Abortion. There, I’ve said it. That’s another 100 extra hits on the statcounter today, fellow Sharpeners. There’s nothing the political world likes more than a contentious moral issue, and this particular issue is one of the daddies. This post was going to be a collaborative effort between me and Katie, but alas she is too [...]

Following on from Justin’s post here a while back, Henry at Crooked Timber sounds a note of alarm over the apparent “lovefest” between the antiwar left and the realist – or National Interest - right.

This is a post I’ve thought about a little while, but was slightly delayed in the writing for mundane logistical reasons. Nearly a week after the 7th July bombings, my Sharpener brother Phil wrote a very thoughtful post here, ‘The value of defiance’. There were many sensible things Phil said in this post [...]

My mum did warn me about getting into rucks, but I’ve been at it again. Worse: I’ve been in the same fight more than twice. It’s starting to look careless.
First time around, in the comments here and elsewhere, on the Dilpazier Aslam affair, originally raised by the much-imitated Scott Burgess. Second, over the Guardian column [...]

Many Muslims in this country, as correctly reported by the media this week, will not be sorry to see the back of Omar Bakri Muhammad, the leader of the former al-Muhajiroun. He had a small, marginal following, which mostly preached in the streets and was banned from some mosques. His, and his group’s, [...]

I’m going to start my Lords Reform Day post on something of a dissenting note: I don’t believe that an elected House of Lords would be the best possible second chamber for the UK. Democracy has little merit beyond its empirical tendency to produce less awful governments than most real-life alternatives. As opinion polls regularly [...]

I’d been following Steven Vincent’s reports from Basra up until he was murdered last week. He’d come to my attention as just about the only Western journalist reporting from Southern Iraq.
The lack of news from the south of the country may have lulled some into thinking that that the region was tranquil. It is certainly [...]

Well, dur… Trying to destroy the country and its people would, in most people’s books, count as treason, I’d imagine. But then again, it’s a fairly tricky crime these days.
Until 1998, the penalty for treason was death. Under the Treason Act of 1351, anyone who “do violate the king’s companion, or the king’s eldest daughter [...]

Was there once a better time to be British? A time when life was sweet and untroubled? When we were a more moral nation? In other words, was there a Golden Age for Britain, which we have now squandered with our descent into crime, aggression, family breakdown and ethical laxity? Many think there was, others [...]