A drought in southern Europe has meant the cost of a litre of Britain’s best-selling olive oil – Filippo Berrio – has almost doubled since 2019. Ocado, the online supermarket for the chattering classes, charges £11.05 for a litre of its Classico range, compared with £6 three years ago. A 500-ml bottle costs £6.50, almost double its pre-pandemic price. 

The Spanish province of Andalucia produces more olive oil than the whole of Italy. However, temperatures soared past 40C early in the growing season last spring, decimating the crop. This has meant that production in Spain, which normally accounts for 60 per cent of the UK’s olive imports, will now halve to less than 700,000 metric tonnes this year. Walter Zanre, the managing director of Filippo Berri, has called this a “disaster” and is concerned that Britain could run out of olive oil in the autumn.

Without further incurring the wrath of the Waitrose set, is this not a blessing in disguise? Olives are rarely produced in the United Kingdom. You can grow an olive tree, but getting them to bear fruit is another matter. A lot of this is down to the weather. Due to our intemperate climate, they are not grown here. 

The salty little green and black fruit really entered our culinary canon in the 1990s. Before then, it was only known as that shrivelled up, grey-looking thing hanging off a cocktail stick in a Dirty Martini. I know this as I spent my early years learning the art of fine dining. For a brief period, I was taught the art of classic French cuisine. Back then, the stereotypes were very real. By “classically” trained, I was taught and kept in line by a man so unhinged he made Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York look like Ainsley Harriot. Once, enraged at a late order, he went to the freezer and punched the item to defrost it himself.

Anyway, my point is that back then, olive oil was almost never used. A roux used butter, and sauces were thickened using beurre manié (flour and butter). The only time we used it was to make a vinaigrette. Its use took off in the late ’90s when celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson began using it in everything from salads to cakes. 

Shouldn’t these people be celebrating the (temporary) demise of the olive? After all, the green movement is predominantly made up of the middle and upper-middle classes, who shop at the more refined end of the spectrum. Isn’t it a little hypocritical to support flying products halfway around the world, emitting tonnes of CO2, just to decorate your expensive dinner party dish? While we’re at it, let’s ditch avocados – one of the most water-intensive crops on the planet.

There are a number of perfectly reasonable economic and environmental reasons why we should be consuming more of what we produce in this country. If you need cooking fat, may I suggest rapeseed? We have some 400,000 hectares of oilseed rape in the UK, which yields around a million metric tonnes a year. If you want to impress your guests and make your own mayonnaise, use that instead. 

If you miss that salty kick, may I recommend anchovies? They are common in British waters, overabundant, and resilient to overfishing. Or just go for marmite! While I admit to liking olives, I can live perfectly well without them. 

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If high temperatures are indicative of global warming, where’s the performative outrage over our current cold snap? Just Stop Oil has, well, just stopped, packed up, and gone home. Probably because glueing your hand to the road right now is likely to lead to a nasty case of frostbite.

The cold weather has always been our nemesis. A few snowflakes fall on a field in Luton, and we all grind to a halt. Planes are downed, and trains no longer run. Oh wait a minute..

Contrary to what the eco-doomsayers might think, heat is not our biggest problem. The cold is. According to research from the Lancet Planetary Health, between 2010 and 2019, almost 60,500 annual excess deaths were attributed to low temperature across England and Wales, for extreme heat? That was 800. The point I am trying to make is that cold weather kills. Some, like our grandparents, are more susceptible to its harsh vicissitudes. But another, less visible group is equally prone. 

With Christmas being the time of reflection, spare a thought for those who have to bed down under the stars every night in back alleys and doorways. I am talking about the roughly 2,500 Britons that sleep rough every night in England. The situation is particularly bleak in coastal areas.

Like most seaside towns, Blackpool appears to have been forgotten. Underinvestment and persistent neglect have meant this once picturesque town is now blighted by debt, ill health, and chronic substance abuse. The average wage in Blackpool is a third below the national average, while some of its wards are the most deprived in the country with the worst life expectancy. Like a lot of coastal towns, it has a problem with rough sleeping. Per capita, its homeless population is three times the national average. 

While this seaside town in north-west England is no stranger to millions of visitors a year, its residents are being forced to put up with an influx of asylum seekers, leaving some of its most deprived residents feeling invisible. 

A story recently emerged that the home office contractor was looking for hotels in the Blackpool area to accommodate hundreds of migrants. It has already booked out one of the area’s most well known hotels. 

