by Fergus Downie I’m glad it was posted but an august journal having the good manners to air a discordant viewpoint doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have your views treated with breathless seriousness. A couple of points on ‘consciousness raising’ and and ‘Western appropriation of foreign cultures’. ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie It had to happen eventually I guess and in retrospect Dominic Raab, a serious man who I feared had dug his political grave, showed what a modest exertion of stubbornness could achieve. Johnson followed in a deft manoeuvre and soon even the ludicrous Starmer rose to the occasion ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie If the NHS has become an anaemic obsession amongst the British (and I do wonder how many with the capacity for an independent thought genuinely feel that inspired by one of the worst public health services in Europe) one can at least take solace in the fact that teachers have ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie At this pace we are probably not going back till after Christmas and on a rare visit to our deserted glass outpost I saw all the antiseptic precautions being laid out for our nervous return. Clipped bureaucratic instructions abound and the most interesting is the ‘two at a time’ ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie I have to admit, defunding the police makes a lot of sense. In the UK. Much like our other nationalised treasures they’ve been below par for a while, and their inefficiency cum politicisation is all the more galling when you consider their energetic pursuit of trivia. The obligatory ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie Guilt is a great aphrodisiac and to judge by the hysterical antics of those privileged white brats haunting Murphy Donovan ’s hood it’s a pick me up that just keeps giving. And why shouldn’t it?. To self-flaggelate for something you’ve actually done is an important indicator ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie The congestion is back. My brother reported on a recent tailback in Ashington in Northumbria, an unimposing former pit town where the colliery closed in the 80s and its hinterland descended soon after into drug addled oblivion. The cause? ‘‘MaccyDees’ had reopened and the local ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie Daniel Cohn-Bendit Ad hominems are rather bad form in ordinary times. As a rule one should play the ball, not the man, but when it comes to Pat Corcoran it is difficult not to linger on the sordid particulars. The postmodern left have played no small part in embracing the personal ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie I have always been a man of action, but almost 30 years ago I added memory loss to my list of virtues. I lived in Whitley Bay back then, and my parents owned a fine black Labrador unimaginatively named Ben who, like so many of his breed, was so stupid (or cunning) that he affected ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie ‘A Corbyn victory is a victory for working men everywhere’. - Letter to the Guardian newspaper November 2018 ‘The man’s a twat’ - Caretaker at Sunderland Leisure Centre December 2019, when consulted on voting intentions. Nowadays everyone saw the disaster coming, and as ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie Slowly but surely the Germans are thinking, and the doubts are mounting. Largely overlooked by a feral media employing every spare hack to agitate the most base and morally lethargic instincts, Professor Bakhdi’s Cassandra warnings on the continent’s lockdown hysteria have until ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie A spectre is haunting the public sector though I’d venture no one will be banging pots and pans for its victims. Working from home by all indications is deeply traumatic and to anyone doubting the heroism of us all, my council’s wellbeing app ( complete with meditation soundtrack) ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie 'Suddenly men in black were seen on the building and gunfire rang out'.  As news commentary went, to a 9-year-old it was bracing particularly when we had been steeling ourselves for the mind-numbing tedium of the World Snooker Finals. I can’t stand the sport but like all impractical ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie I’ve been trying very hard to take the Corbyn target practice saga seriously, but still can’t quite summon the indignation. To judge by the breathtaking seriousness with which the Independent and Guardian are following this melodrama, you would think Corbyn himself had perished ...Read More...

by Fergus Downie Looking at the outbreak of psychic masturbation in round 2 of the Democrat debates it was difficult to credit that this was the same party even of the Obama era let alone the Clintons', and they at least had the saving grace of being devoid of any principle. All that was solid ...Read More...