by Theodore Dalrymple An evening with Mrs. Merkel, Mrs. May, or President Macron would, I suspect, be about as entertaining as dentistry without anaesthetic; but it would be like an evening with Oscar Wilde by comparison with an evening with Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Opposition in Britain, ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple We rarely see a policeman in our town until two hours after a crime has been reported, so I was very pleased the other day to see a policeman and woman in the narrow street next to mine. They were peering under a car parked off the road. ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Good ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple Four years ago, three Muslim girls aged 15 from Bethnal Green in the East End of London ran away from home to join the so-called Islamic State in Syria. There was a brief commotion at the time as to how this had been allowed to happen. One of them, Shamima Begum, was ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple Not reading many contemporary French novels, I am not entitled to say that Michel Houellebecq is the most interesting French novelist writing today, but he is certainly very brilliant, if in a somewhat limited way. His beam is narrow but very penetrating, like that of a ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple Electroconvulsive therapy, the deliberate induction of an epileptic fit in severely depressed patients, had—and perhaps still has—a very bad public reputation. To give the brain an electric shock without any real underlying theory as to why it might work seems brutal; after ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple According to many philosophers, starting with Kant, existence is not a predicate, but whether this is so or not, the first time I have ever seen it praised as something meritorious in itself was in a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, the bellwether of British center-left ...Read More...

The language of liberation disguises ugly truths or absurdities. by Theodore Dalrymple Two items in the British Medical Journal last week caught my eye. The first was an editorial titled “Tackling Female Genital Mutilation in the UK,” and the second was an article titled “Diversifying the ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple The demonstrations that have shaken France over the last two months are testimony to the power and durability of resentment, by far the most sincere and long-lasting of political emotions. It is easy to stimulate and difficult to assuage. Even when justified, it rarely conduces ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple Thomas Piketty According to many philosophers, starting with Kant, existence is not a predicate, but whether this is so or not, the first time I have ever seen it praised as something meritorious in itself was in a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, the bellwether ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple For an outsider with no particular emotional involvement, the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, nominated to the United States Supreme Court, were an absorbing gladiatorial soap opera—a well-written soap opera, insofar as it contained so many subplots and suggested ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple One of the most extraordinary consequences of the political ­impasse in Britain over Brexit is the proposal that the voting age should be reduced to six. This extension of the franchise was not proposed by an inmate of an asylum for the crim­in­ally insane but by a professor, ...Read More...

On Britain’s ever-more expansive search for hate crimes by Theodore Dalrymple The Times of London recently informed us that “the number of hate offences recorded by police jumped after the terror attack by Khalid Masood at Westminster in March last year.” The paper continued by noting that ...Read More...

Anger at a tax hike has turned into violence and mayhem. by Theodore Dalrymple Many believe anger to be an emotion that justifies whatever is done in its name. But it is doubtful whether the violent scenes on the Champs Elysées in Paris over the weekend were a manifestation of genuine anger. ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple The political cross-currents of Brexit are now so many, so various and so swirling that the average person, and perhaps the above-average person, no longer knows what to think. He becomes dizzy when he tries to do so, and thus averts his mind from the whole question and ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple A page in the October 11, 2018 print edition of the Guardian newspaper tells us a great deal about the political and cultural state of Britain, and perhaps—since Britain is not unique—of much of the Western world. On the left side of page 7, a story is headed, “Supreme Court ...Read More...