Britain is not addicted to punishing criminals
Mr Timpson, the new prisons minister, is the head of a company that employs about 600 ex-prisoners, and this is…
It’s time to eliminate the concept of ‘mental health’
The concept of mental health is a hypochondriac’s, narcissist’s, shirker’s and social security fraud’s charter: for who can prove that…
Are we prepared for the end of obesity?
Sixty years ago, my biology teacher told me (so it must have been true) that after the war, some Americans…
Why are we letting dangerous criminals roam the streets?
If you repeatedly ask someone to do something that is inherently, and obviously, impossible, and then blame him for not…
In defence of repression
There is a modern superstition that for every terrible experience suffered there is an equal and opposite psychological technique that,…
How we fell for antidepressants
The French novelist, Michel Houellebecq, with his accustomed acuity about modern culture, titled his last novel but one Serotonin. By…
Parole is unfair and unworkable. Let’s abolish it
The furore over the parole granted to John Worboys, the rapist taxi driver, misses the point entirely — that the…
Love rats
Paris A rat’s not called a rat for nothing, and — as we are repeatedly told — we are never…
Diary (Part II)
On the day I left Australia after an enjoyable month at the Centre for Independent Studies, the Guardian newspaper (which…
Diary
On arrival in Sydney for a stint with the Centre for Independent Studies, I am ensconced in the bourgeois bohemia…
Why Britain (and Europe) depends on migrants
It’s not about economics. It’s about our snobbish, slobbish culture
How we drive our children mad
If Britain has a crisis in children’s mental health, it’s easy to see why
Don't tax sugar - it doesn't make you fat. Gluttony does
Obesity isn’t a matter of addiction. It’s a question of self-control