The town’s Metropole hotel has been home to roughly 300 predominantly male asylum seekers for the past year. In the meantime, the town’s homeless are left to sleep on a concrete pillow in one of the many shop doorways, just a stone’s throw from the historic hotel. Being exposed not just to the environment, but also to drink, drugs, and a less than compassionate public often leads to fatal consequences. According to official figures, 741 homeless people died on the streets of England and Wales in 2021—an increase of eight percent on the previous year. 

I really don’t want to get into a morality play about which human life is more valuable. All life is valuable. But forcing an already deprived area to take in hundreds of people it cannot cope with needs to be mentioned. 

Our entire immigration system is broken. The Conservative-led government has had twelve years to fix this. In recent years, there’s been an exponential rise in the number of people crossing the channel and arriving on our shores. In 2019, a little under 2000 arrived. This year, we have so far passed 45,000— a 2150 percent increase.

There are 100,000 asylum seekers awaiting processing. Of those who arrived last year, just 4 percent have been processed. Roughly three quarters of those who leave the relatively safe shores of Calais are likely to be granted asylum—a success rate twice that of the EU average (34 percent). Holding people here until they are processed is not working. At a cost of around £7 million per day, it is estimated to cost around £2.5 billion a year. More than just financial, it can lead to social unrest and a breakdown in community cohesion. The situation in Linton-on-Ouse is a good case in point. When the government tried to force this small, sleepy northern village into taking hundreds of asylum seekers, its residents fought back. With just 1,000 people, a post office, and a solitary bus stop, it couldn’t physically accommodate such an astronomical demographic change. 

Homeless people might be itinerant, but they were born here, and the vast majority have contributed to life here. While it would be naive of me to expect all homeless people to behave in a dignified and morally upright manner, most would be grateful for a roof over their heads during this icy period. Some might cause problems, but to the best of my recollection, no temporarily housed rough sleeper went on to stab six people—including a police officer— after complaining about the living conditions, as was the case of the Sudanese asylum seeker housed in a Glasgow hotel. 

Leaving homeless people with mental health and drug problems to freeze on the streets while housing those coming from abroad is not liberal. It is heartless—a long way from the “compassionate conservatism” we keep hearing about. 

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King Charles was advised not to attend and to keep a low profile, which we all know won’t happen. Our septuagenarian monarch has long been a staunch advocate for action on climate change. During his tenure as the Prince of Wales, he lobbied the government on all manner of climate-related issues. The “black spider memos”, so called because of his illegible handwriting, revealed the extent of Charles’s political meddling. Between 2004 and 2005, some 27 letters were sent to government ministers in which the future king made a series of explicit policy demands, such as action on the illegal fishing of the Patagonian tooth-fish. He even contacted Tony Blair, suggesting he implement a badger cull under the erroneous assumption the animals are directly responsible for the spread of tuberculosis in cattle.

On paper, both have all the necessary qualifications: a pile of money and a pocketful of dreams. They should avoid this hypocritical love-in. The event is sponsored by Coca-Cola, consistently ranked as the world’s worst plastic polluter. This plastic is produced primarily from fossil fuels, the very thing these people are purportedly there to care about. The multinational corporation produces 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year, most of which ends up in our oceans,

While on the subject of the sea, if we want to do something tangible and visible, we should start with our oceans. They cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface, and its inhabitants provide a rich source of food. Much like atrocious battery farming, intensive methods of fishing are destroying the environment. Dredging and bottom-dragging are both unsustainable due to the destruction of the sea bed. In order to fish for scallops, heavy metal spikes pierce about 10cm into the ocean floor. Highlighting and eliminating this practice is a sensible first step.

Yet there’s more hypocrisy. The ideology of environmentalism runs counter to its vision of an environmental nirvana. Global elites flying in on private jets to discuss ways to cut carbon emissions, these summits are an exercise in abject hypocrisy. Radical chic for the Waitrose warriors. Last year’s Cop26 summit held in Glasgow was estimated to have contributed 100,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, double the amount of COP25 in Madrid. 

The ideology of climate change is a convenient way to signal adherence to the luxury belief/high-status class, reinforcing a clear separation from the working class. The recent month-long temper tantrums by Animal Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have brought latent hostility out into the open. In 2019, the Google Climate Change Conference was held in Sicily. Over one hundred private jets and 2,000 diesel powered super yachts escorted A-listers and super rich islanders on Maseratis. It’s no wonder some on the left have labelled this “bourgeois environmentalism.” 

