Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 3

Mere Anarchy is Loosed Upon the World. Ignoring Shoplifting Threatens Civilisation

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column  

 

The current wave of shoplifting is especially frightening. It is not some invented panic. And others close to me have witnessed it in recent days. Crucially, even the dimmest criminal has now realised that there is no real law in this country. 

The problem has many causes. I do not think actual suffering is one of them. The old morality of this country has broken down. In the miserable 1930s, when millions lived in such deprivation that it wo...

Why 'Oppenheimer' is a Bad Film

The film about the nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer is not just bad, noisy, hard to follow and far too long. It actually gets in the way of understanding one of the great events of our times. I have been amazed by the way so many people have claimed to have enjoyed it. I endured it. The only common complaints have been about the rather underpowered portrayal of the actual detonation of the first bomb on July 16 1945. What were these complainers expecting? A blast-wave in the cinema? Apparent...

University (just) Worked For Me, But For Many, Expansion Has Been a Huge Disappointment

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column  

 

It is just 50 years since I graduated from what was then the shiny new University of York. I and a few hundred others had spent three years on a wooded campus entirely divorced from normal life. We had full grants and our fees were paid. I had no debts. And it was the modern world, before it existed. We did more or less exactly what we wanted, and did not do what we did not wish to. For several reasons I did not enter fully into the spirit of ...

France on Trial - History that Reaches Out of the Page and Sticks its Thumb in Your Eye

This is a review of Julian Jackson's new book 'France on Trial' about the Petain trial. 

 

Imagine a different 1940: In France, the Maginot Line holds and the Nazis are stopped, but in a smashing surprise cross-channel invasion Hitler���s tanks reach London while most of Britain���s regiments are still trapped on the continent. There is no Dunkirk rescue. An SS death squad murders Winston Churchill on the steps of Ten Downing Street, but not before he kills some of them. The King and Queen fle...

The Supposed Drug Paradises of Portugal and Amsterdam Have Gone Down the Gurgler

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday Column

It may just be in time, but I sense the 50-year campaign to legalise drugs is at last running into the trouble it has deserved from the start. 

 

The supposed Portuguese drugs miracle ���in which giving up enforcing the law was supposedly followed by peace,  love and joy - has ended, as it was bound to do, in squalor, crime and fear. And the endlessly-praised Amsterdam dope experiment, in letting rip despite the law, has been rejected with disgus...

Has Ukraine's counter-offensive stalled? I discuss aspects of the Ukraine War with former Army intelligence officer Philip Ingram

You may watch this here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38iXu7TSg4M

In September (Thursday 28th) I'll be debating History with Prof Danny Dorling, in Jericho (the Oxford one, not the Biblical one)

Details are here

 

https://www.universe.com/events/my-jericho-hitchens-v-dorling-on-the-right-side-of-history-tickets-WGF7J4

Drugs and the Tories, twin menaces of our age discussed by me with the New Culture Forum

...may be watched here ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOs4Lx3ROro

A discussion of Drug Legalisation on Good Morning Britain

My full exchange on drug legalisation on GMB , from 2hrs 17 mins.

https://www.itv.com/watch/good-morning-britain/2a3211/2a3211a3603

 

The Podcast Version of my recent Interview with Premier Christian Radio

Can be listened to here 

 

https://pod.link/1188653078/episode/358f1ba82737fceb5d001cd5a0e80b9e