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Tim Black
Jennie Bristow
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Friday 20 November 2009
Ed Barrett
A splendid time is still guaranteed for all…
ESSAY: As the Beatles’ back catalogue is reissued, Ed Barrett salutes the world’s most brilliant, inventive and humorous pop group.
Duleep Allirajah
The crisis of Scottish football, part 147
This week’s sacking of Scotland manager George Burley won’t make a mediocre generation of players any better.
Patrick West
Never mind the guest presenters
The fashion for using a variety of hosts to replace a familiar front man reveals the BBC's indecision.
Brendan O’Neill
Too many people? No, too many Malthusians
Since 200 AD, scaremongers have been describing human beings as ‘burdensome to the world’. They were wrong then, and they’re still wrong today.
David Clements
Welfare: how help becomes a hindrance
With the shift of emphasis from welfare to wellbeing, the state reinforces the sense that we are unable to cope with life.
Rob Lyons
What is stopping us from feeding the world?
Malthus was wrong about the inevitability of famine, but we still need to ask why so many people don't get enough to eat.
Frank Furedi
Let’s give children the ‘store of human knowledge’
In flattering kids as ‘digital natives’ for whom the past is irrelevant, we degrade a vital adult mission: transmitting knowledge.
Tim Black
A climate scare in Trafalgar Square
Ghost Forest, a new art installation, wants to frighten us into changing our greedy, planet-wrecking ways.
Shane O’Neill
Modern Warfare 2 has not made me a terrorist
The hysterical campaign against the greatest videogame ever made is based on outdated effects theories.
Mick Hume
Election: up for grabs, but nothing to play for
As Gordon Brown launches the General Election campaign, the one certainty seems to be that we won't be offered any political choice.
Brid Hehir
Undermining nursing care by degrees
The proposal that nurses in England should be university graduates will further reduce the level of basic nursing skills.
Jason Walsh
Why Northern Ireland is a one party state
Forget Sinn Féin or the DUP, the only party that matters in the Northern Ireland Assembly is the Peace Process Party.
Jennie Bristow
There’s more to human character than sharing toys
Demos should go on the naughty step for arguing that parenting style determines whether kids become good, bad and even middle class.
Rob Lyons
The truth about those unemployment stats
Is the small rise really due to economic recovery, or the fact that people are willing to accept wage and hour cuts?
Tim Black
‘Poker is all about skill and self-control’
An American expert on poker challenges the idea that it encourages reckless, addictive, spendthrift behaviour.
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
The ‘McCarthyism’ of the anti-smoking lobby
Two new books expose how epidemiology has been used as a tool of propaganda in the war on tobacco, leaving little room for real facts.
Patrick West
Communists can’t make cola
The Secret Life of The Berlin Wall was gripping, but it didn’t explain anything new, like why East German coke was so bad.
Duleep Allirajah
Why not just call it the Blub-o-drome?
Yes, Sportsdirect.com@St James Park is a rubbish name for a stadium, but why are Geordies really upset about it?
Tessa Mayes
Erasing David: nothing to hide, everything to fear
David Bond’s documentary makes a decent case for defending privacy, but it too often fails as investigative journalism.
Wendy Kaminer
We must stop being tolerant of repression
In a recent speech, the libertarian Wendy Kaminer argued that state intervention into everyday life is giving rise to ‘habits of submission’.
Sabine Reul
Germany: still divided after all these years
The fall of the Berlin Wall, far from heralding a unified future, ushered in a new period of discord between west and east.
Brendan O’Neill
Nutts to these anti-alcohol experts
Last night’s David Nutt debate confirmed that cannabis is now promoted as a means of pacifying young, drunk ruffians.
Brendan O’Neill
‘Lettergate’ reveals the illiteracy of British politics
The bizarre controversy over Gordon Brown’s letter to a grieving mum shows that we urgently need to improve and deepen political debate.
Nathalie Rothschild
Airbrushing ‘bad ads’ from public life
The campaign to ban retouched images of skinny models is not only crazy – it’s deeply censorious, too.
James Woudhuysen
Still no clear policy on nuclear energy
New Labour’s commitment to nuclear is half-hearted at best, and goes hand in hand with more policing of our energy use.
Mick Hume
It’s Europe, Dave, but not as we know it
Europe might be back to haunt Cameron’s Tories – but this time things look very different for the EU, Britain, the Tory Party and the rest of us.