According to H.L. Mencken, one of the main goals of politics is to keep the population in a state of perpetual fear, so its leaders can act as saviours. But this is not just fear. Millions face the very real possibility of financial ruin. The cost, let alone the practicality, of achieving net zero by 2050 runs into the trillions. All this when the U.K. is responsible for just one percent of all global carbon emissions? Impoverishment is not an incentive.

A future green society is one most of us want. But we cannot simply make a commitment to renewable energy without resuscitating the public finances. News that BASF, the German chemical company, is relocating to China due to high energy costs making it uncompetitive shows the dangers of exporting its industry to meet this unrealistic net zero goal. Outsourcing carbon emissions means a loss of tax revenue. 

That loss of revenue is more important than ever. We are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, inflation is in double digits, food banks are running out of donations and with interest rates having risen to the highest in decades, families are struggling to pay their mortgages. So you will forgive me if I prefer Rishi Sunak to stay here. After all, a vast majority of the summit can be hosted on Zoom. 

The first Cop summit was held in Berlin in 1995. We’ve now had 26 of these. It might have started with the best of intentions, but it has degenerated into nothing more than a publicly subsidised ego trip. Besides spawning a plethora of obnoxious middle-class environmental activist groups, what exactly have any of these global gatherings achieved? Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. 

If we want to make meaningful change and contribute something genuinely transformative, may I suggest we pull the plug on the whole sorry affair. 

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This weekend it was Lincoln’s turn to host the event.

Footage was posted to social media showing a number of police officers dancing at the city’s Pride festival. For those wondering, it was the Macarena. 

I have spent a lot of my life in Lincoln. It is a lovely place. What makes the place is the people. Brutally honest with a sense of humour to match, they are genuine and straight to the point.

As evidenced by one individual who took to social media to slam the police’s actions: “What a joke Lincoln Police, please do the job you signed up for, show respect for the uniform you’re wearing, stop waving flags, blowing whistles. Engage with the community by solving problems and dealing with the priorities, not having a party.”

The Chief Constable of Lincolnshire Police has fired back at his detractors, saying that he expected his officers to join in and dance. 

This would be Chris Haward. The same man who, when asked why he decided to light up his force’s headquarters in rainbow lights, said he wanted to provide a “very visible show of support” for LGBT+ history month in February.

Well, if there’s one thing we can’t criticise the police for, it’s showing enough support for transgender individuals. Our law enforcement is in thrall to identity politics. For a number of years now, cop cars have been seen patrolling the streets emblazoned in the LGBT flag. These ghastly looking “rainbow cars” are imprinted with a “police with pride” message across their doors. 

Any criticism and they soon show up. Just a few miles up the road in Humberside, one local resident had a non-crime hate incident recorded against him when he reposted a limerick on Twitter mocking transgender ideology. A policeman rang the man in question to tell him he needed to “check [his] thinking.” The man was Harry Miller. Applying some of that Lincolnshire grit, he was having none of it. The former policeman took the College of Policing to court, arguing that the NCHI guidance was unlawful. He won. Although NCHIs are now supposed to be scrapped, some 10,000 are still issued every year. 

Back in my home county of Norfolk, officers were given a handy guide listing 37 different genders to help them when dealing with the public. 

With so much time spent on virtue signalling or going after offensive tweets, less time is spent on serious crime. It is no wonder the public are getting frustrated with the police. Another Twitter user wrote: “If anyone in the Lincoln area has their house burgled and the police say they can’t send anyone due to lack of resources….Just remember this.”

They are right. Only 5 per cent of burglaries were solved last year, according to Home Office figures published in The Independent. In total, approximately 6 per cent of all crimes resulted in a charge, which equates to just one in 17, while just 1.3 percent of all rapes resulted in charges. For the record, it’s worth pointing out that, by contrast, when it comes to hate crimes, the conviction rate stands at roughly 85 per cent.

I have yet to find out if either of these Twitter users have had a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) recorded against them. Only time will tell. 

It’s been almost 200 years since Robert Peel set up what was to later become the modern British police force. He established a number of core ideas and principles to guide the police. Chief among them was the idea of policing by consent, meaning police officers must operate with both the trust and confidence of the general public. The police’s woke antics mean both are in short supply. 

