes some deep flaws in the way children are prepared to play their part…
Letters
In defence of General Lee Sir: In your leader ‘America’s identity crisis’ (19 August) you state that ‘When General Lee…
Varsity blues
A vast cohort of bright young things have secured their university places with A-level success this week. But things are…
The snowflake factory
We’re training our children to be thin-skinned, censorious and belligerently entitled
Carry on campus
British higher education is in a boom that’s bound to go bust
Diary
I’m a lucky man. My novel House of Cards transformed my life, yet I wrote it almost by accident nearly…
Dreadlocks
‘Why are you filming this?’ ‘For everyone’s safety.’ Those are the last words in a 46-second video that was watched…
The left will eat itself
Politically correct students are now falling victim to the censorious climate they helped create
In defence of discrimination
David Cameron has accused universities of being xenophobic, racist and prejudiced against the poor. He is too much of a…
