The Fifth Column

DISABILITY HATE CRIMES ON RISE

dougal — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:57:11 +0000

Politicians, journalists to blame – and Paralympics ‘won’t make any long-term difference’. Dougal Patmore reports.

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PETER HITCHENS ON THE EXCUSES WE MAKE…

dougal — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:33:58 +0000

‘We admire the Paralympians because they chose not to sulk or retreat into self-pity, or to use their problem as an excuse.’

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ARE ALL MEN CREATED EQUAL?

dougal — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:03:33 +0000

No, says Peter Hitchens. It’s a ‘sentimental belief’ that’s come back to haunt us…

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PETER HITCHENS ON THE HARM CANNABIS DOES

dougal — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:10:02 +0000

Evidence piles up that cannabis harms us. Yet our laws have never been softer. Are we, asks Peter Hitchens, soft in the head?

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OLYMPICS OVER, CAN THERE BE A LASTING LEGACY?

dougal — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 21:24:03 +0000

Politicians hope for a boost to the economy. Athletes look to a generation inspired to take up sport. Others see a resurgence of patriotism, and a greater confidence in who they are and in what they value.

Nonsense, says Peter Hitchens, of the Mail on Sunday. The only legacy is ‘increased debt’. We have been ‘surprised by joy’, says Catherine Pepinster, of The Tablet, and ‘the feeling lingers’. They debate the London Olympics’ legacy – real or imagined? – with Emma Barnett.

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JULIE BINDEL ON CHILD ABUSERS

dougal — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:39:20 +0000

They choose, target, groom, and harm children. So punish them as criminals. Don’t label them weak and sick men who cannot help themselves.

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JULIE BINDEL ON 70,000 VOLUNTEERS…

dougal — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:58:09 +0000

A success at the London Olympics, so let’s cash in and take them off the dole and employ them.

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MICHAEL BUERK ON OUR GOLD MEDALS

dougal — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:39:05 +0000

‘It’s public schoolboys and girls wot won them. Social mobility hasn’t just seized up, it’s gone into reverse; state schools’ lack of ambition betrays our children’.

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MICHAEL BUERK ON THE OLYMPICS

clarehocter — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:18:00 +0000

… admitting you can learn to love them while acknowledging the delusions they foster

MICHAEL BUERK ON THE COLORADO KILLER

dougal — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:32:55 +0000

‘Obama promised “out of this darkness a brighter day will come”; it won’t, of course, because he won’t do anything about guns and the culture of his society which, like ours, is becoming ever more infantile.’

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MICHAEL BUERK ON A ‘DESPICABLE’ HISTORY

dougal — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:47:59 +0000

Moral relativism of the worst kind: ‘lecturing others on human rights, while trying to escape responsibility for our abuse of them’.

MICHAEL BUERK ON ANDY MURRAY‘S SOB STORY

dougal — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:24:47 +0000

‘Self-control used to be a virtue. Now it’s thought of as dysfunctional. If we don’t display our feelings, it’s assumed we don’t have any’.

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MICHAEL BUERK SKEWERS FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

dougal — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:02:46 +0000

‘Our rubbish tells more about us than our art, and so it is with this ‘puerile tripe and mummy porn’

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MICHAEL BUERK ON ARGENTINA’S ‘BREATHTAKING HYPOCRISY’

dougal — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:33:15 +0000

As its President accuses Britain of ‘naked colonialism’. This from a country of European immigrants ‘whose national policy has been to wipe out all trace of the people they snatched it from’.

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SAME-SEX MARRIAGES: EQUAL RIGHTS OR ‘PURE POLITICS’?

dougal — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:23:43 +0000

Prime Minister David Cameron has committed the government to supporting same-sex marriage. And launched a consultation on the issue. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said it’s ‘when’ not ‘if’ the current law is changed.

Not everybody is happy. Predictably, the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, either believing homosexuality itself is a sin, or concerned that a change in the law would drive a wedge between the Church’s canon law – which maintains that marriage is for a man and a woman – and Parliament.

Not so predictably, some gays, whose opposition is summed up by Ben Bradshaw, MP, who says gays have already won equal rights with civil partnerships. ‘This is pure politics,’ he adds.

That’s the position of Andrew Pierce, himself gay, but vehemently anti. He said so in the Daily Mail, and received a lot of hate mail.

Our Interrogator, Emma Barnett, puts him in the ring with Peter Lloyd, former editor of the Pink paper, which bills itself as Britain’s leading gay news website.

Listen in to their boxing match, and decide who lands the hardest punches ..

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MICHAEL BUERK ON THE EXHIBITION OF INVISIBLE ART

dougal — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:34:27 +0000

‘leaving judgment, intellect, and common sense at the door and instead fitting in with the vacuous as they glorify the vacant’.

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MICHAEL BUERK ON THE CASE FOR ‘UNIVERSAL’ BENEFITS

dougal — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:01:47 +0000

…’partly selfish, partly economic, but especially moral: it’s about justice, social solidarity, and incentivising virtue’

MICHAEL BUERK ON MORMON MITT ROMNEY

dougal — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:41:25 +0000

‘It’s one thing believing what is inherently unlikely, but what about believing something absolutely, obviously, and provably wrong?’

TREVOR BARNES ON ‘HATE’ CRIMES THAT AREN’T

dougal — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:09:56 +0000

Public busybodies delight in the depletion of our vocabulary and the policing of our thoughts. ‘It impoverishes us all’.

TREVOR BARNES ON AN UNEXPECTED (AND UNWANTED?) GIFT

dougal — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:11:18 +0000

The King James Bible to every school …’an empty gesture, potentially divisive, and a thinly-disguised attempt to tell teachers what to teach’ .

TREVOR BARNES ON WHY INSULTS ARE GOOD FOR US

dougal — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:00:44 +0000

‘In a healthy democracy, it’s every citizen’s right to be insulted… Freedom of speech is at stake here’

SWEENEY MEETS RUSSIAN ‘GREAT FAMINE’ SURVIVORS

dougal — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:28:13 +0000

John Sweeney visits Ukraine to recall Stalin’s great famine with aged survivors, and to tell the story of two journalists – one who lied and won the Pulitzer, one who told the truth and was killed.

TREVOR BARNES ON THE APPEARANCE OF ROBOCOP

dougal — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:36:12 +0000

The pending Olympics are ‘an excuse for normalising the deployment of Action-men and women packing more heat than soldiers in Afghanistan’.

TREVOR BARNES ON ‘THE FRIGHTENERS’ BEING PUT ON US ALL…

Imogen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:46:47 +0000

Our children are in danger, yes, but ‘from the jobsworth’s mindset, and from

the rule book untempered by common sense’

TREVOR BARNES: WHY WE SHOULD BE ON OUR GUARD

Imogen — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:29:26 +0000

‘I hate cigarettes, but as they’re legal people must be allowed to smoke them whether or not it hastens disease...’ Politicians should not intervene.