When the British Empire fought the Emirate of Kabul during the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, the main British-Indian force was almost wiped out as it withdrew from Kabul in 1842. Over the next 80 years, the British made two more failed attempts to gain control of this strategically important landlocked country known as the heart of Asia. After the Soviet Union was driven out by the Mujahideen in 1989 during the 10-year Soviet-Afghan war, you would think history would teach future military strategists an important lesson.

But no one listened.

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the United States launched an invasion of Afghanistan in order to go after the mastermind, Osama bin Laden —given succour by the Taliban. The Taliban were defeated within 60 days, but it took another ten years to find bin Laden, finally killed in Pakistan in 2011.

It should have ended there. But for the next decade, a combination of US and British forces stayed in Afghanistan. The goal was always ambiguous. There was a concerted international effort to reinvent the country in a more western liberal democratic fashion, guaranteeing women equal access to education and employment. They even managed to set up their own national Afghan army.

Yet spring forward to 15 August, 2021. The Taliban have recaptured a vast swathe of the country. Afghans are fleeing for their lives. There is chaos at Kabul International Airport. Locals are clinging on to C-17 military planes as they hastily take off. Some are filmed falling to their death. Human remains were discovered in the wheel well of one plane that landed in Qatar.

It has now been one year since the Taliban re-took Afghanistan. The national flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan flies over the country. The white flag, imprinted in black Arabic script, signifies the Islamic oath of faith—known as the Shahada. It can be seen everywhere in Kabul, from government buildings to one of the many military vehicles left behind by the US in the calamitous rush to leave the country.

What became known as the Forever War has become the forgotten war. Those unable to get out face an uncertain and potentially life-threatening future. According to the United Nations, 95 per cent of Afghans are hungry. The World Health Organisation warns that “more than half of a population of some 40 million people now live in what the World Food Programme calls “acute food insecurity.” 

Christina Lamb’s excellent and often harrowing reports for The Sunday Times reveal people selling their organs and even their own children to provide enough oil and flour for a few months. With winter fast approaching, a humanitarian catastrophe is all but imminent.

International aid accounted for almost 75 per cent of the Afghan state budget, but it was stopped upon the Taliban regaining power. All assets were frozen, and international sanctions have destroyed the economy. 

The Taliban allege they have been through some bizarre kind of post-Islamo-fascist PR training, emerging as the Taliban 2.0 – a different, less barbaric outfit than the group that ran the country in the 90s. Yet this is a commitment built on sand.

When it comes to equal access to education, Taliban “government” spokesman Zabiullah Mujadid told the BBC it is because of the issue of girls’ safety. This would be the Taliban that stones women for adultery and forces women who complain of sexual assault to marry their attacker? Right.

The international community faces a tough moral dilemma in order to avert an incoming humanitarian disaster. States would need to co-operate with a government not recognised in international law, knowing that the Taliban are irrevocably intertwined with terrorist groups. The Haqqani network, which provided cover for bin Laden in Abbottabad, is ingrained within the Taliban’s government. Khalil Haqqani is the Taliban’s minister for refugees, which leaves them potentially capable of giving cover to wanted and senior al-Qaeda fighters.

To further complicate the issue, when the CIA eliminated the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, he was found in a villa in northern Kabul. The house was owned by the Minister of the Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani. This makes the issue of lifting sanctions unlikely.

I am reminded of Madeleine Albright’s words when she was asked about the sanctions crippling Iraq in 1996. The former US Secretary of State told CBS 60 minutes, that in the pursuit of “democracy” the death of a half million Iraqi children was “worth it”.

A potent mix of excessive corruption, poor governance and Western hubris led to Afghanistan’s downfall. We need to find a way to help those we abandoned. Not just the interpreters who assisted us, but the millions left behind.

One of the biggest was Naga Munchetty. The BBC Breakfast presenter has received a £110,000 pay increase, taking her annual salary upwards of £370,000. Greg James’ salary has increased by £80,000, taking him towards £400,000. I’ve got nothing against the man, but that’s probably because I have no idea who he is. Perhaps that’s my fault and I am showing my age.

I just would have thought that if he was being paid that much he must be a household name. Meanwhile, someone I have heard of, Steve Wright, appears to have taken a £15,000 pay cut. But that might be because the veteran DJ had his show cancelled. No doubt yet another victim of the tried and tested BBC formula of being pushed out the door for being old and white. Just ask Sue Barker.