Tim Black
See? Mothers can be sex abusers, too
On the flimsiest of evidence, ChildLine and the NSPCC are now even spreading suspicion about the mother-child bond.
Brendan O’Neill
Thirst: a vampire film for grown-ups
If you, too, are bored by the emo, sexless, vegetarian vampires of Twilight, check out Chan-wook Park’s new movie.
Frank Furedi
Elevating environmentalism over ‘less worthy’ lifestyles
The legal ruling that a belief in climate change is similar to a religious conviction seriously damages science, philosophy and democracy.
Brendan O’Neill
David Nutt is not the new Galileo
The curious Cult of Nutt, backed by both dopeheads and scientists, is actually denigrating scientific truth.
Norman Lewis
The right to privacy in the Age of Facebook
In an era of voluntary revelation and involuntary regulation, we must find new ways to defend our private lives.
Jennie Bristow
Why pedagogy is in peril
Frank Furedi explains that the real problem in education isn’t intefering politicians or pushy parents, but a profound crisis of adult authority.
Patrick West
The Noughties: 10 years of nostalgia
The most striking thing about this decade is how much of it we spent looking back at past decades.
Duleep Allirajah
Are we witnessing a counter-Rafalution?
Most Liverpool fans still believe Rafael Benitez is a tactical genius. But the voices of dissent are increasing.
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
Autism: moving beyond the quest for a cure
The author of Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion challenges both those who want to cure and those who want to celebrate autism.
Nathalie Rothschild
Putting a forcefield around green ideas
The notion that green beliefs in the workplace should be legally protected from ridicule is deeply censorious.
Barry Curtis
Fireworks: the killjoys’ pet hate
Miserabilists want to make Bonfire Night a less explosive, less colourful affair in the name of protecting pets. No way.
Jason Walsh
No, I’m the real Irish republican
Jason Walsh spoke to some of those who claim to be the legitimate heirs of 1916 and found their legitimism geeky and unconvincing.
Mick Hume
Who elected these knights to rule parliament?
Grubby elected – and kick-outable – MPs are still more of a democratic choice than squeaky-clean appointed and unaccountable civil servant Sirs.
Brendan O’Neill
American hippies vs the evil Japanese
The pro-dolphin documentary The Cove exposes how warped are the misanthropic values of the animal-rights lobby.
Tim Black
Giving the young a taste of freedom
Prince Edward’s comments may have been crass, but today’s cotton-wool kids need to be allowed to take risks.
Brandon O’Neal
Why we must wipe out climate denialism
With a survey showing that only 15 per cent of Brits are worried about global warming, it’s time to extinguish the ideas warping the public’s mind.
Nathalie Rothstein
China’s too lenient: we need a no-child policy
With the swarm of human beings expected to hit nine billion by 2050, it’s time we discussed tough remedies.
Rob Loynes
Smoking parents pose a threat to their kids
By all means take away the children of obese parents, but parents who smoke and drink are an even greater danger.
Brendan O’Neill
This ‘revolt of the experts’ is revolting
It was wrong of the government to sack David Nutt. But it’s also wrong for experts to pose as paragons of wisdom who are above democracy.
Tim Black
Why New Labour is so dopey on cannabis
The interminable debate about whether dope should be a class B or C drug reveals the government’s incoherence.
Nathalie Rothschild
Telling unfunny jokes should not be a crime
The fining of French comedian Dieudonné for publicly insulting Jews is a crime against freedom of speech.
Jennie Bristow
Why pedagogy is in peril
Frank Furedi, author of the new book Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating, talks to Jennie Bristow about the politicisation of education and the crisis of adult authority.
Sean Collins
China and America: the economic Odd Couple
Stephen Roach provides some useful, counterintuitive insights into the economic relationship between America and China, but too often uses the term ‘global imbalance’ as a euphemism for ‘US decline’.
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
The anti-smoking ‘truth regime’ that cannot be questioned
Two new books expose how epidemiology has been used as a tool of propaganda in the war on tobacco – and woe betide anyone who tries to inject some real facts into the debate.
Stuart Derbyshire
Farewell, Norman Levitt
With the passing of Norman Levitt, a rigorous defender of scientific truth against the relativism and cowardice of the ‘academic left’, we have lost a modern Enlightenment hero.
