Category Archives: History

It’s strange how, as so many of us have noted, society seems to be divided into at least a couple of quite distinct and watertight realities. One is that fed to us by the mainstream media, and the other by alternative sources of one kind or another, seemingly with few connections between them.

A former medical colleague was urging me recently to lobby my MP to vote against the Assisted Dying Bill. I’ve done my share of ethical lobbying in the past, even on the same subject, contributing to a series of parliamentary consultations as well as twisting the arm of my representative in the Commons. But I think my friend, like so many well-meaning people, has insufficiently realised how Parliament has, especially since the Blair government, changed from being the place where the common people’s views are represented, to the place where they are kept under control by the illusion of representation.

An article by Obaid Omer, whom I assume to be a “moderate Muslim,” writes rather bravely in Quillette that the problem we face with Islamic extremism is not “Islamism” but Islam itself.