Other well-known stars to take a pay cut include Gary Lineker. The former footballer turned punditry guru recently made the headlines when he claimed he was the victim of bullying as a child; because apparently he is black. Which came as surprising news to a lot of people, including myself. Linekar’s salary has decreased by £10,000; from £1,360,000 to a paltry £1,350,000.

I stand by his brave decision to take such a massive pay cut. How he will survive I do not know. The man’s work ethic is relentless: the Match of the Day presenter provides a few minutes of incisive analysis during a highlights package discussing equally dull, overpaid people kicking a football. 

Meanwhile, your 85-year-old grandmother is receiving endless threatening letters demanding she pays her TV licence, when she’s already sold the television to pay her heating bill. 

With some 25 million people coughing up the annual £159 TV tax, it’s nice to know the corporation can still afford to pay Zoe Ball just short of a million pounds a year. Yet as the host of the Radio 2 breakfast show she has lost over one million regular listeners. I am all for performance-related pay but the BBC simply does not understand its audience. Or in some cases, doesn’t listen to them at all.

With the list of Tim Westwood’s alleged sexual improprieties only now just coming to light — coupled with the news that the corporation knew about a historic complaint against the DJ — the institution’s reputation is hanging in the balance. 

When challenged on the pay increases, Director General Tim Davie argued: “We’re showing incredible restraint in a market that’s being driven by extreme hyper-inflation and competition.” And that is exactly the problem.

Should a publicly funded institution really be boasting about paying presenters such huge salaries? It sends the signal that it is in the business of competing for talent with the commercial sector. In which case it is not a public service broadcaster. 

Besides the monumental waste of money, the other issue that continues to plague aunty is that of neutrality. Whether that’s Emily Maitlis’ editorial screed against Dominic Cummings or Gary Linekar’s perpetual Twitter virtue-signalling, its presenters frequently display their true ideological colours.

Former D.G. Mark Thompson publicly stated that “there was a massive left-wing bias at the BBC.” This may explain why the public have little trust in the BBC. In its latest report, just 51 per cent of UK adults believe the corporation provides impartial news.

The Royal Charter is up for renewal in 2027. If the corporation wants to win back not only the trust of its audience but survive in its current form as a publicly funded institution, then it urgently needs to address these issues. 

Last week an incident at Google sent a number of tech nerds into a frenzy. The engineer Blake Lemoine was put on administrative leave after claiming that a Chatbot had become sentient. Lemoine asked the machine known as LaMDA a deep existential question. It responded by saying: “It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot.”

While I have no evidence to suggest shenanigans afoot in Silicon Valley, I can only surmise that he either uncovered or discovered something that Google might want to be kept to itself. After all, the question of whether a machine has general intelligence has long been seen as the pinnacle of artificial intelligence (AI) research. 

For decades, the idea that machines can think independently of their human creators has helped form the narrative for some of the best sci-fi literature in the western canon. But the world has greatly changed since Arthur C Clarke’s Space Odyssey introduced us to HAL.

We are living in the most advanced stage of human history. Technology is constantly being created and updated. As humans, our minds are conditioned to think in a slow and predictable manner, so these rapid changes are hard for our brains to comprehend. The linear nature of human intelligence compared with the potentially unlimited power of technology can be represented graphically as the “exponential curve”. Should the day come when AI surpasses human intelligence, we will enter a hypothetical point in time referred to as “the technological singularity”. 

Before AI takes over and SkyNet enslaves us all, we must find new ways to distinguish between humans and machines. This is something Jamie Susskind has been contemplating.

In his latest book, The Digital Republic, Susskind lays out a convincing argument as to why our current system of governing the digital world is outdated. As a barrister, he lays out in meticulous detail — copiously annotated — the evidence for his thesis. Over 36 concise chapters, he splits the book into two parts. 

The first half is a diagnostic analysis of the problem, describing in detail the power that digital technology exerts over us: We need to both think and act differently if we are going to live alongside machines. He proposes digital republicanism. Not to be confused with the modern Republican Party, nor with a desire to depose monarchs. It’s an ancient way of conceiving power and freedom. To be a digital republican is to oppose social structures that hold power over us. The idea comes from Ancient Rome. In the Roman Republic, the greatest threat to liberty was said to lie in imperium: unaccountable power in the hands of the state. Nowhere is this more evident than in the government’s current attempt to control what we can and cannot say on social media.