Tim Black
The drawn-out decay of the capitalist class
Richard Overy’s splendid new book on the ‘morbid age’ of the 1920s and 30s sheds light on the emergence of a profound crisis of confidence amongst the bourgeoisie – a crisis that has never quite gone away.
Nathalie Rothschild
Seeing Sweden through the eyes of Stieg Larsson
Larsson’s hugely popular Millennium novels are not only brilliant page-turners – they also challenge the clapped-out view of Sweden as a social paradise peopled by buxom blondes and depressives.
Rob Lyons
Cooking up a new theory of evolution
With his smaller teeth and jaws, what separated Homo erectus from his predecessors was not just eating meat, but cooking what he caught.
James Woudhuysen
State intervention is no substitute for innovation
British industry isn’t dead by any means, but if low-carbon jobs and protectionism trump new research and development, it soon will be.
Suzy Dean
A book to set democratic alarm bells ringing
Martin Bell’s account of the expenses scandal has insights, but his willingness to embrace infringements upon parliamentary sovereignty in the name of restoring trust denigrates democracy.
Rob Lyons
Go veggie to ‘save the planet’? Burger off!
The Stern-endorsed campaign to stop people eating meat shows that greens have no solutions for society beyond launching wars on enjoyment.
Patrick West
Steve McQueen, without the car chase
BBC Radio 4’s brave choice to rework the ultra-visual Bullitt showed that old-school noir can still be entertaining.
Duleep Allirajah
In defence of terrace abuse
The arguments that football fans have become too abusive and more inclined to violence don’t stack up.
Mick Hume
Why do they all want to hijack Churchill?
The ‘would Churchill have supported the BNP?’ furore says more about politics today than it does about the role of ‘our hero’ in history.
Brendan O’Neill
Why they love to hate Mother Teresa
The radical-atheist assaults on the late sister of Calcutta are the intellectual equivalent of mugging an old woman.
Tim Black
If comedians can’t be offensive, who can?
Jimmy Carr is only the latest public figure to fall victim to the ‘offence hounds’ who love being scandalised.
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
Making a pig’s ear of mass vaccination
People are right to be sceptical about the swine-flu scare, but it is telling – and worrying – that they focus their scepticism on swine-flu jabs.
Tiffany Jenkins
Artists: resist this propagandist agenda
In a speech for the Battle of Ideas, Tiffany Jenkins argued that cultural diplomacy leads to bad art and bad politics.
Tim Black
The cheap thrill of global warming
Ed Miliband’s ‘climate map’ confirms that climate change is the only thing providing New Labour with a sense of mission.
Nathalie Rothschild
‘Rescue’: a new PC term for repatriation
As the sex-trafficking scare is exposed as a tissue of lies, Nathalie Rothschild spells out the need for full freedom of movement for migrants.
Basham and Luik
NYC: the city that never smokes
A proposal to ban lighting up in New York’s parks has exposed the puritanical agenda behind the crusade against smoking.
Guy Rundle
The calm before the immigration storm?
The lack of hysteria at a new influx of refugee boats to Australia has disappointed pro- and anti-refugee groups alike.
Brendan O’Neill
The new divide in British politics: Us and Him
Question Time was no victory for rigorous and free debate – it merely confirmed Nick Griffin’s elevation as the voodoo doll of public life.
Alex Hochuli
Hating Nick: a shared national experience
Alex Hochuli reports from a London university that showed Question Time on a big screen in a bar, football-style.
Patrick Hayes
‘Would the BBC give a platform to Hitler?’
Patrick Hayes joined the rabble of censors protesting outside BBC Television Centre in the run-up to Question Time.
Patrick West
‘My name’s Josie…and I have a penis’
Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change took an unusually empathic look at ‘gender dysphoria’ amongst children.
Rob Lyons
Life’s a beachball, and then you die
Eight weeks in and Liverpool’s season might already be over – thanks, in part, to a little comedy intervention.
Sean Collins
This isn’t a recovery. It’s an Obama Bubble
Just because the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently reached 10,000, that doesn’t mean the US economy is springing back to life.
Tim Black
‘Voltaire never saw concentration camps’
Tim Black reports from a radical-left anti-BNP rally at which free speech was denounced as ‘nonsense’.
