Racism
Benjamin Zephaniah once found the leg of a man in the back of a Ford Cortina
‘For me rhyming was normal,’ said Benjamin Zephaniah, reading from his autobiography on Radio 4. Back in the 1960s, on…
Racism and the RSC: why I was a sitting duck for the arts mob
Our ducks are back. Two wild mallard have spent the last five springs on the brook which gurgles past us…
Can you prove you’re not a racist?
After an essay in this month’s Prospect about literature and freedom of speech, it seems I was cited on Twitter…
What can we learn from Jeremy Bentham’s pickled head?
Under the central dome of UCL — an indoor crossroads where hordes of students come and go on their way…
Rarely has the West End seen such a draining and nasty experience: The Exorcist reviewed
The Exorcist opened in 1973 accompanied by much hoo-ha in the press. Scenes of panic, nausea and fainting were recorded…
Goodbye London, Reykjavik here I come
I have a message for the London mayor, Sadiq Khan: you and your policies stink! While the fuzz are busy…
Racism is a grey area
This book is an exercise in crying wolf that utterly fails to prove its main thesis: that Europe is abandoning…
Perishable goods
Labour of Love is the new play by James Graham, the poet laureate of politics. We’re in a derelict…
His dark materials
In this giant, prodigiously sourced and insightful biography, John A. Farrell shows how Richard Milhous Nixon was the nightmare of…
Woman of a thousand voices
‘On air, I could be the most glamorous, gorgeous, tall, black-haired female… Whatever I wanted to be, I could be……
The dwarves of death who control your TV
My own fault, I suppose, for turning on the television. Not an action I undertake very regularly these days, because…
Theresa May’s phoney war
Next month, Theresa May is expected to launch her long-awaited audit into racial disparities in public services. We are being…
An orchestrated race storm
A fascinating story has emerged from a north-western leftie quadrant of the United States: the sacking of British conductor Matthew…
Low life
I arrived for lunch a bit late and was led to the dining table. Our hostess disappeared back into the…
Letters
In defence of General Lee Sir: In your leader ‘America’s identity crisis’ (19 August) you state that ‘When General Lee…
Making sense of an unjust world
These three timely works of creative nonfiction explore the question of race: chronicling histories of colonialism and migration; examining the…
Beyond the pale
Setting off to spend a year teaching English in Zhejiang province in south-eastern China, I expected plenty of surprises. But…
A vicious reaction to a very bad word
Having a nigger in the woodpile and a skeleton in the closet are closely related problems, although subtly different. In…
High life
I was going through my paces in Hyde Park, sweating out the booze, raising the heartbeat with short wind sprints,…
The trouble with diversity training
Is diversity training snake oil? According to its proponents, women and minorities are not competing with white men on a…
Donald Trump represents the new normal – on both sides of the Atlantic
What was your favourite response from the liberals to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election? Actress Emma Watson…
Romans, racism and Sadiq Khan
‘Racism’ refers to the belief in racially determined inferiority, most often recognised in body-type, about which, by definition, nothing can…
Voting Remain is an act of heartless snobbery
One of the interesting features of the Brexit debate is that it has laid bare a schism in British society…
What Labour needs now is a takeover by real left-wing radicals
The party needs real radicalism – it is in the hands of an ugly simulacrum
The new, acceptable face of racism
Exactly a year ago this week I was at a dinner party when a famous opinion pollster leaned over to…