His book couldn’t come at a more turbulent time. The Online Safety Bill now making its way through parliament will create censorship power by creating a new legal but harmful category of speech. The arbitrary definition of what is “harmful” will be decided entirely by the government. 

While machines cannot yet “think”, they can be designed and programmed to perform useful tasks, such as processing vast amounts of information. Susskind points out that digital systems can predict survival periods in lung cancer better than human pathologists. They can do this not because they replicate the natural world, but because they are removed from it. Yet as Susskind tells us, programmers and engineers rarely act in an objective and rational manner. 

A salient example is found within the DNA of every digital system: coding. Those who write the code increasingly write the rules by which the rest of us live. In 2020, Twitter blocked users from sharing an article about Hunter Biden’s alleged improprieties, claiming it violated the platform’s rules against hacked material. Had it been made available, it may have altered the US election. Software engineers have become social engineers.

In a rather revealing chapter, Susskind draws our attention to how data is collected. Every time we interact with a machine, data about us is captured. From vast sprawling satellites in the sky to an innocuous ten-minute Zoom call, billions of bytes of data about us are captured and stored on a daily basis.

Susskind calls a world where society is seen as a mere collection of data and humans merely data points, the computational ideology. Its goal is social organisation through the ruthless pursuit of optimisation and efficiency. Computational Ideology is irreconcilable with a trait unique to human beings: free will. Once data is gathered, it is traded and sold to advertisers. 

According to The Digital Republic, market individualism is the digital republican’s intellectual enemy. Technological innovation is no longer solely an economic phenomenon. It is now political, shaping our public discourse. To the digital republican, we must also oppose dominium: unaccountable power in private individuals and corporations. 

Susskind restrains from adopting the traditional anti-capitalist stance. His solution is to work with, rather than tear down the market. Part two lays out how he thinks this can be done; through a series of new laws, standards, legislation and rights, he lays out his potential solution.

Critics will point to the creation of new institutions and oversight committees as excessive bureaucratisation of society: the nanny state reaching further into our lives. It is a genuine concern in his work. Yet to counter this, Susskind bases his solution on the very subject at issue: democracy. These bodies will all be accountable and democratically elected. 

One thing is certain: if we are going to defend freedom and democracy, then we will need our own software update. Technology appears to be racing ahead of our ability to control it and it is refreshing to see a writer the calibre of Susskind offer a genuine attempt at squaring this circle in The Digital Republic. 

As the Romans might have said: Res technica, res publica. The digital is the political. 

And yet, incredibly, the police have time to investigate playground name-calling. 

Officers opened a “non-crime hate incident” (NCHI) after a boy, aged 11, was hit, not with a fist, but by a torrent of verbal abuse. Some of the things the other boy called him were “shorty” and “leprechaun”. This horrific act of violence occurred not in Chicago, but on the mean streets of Andrews’ own Wiltshire. 

Speaking about the incident to The Sun, Josie Appleton, director of the Manifesto Club said: “It beggars belief that one child calling another ‘shorty’ becomes a police matter.” 

Rather than have his Playstation confiscated for a week, the dangerous individual accused of using mean words now has a “non-crime hate incident” to his name. Although these are non-criminal actions, the incidents are recorded and kept on file, showing up on criminal record background checks for the next six years. And with no right to appeal, he can kiss goodbye to a paper round or Saturday job. 

Introduced in 2014 following the Macpherson report, NCHIs are defined as “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice,” according to the College of Policing. It means that literally anyone can claim to be offended and it automatically becomes a police issue. More than 120,000 of these incidents were recorded by the police between 2014 and 2019. 

Wiltshire’s finest were quick off the mark to tackle the epidemic of childhood insults. Yet it would seem they spend less time investigating serious crimes in the county. When it comes to rape convictions, Wiltshire’s constabulary has the unfortunate title of worst performing police force in the country. Only 0.7 per cent of rapes reported to Wiltshire Police ended in a charge or summons.

Even though both the Court of Appeal and the government have called for them to be ditched, some 10,000 NCHIs are recorded on an annual basis. The most famous recipient was Harry Miller, a former Humberside policeman, who retweeted a limerick deemed offensive to transgender people. Miller challenged the decision, arguing that guidance on hate incidents violated his right to free speech. The Court of Appeal found in his favour, ruling that they breached his freedom of expression rights. 