Sarnath Banerjee
A tragi-comic censorship campaign
Cartoonist Sarnath Banerjee illustrates how a website about a sexy Indian sister-in-law got the censors hot under the collar.
Mick Hume
They couldn’t manage a mail service in a post office
Behind the UK postal dispute is the spectre of privatisation and the authorities’ inability to take responsibility for basic state services.
Thomas McMahon
What do family courts have to hide?
Opening up UK family courts to the public will not lead to social worker witch-hunts, but to greater public trust.
Tara McCormack
An Afghan farce, produced in the West
For Hamid Karzai to justify the West’s unjustified war, the Afghan presidential elections had to be rigged.
Tim Black
Off with their head of state
New Labour’s craven justification for maintaining the Royal Prerogative shows that today’s political class doesn’t trust the people – or itself.
Stuart Blackman
Climate change is not beyond questioning
A BBC News journalist's willingness to report more than climate orthodoxy should be encouraged not condemned.
Rob Lyons
Recycling: an eco-ritual we should bin
Reprocessing waste might one day be cost-effective, but for now it's a moralistic reminder that humans are greedy.
Brendan O’Neill
The fight to re-enfranchise the electorate starts here
If the next General Election is to have any real impact, it must be turned from a technical affair into a big, loud public debate about the future.
Tim Black
I am offended, therefore I am
The overblown reaction to Jan Moir’s bilious column about Stephen Gately shows offence now trumps open debate.
Mark Adnum
Stop presenting gays as whiter than white
The editor of a gay website says that, beneath her prejudice and inaccuracy, Jan Moir kind of had a point.
Sean Collins
We’re all Keynesians now? I’m not
Robert Skidelsky’s book on Keynes gives a good account of today’s economic crisis. But its faith in the ‘master’ of economic debate is misplaced.
Emily Hill
‘Welcome to the rohypnol conference’
Emily Hill watched the Tories in Manchester swig fizz, dodge photographers and talk about as little as possible.
Patrick West
Giving animals human motivations: that’s Life
Like so many nature series, David Attenborough’s latest show is visually stunning but built on childish storytelling.
Duleep Allirajah
It’s not true that ‘black men can’t coach’
Just as black players proved themselves on the pitch, so black managers should prove themselves in the dugout.
Brendan O’Neill
The self-destruction of the House of Commons
The mock-populist backlash on parliamentary expenses poses a serious threat not only to MPs’ bank balances, but to democracy itself.
Nathalie Rothschild
A naked assault on our right to privacy
Airport scanners that will ogle our naked bodies are only a more hi-tech version of everyday state surveillance.
Emily Hill
Jane Austen meets Sex and the City
A new BBC adaptation of Emma abandons Austen’s barbed wit in favour of 21st-century dating psychobabble.
Wendy Kaminer
Why libertarians should support the right to die
In the US, the war on drugs and federal heavy-handedness are limiting a doctor’s ability to help patients in exceptional pain.
Patrick Marmion
Exit stage right, pursued by a banker
Former Communist David Hare is now a knight of the realm, yet his play on the recession is his most radical to date.
Tim Black
New Labour’s phoney battle with fascism
The more the party’s crisis deepens, the more it cynically ups the ante against a far-right phantasm.
Mick Hume
Brighton bomb memories
How the world has changed since I was bizarrely accused of involvement in the IRA attack on the Tory cabinet 25 years ago this week.
Nancy McDermott
Circumcision: cut the crap
‘Intactivists’ who claim that being circumcised abused their human rights, and ruined their sex lives, should get a grip.
Shane O’Neill
Hey, union, leave us kids alone!
The NUS’s offer of free alcoholic drinks to students who agree to have STI tests reveals its prudish anti-sex tendencies.
Brendan O’Neill
How Hillary became Empress of Ireland
Hillary Clinton’s head-knocking visit to the Six Counties confirms that Washington has successfully conquered both Ireland and Britain.
Gordon Hughes
The wrong answer to climate change
It would be wiser, and cheaper, to adapt to climate change rather than to slash CO2 emissions by 70 per cent.

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19 November 2009
Too many people? No, too many Malthusians
17 November 2009
Election: up for grabs, but nothing to play for
There’s more to human character than sharing toys

13 November 2009:
Erasing David and the fight for privacy rights


20 November 2009:
Never mind the guest presenters