Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 11

Even I Balk at 'Happy Valley' and its depiction of Gim Modern Britain (and I'm an Olympic-standard Pessimist)

 

May I exaggerate, just a bit? Has everyone in the lavishly-praised BBC TV police drama ���Happy Valley��� been a) a drug abuser or habitual drunk, b) raped, c) suffered from the suicide of a close family member c) kidnapped d) blackmailed, e) been taking ���antidepressants��� for years or f) committed or suffered from violent spousal abuse? 

 

I am myself an Olympic-standard pessimist, but even I balk at this picture of modern Britain. Things are bad, but...

*Another* hostile review of my book on Grammar Schools, examined and answered

 This is from the website of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI). I have, once again, reviewed the review. The HEPI is, to its credit, reviewing the book twice, once done by an opponent of my position (as here) and once done by a sympathiser - the second sympathetic review is yet (28th January) to be published. You may read the unadulterated original of the hostile review here:

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/01/27/did-egalitarians-wreck-the-british-education-system-review-of-a-revolut...

My Response to a Hostile Review of my book by 'Comprehensive Future'

I think reviewers often get away with murder. They say the silliest things about the books they attack, and yet are never themselves chided for their own performance. So I like to review reviews.

 

Here I review an article posted on the internet by 'Comprehensive Future' a body whose name rather explains its purpose. The article is anonymous, which I think a bit weak. 

 

https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/book-review-a-revolution-betrayed-how-egalitarians-wrecked-the-british-education-system...

Were Grammar Schools a Revolution? Was it Betrayed? I discuss this issue with William Clouston of the SDP

 

You may watch it and listen to it here: 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mL45iWEvlE

PETER HITCHENS: Sending Ukraine our tanks could turn Europe into one big radioactive graveyard

This is Peter Hitchens��� Mail on Sunday column

This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.

I won���t waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don���t want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I���m bored with trying.

The Government claims ...

A speech against self-righteous intervention in other people's countries

Delivered on Thursday  1st December 2022 at the Cambridge Union

can be watched and listend to here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc2xNeCaOWo&t=4s

 

The motion 

'This House Believes Western Interventionism Has Been a Force For Good'

 

was lost, quite decisively

The West's Tankies Finally Get Their Way in Ukraine - but Where Does that Way Lead?

Why is Britain sending 14 tanks to Ukraine? When this odd and risky decision was announced on Monday by the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, not one questioning voice was raised in the House of Commons. Can this be sensible? I personally cannot see the point of a Parliament where there is no real opposition, especially at moments such as this.

Unlike almost everyone else in the British media, I am not a military expert. I have no idea what the outcome of the Ukraine War will be. But I am absolut...

Down the Rat Hole - the sad and futile search for the perfect bar or pub

....can be read about in my latest column for 'The Lamp' :

 

https://thelampmagazine.com/2023/01/16/the-rat-hole/

My latest appearance on Mike Graham's programme - we discuss the hopeless hunt for the Drug Cartels' Mr Big .

...is about drugs, and why the search for a sinister Mr Big is futile. The drug trade is sustained and strengthened by millions of Mr and Ms Smalls, selfish western people who feed their money into an illegal trade, undeterred by an absent and defeatist police force:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVcdfunecyE

If more people would think, more people would agree with me' My interview with Aaron Bastani

May be watched and listened to here

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTse1tyVDs0