The Spectator

“The Tories clearly want to appear tough on crime but criminalising people who wish to vent their unhappiness in a democracy isn’t the way to do so. After all, if there is a crime crisis, it is surely because pre-existing laws aren’t being properly enforced. Coppers seem more interested in scouring Twitter for alleged hate speech … Read more Kill the bill: why Boris’s crime law isn’t fit for purpose

Writing in The Spectator, Claire takes issues with Boris Johnson’s comments about the miners’ strike… In March this year, 35 years to the month since the end of the miners’ strike, environmentalists were caught dressing up as miners. Their media stunt was intended to protest against a proposed expansion to the Bradley coal mine in … Read more Boris’s miners joke reveals his contempt for the working class

Is the new normal here to stay? For the sake of our parliamentary democracy, let’s hope not, writes Claire in The Spectator…  At the very time when the Executive needed to be prodded, probed and interrogated over the hundreds of statutory instruments controlling every aspect of public life, Parliament was reduced to stultifying and formulaic set … Read more A ‘Zoom parliament’ is bad for democracy

Writing in The Spectator, Claire reflects on the current state of broadcast news… …It’s hardly a surprise then that many people are optimistic about the launch of GB News, a channel which aspires to have its finger on the public pulse and which seeks to feature a diverse range of opinion. Good. Indeed, one reason why the channel … Read more Can GB News live up to the hype?

In the Spectator, Claire argues that it is up to the public to avoid being dragged into an over-simplistic ‘whose side are you on?’ row. Who needs statue topplers when the state will do it for you? Some bright spark in authority has decided the way to defend the statues on Parliament Square is to … Read more How a serious issue with racism was reduced to a tick-boxing exercise

Perhaps there’s light at the end of the long lockdown tunnel. The roadmap at least allows hope that life might get back to normal. For me, normal means freedom to live life as we choose, from cramming into packed planes to go on holiday to crowding into pubs for birthday parties. However, even saying that … Read more My fears about the ‘new normal’

I don’t particularly like the constant war analogies used about fighting coronavirus. However, when someone like Matt Hancock conjures up the Blitz spirit, urging us to pull together ‘in one gigantic national effort’, I think of that cliched question: ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy?’ Forget the sexism, what will our answer be to future … Read more Staying at home doesn’t make us heroes

In The Spectator, Claire Fox argues that rather than trying to catch the government out, the media should treat its audience with the deference it deserves and truly scrutinise the government’s strategy. The lockdown has ensured that many millions now gather round the TV and watch the daily press conference from No.10. We hang on … Read more This is no time for ‘gotcha!’ journalism

Claire wrote for the Spectator on her experiences of being a member of the European Parliament. She explains how the parliament doesn’t even provide a vehicle to discuss the EU’s problems and potential solutions because it is such a bureaucratic stitch-up. She argues that the EU doesn’t look like it will act to deal with … Read more Don’t expect the EU to learn any lessons from Brexit