Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 353

Battles long agao

After my recent clash on 'Premier Christian Radio' with the secularist Adam Rutherford, some of Mr Rutherford's supporters thought I had been rather horrid to him. And perhaps I was. This is the problem. If a Christian loses any kind of public debate, he's universally derided as a hopeless weakling, bore and flop. If he wins one, he's a horrid, nasty bully, boo hoo. You decide which is preferable. Anyway, one of Mr Rutherford's supporters, in intended vengeance, provided a link to my Grand...

Return via Dunkirk

Mr 'Demetriou' seems to be having one of his oppositional phases again. I shall just have to cope with it. But I'd like to pursue for a moment the question of Dunkirk, raised in my MoS column on Sunday. Among my childhood reading was an austere drab volume, printed on coarse paper under the 'War Economy Standard', called 'Battle Dress'. Its author's name was given as 'Gun Buster'. This seems to have been the pseudonym of a Captain in the Royal Artillery called John Austin, though there may...

Ignorant armies clash by night

I am waiting for as much information as possible before posting on the bloody confrontation between Israeli marines and 'protestors' off the Israeli coast. Used as I am to the frenzied partisanship of the anti-Israel cause, I know that whatever I say short of calling for outright condemnation of the Zionist entity will not satisfy them (in fact, when I actually did condemn the recent attack on Gaza they still dismissed me as a Zionist stooge). But I do hope to have something coherent to...

This is the law, not teddy-hugging time at the local nursery

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

I suppose we shall have to get used to ­living in a mad country. We're alleged to be a democracy and we have a government that absolutely nobody voted for. We're overcrowded and all our public services are at breaking point, so we encourage mass immigration.

Family breakdown is the main cause of social disorder, so we continue with the policies that make it happen. Comprehensive education has failed completely, so we make it ­illegal to open...

Trying to blind us with 'Science'

Once again the sullen, obtuse, obdurate defenders of the absurd and revolting fantasy known as 'ADHD' advance hopelessly, sightlessly, like zombies, across the shell-cratered mud, yelling and droning their unresponsive nonsense and pretending that they know what they are talking about. They don't. Like zombies, they are immune to all the normal rules of argument, especially to facts or logic.

Some of these people come to this site only to disagree with me, and would post a contrary opinion...

There have to be rules

I promised to explain my decision to forbid Mike Barnes from this site, not least because I suspect it will be misrepresented elsewhere.

I was quite willing (if not exactly delighted) to tolerate Mr Barnes's contributions indefinitely, provided that he stuck to matters of opinion. But I was not prepared to allow him (or anyone else) to make factually untrue statements about me here. His suggestion that I had in any way derived or copied my positions on public policy from the positions adopted...

Time for a Tory split

It is very easy to slip - without meaning to - into defeat and submission. You begin by making a small compromise here, and a small concession there, for the sake of a quiet life.

You ignore an offence, because it is not worth making a fuss. You let politeness and old loyalties override disquiet.

And after a while, you find that you have been defeated completely by your subtle opponent, who has gained complete power over you without ever having to fight. 

A Stairway to a Dark Gulf

Put it...

On being offended by an opinion

There are several invariable responses by supporters of the fantasy of 'ADHD' to public criticism. One is to be 'offended', which is a sneaky way of saying you want censorship of opinions you don't like. The other is to say that: 'I "have" "ADHD" ' or: 'My child "has" "ADHD" - therefore it must exist.' This is not an argument. The existence of a complaint is proved by objective, measurable and predictive evidence that it is the demonstrable cause of the symptoms cited. Assertion that these...

Police and 'Civilians'

I have been objecting for years to the stupid use of the term 'civilians' by some police officers, to describe the public. It reflects a growing and mistaken view in the police that they are a separate semi-military body, rather than - as they were intended to be - citizens in uniform. This is explored in my book 'The Abolition of Liberty' (and by the way, readers seeking to find my books in bookshops, as one says she sought to do, will generally be disappointed. Few bookshops will stock...

A little light broadcasting

I am sometimes asked to publicise my broadcasting appearances in advance. I don't do this because such things are very unpredictable and subject to last minute changes. And these days, most radio or TV programmes can be watched or listened to on the web long after they are first transmitted. So some readers here may be interested in two recent appearances.

One is on a programme on Premier Christian Radio, called 'Unbelievable' and hosted by Justin Brierley. In this (first transmitted on...