We Need a Grown-Up Discussion of Troubling Telly
Following the extirpation of Little Britain, Come Fly With Me, Fawlty Towers, The League of Gentlemen, Cops, and, oddly, Gone With The Wind from...
Review: ‘This House’ and our Real Life Theatre Of The Absurd
Photo: National Theatre
Last week the National Theatre streamed James Graham’s 2012 play This House on YouTube. It tells the story of the British Parliament...
Face masks: What’s all the fuss about?
Many questions have arisen during the Covid-19 pandemic, but none more so than the questions surrounding face masks. On Friday 24 July, face masks...
Poldark causes feminists to get their knickers in a twist, again
Way back in October 2016 The Backbencher wrote about the hypocrisy of feminists denouncing the portrayal of an ambiguous sexual encounter but then celebrating...
Rogan Quits YouTube for Spotify
Joe Rogan’s departure from YouTube to a lucrative Spotify contract is a welcome, if small, step towards pluralism in social media. Estimated to be...
Covid Causes UK Cinema to Miss a Trick
According to the UK government, face masks are a legal necessity to ensure Britons feel safe going to the shops and indulging in what...
The Usual Misinformation About A Levels
Exactly one year ago to the day I wrote “Boys Beating Girls in A-Levels? – Err, No” pointing out how grossly misleading were the...
Why I’ve Left Twitter
Quitting Twitter shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, but I felt a small part of myself die as my finger met...
No Silence in Music Letter Misses the Point
An open letter signed by 700 UK music industry professionals has become yet another instance of the cultural elite telling regular people that they...
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The sweet, sweet irony of the EU-AstraZeneca vaccine row
This week, the EU apparently signalled a major departure from its previously held dogma on free markets,...
An Ode to America Lost.
In the early afternoon of the 7th January 2021, a salmagundi of thugs, conspiracy theorists and neo-nazis,...
Be Kind… Or Else!
It’s December 2019 and Caroline Flack tweeted: “If you can be anything, be kind.” By February 2020,...
Trump has lost the battle but is winning the war
As I write this, the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election is not yet fully known....
Burnham stands at crossroads between party, city and country.
As we reflect on what seems to have been an interminable week in politics, the biggest standout...
A Response to Gerald Warner
Earlier this month Gerald Warner explained on the Reaction website why Joe Biden’s candidacy for the US...
Biden vs Big Tech
Often defined as the ‘Big Five’ companies of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft, the future of...
PMQ’s Report (02.09.20): U-Turn If You Want To.
With the House returning from summer recess, the first PMQs took place on Wednesday. Many of us...