It would be foolish to take Boris’s Brexit promises at face value

“As the by-election result came through from Wales last week, one Tory Leaver tweeted this: “Brecon and Radnor is a timely warning to Brexiteers. Vote for the @brexitparty_uk and you will hand another seat to Remain. How could you be so stupid?”.  So stupid? The nerve, when after all, it was the Brexit party that resuscitated … Read more

Will Philip Pullman forgive my ‘gross insult to Beethoven’?

“In my first week as an MEP, I was delighted to find that my Twitter feed included lots of interest in classical music and literature: Beethoven and Schiller. It soon became apparent that it wasn’t a cultured debate, but vicious condemnation of us turning our backs during “Ode to Joy”. The EU officials had demanded … Read more

What Channel 4’s Jon Snow can learn from the Brexit Party

“Since being elected a Brexit Party MEP, I have gone from gamekeeper to poacher as far as the broadcast media is concerned. Until six weeks ago, I had the privilege of being a commentator who could sit on couches endlessly pontificating. Now as a politician, I’m the target of my fellow commentators. They either discuss me … Read more

Meet the secret Brexiteers

“Much has been made of the Brexit Party’s insurgency amongst people in Leave-voting communities, who have been subject to disparaging and patronising establishment contempt ever since they dared to vote the ‘wrong’ way in the EU referendum. But far less attention is given to the minority of Leave voters who work and live in the … Read more

David Lammy inspired me to stand for the Brexit Party

“I am standing as Brexit Party candidate in the forthcoming EU elections. The response of voters so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Phew. Here’s a chance to demonstrate that the shambles that parliament has made of delivering on a referendum mandate will be challenged by a democratic fightback. It really is exciting. But, I admit, … Read more

Language barrier

“Since the EU referendum result last June our nation has been divided: not only by the vote but also by language. If 62 per cent of Britons (many of whom undoubtedly voted for Brexit) now say Britain ‘sometimes feels like a foreign country’, it’s not anti-foreigner prejudice so much as a feeling that people in … Read more

In defence of post-truth politics

Why should people who vote with their hearts be dismissed as delusional writes Claire Fox in the Spectator Donald Trump’s shock US election victory has provoked a transatlantic howl of disbelief from a cosmopolitan elite aghast that American voters have had the temerity to reject its one true liberal world-view. Hillary Clinton’s loss is seen … Read more

Archers abusers

Why is everyone reacting to the Helen and Rob storyline as though they were real people, writes Claire Fox in The Spectator It’s been going on for months now and I must make a confession. I secretly endure a nightly battering in the privacy of my home; it’s been relentless, torturous and psychologically damaging. But before … Read more

The snowflake factory

If today’s students believe that hearing a dissenting opinion can kill them, it’s because we taught them to think like that, writes Claire Fox in The Spectator Another week, another spate of barmy campus bans and ‘safe space’ shenanigans by a new breed of hyper–sensitive censorious youth. At Oxford University, law students are now officially notified … Read more

Freedom also comes in pink

“Women of the world unite: a sinister patriarchal plot is out to get us. Evil tobacco companies are conspiring to seduce us by wrapping up ‘our poison’ in shades of ‘pale or pastel colours’. There is concern in public health circles that the dark arts of design, armed with images denoting ‘femininity, style, sophistication and … Read more