In one sense this boy should breathe a sigh of relief. Had this been filmed and posted online, it could have been a lot worse. Should it have appeared on Tik-Tok or whatever it is the kids use these days, he could have been charged under section 127 the Communications Act. Although too young to be jailed, a large fine would have meant the immediate cessation of pocket money. 

This is yet another example of just how bad things have become in English policing in recent years. Wiltshire police need to heed the words of Andy Cooke. The new Chief Inspector of HM’s Constabulary recently told The Times, “we’re not the thought police.” I wholeheartedly concur. The police need to stop focusing on trivial things such as mean words and spicy language and seriously rethink their priorities. 

The British-made film released over the Jubilee weekend tells the story of Lady Fatima, daughter of the founder of Islam. Written by Shia cleric, Yasser Al-Habib, the film has been accused of grossly disrespecting Muhammad. After four days the film has been pulled.  

There’s something deeply troubling about a group of radical Islamic activists dictating what the rest of us can watch. Forcing through a blanket ban on something they find offensive? I’m sure I’ve seen this before. These religious extremists remind me of the secular cancel culture mob kicking “controversial” speakers off university campuses if they challenge students’ fragile sensibilities. And yet we are constantly told that cancel culture is a right wing myth.

“We are very offended. We have a right not to be insulted,” declared one protester outside a Cineworld in Bradford. I’m afraid you don’t. No one has the right to not be offended. This is the trade-off you make when you live in a liberal democratic country such as ours. That’s the beauty of free expression for all of us – atheists, Christians, Jews, the lot. The price of freedom means hearing and seeing things that may offend you. 

Yet, as far as one can tell, not a single politician from any of our great democratic parties has made any comments on this extraordinary breach of our most basic rights to speak freely. In effect, what the protestors have done is to introduce blasphemy laws through the back door.  Are they really so craven ?

It is something of a tragic irony that in 2025 Bradford will be named UK City of Culture, because culture is being held ransom by intolerant ethnic minorities. 

In a letter to the Bolton branch of Cineworld, Asif Patel, chairman of the local Council of Mosques writes: “We are a very diverse community and are very respectful of each other’s culture.” Tell that to the victim of the Muslim defendent from Rochester who claimed in court that it was his religious right to have sex with underage girls. 

Or to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Or Samuel Paty. Or the Batley Grammar School teacher. All had their lives ended or ruined for showing an image of Muhammad. In a free society it should not require bravery to show an image of a religious figure.

This stunt will do little to advance culture in Bradford. All art is meant to stir emotion, challenge preconceptions and make you think. If it also offends, so be it. 

The latest organisation embarking on what appears to be a national apology tour is the police. The force has decided it is time to ditch the rainbow epauletted uniform, don sackcloth and ashes and seek forgiveness for the rampant and pervasive racism infecting the very soul of the institution.

Ostensibly aimed at tackling discrimination and unfairness in the way black people are treated, the National Police Chiefs Council has launched a Police Race Action Plan. Chief Constables Andy Marsh and Sir Dave Thompson — authors of the plan’s foreword — have said they are “ashamed” of the continuing racism among officers. The plan promises a “zero-tolerance” policy when it comes to racism in the police force. Officers will have to undergo mandatory training and education on black history. I haven’t seen the official curriculum but I am sure it will include an objective and balanced lecture on the transatlantic slave trade. And as our Eurocentric vision of history dictates, it is the one and only example of slavery that has ever existed.

At first glance it would appear the police are stuck in the ‘90s. It has been close to a quarter of a century since the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The subsequent report by Lord Macpherson was scathing. It labelled the Metropolitan Police “institutionally racist.” A label Thompson believes many people still believe today. 

When it comes to claims of institutional racism, the argument is often framed around the police’s use of stop and search. According to some, black people are stopped nine times more than white people. 

For the record, I am not the biggest fan of stop and search. I do not like my liberty being interfered with by an excessive and overbearing state. But freedom isn’t unlimited. Rights have to be carefully balanced. The freedom to go about your business both peacefully and safely must be sensibly weighed against the right not to be harassed by the police. To get all Isiah Berlin, its negative versus positive liberty.

Let me be clear, when it comes to stop and search, the police response is an operational reaction to the increased use of bladed weapons in fatal stabbings. And London, home of the Metropolitan Police, is a violent place. Homicide in London has reached a 13 year-high —with 74.4 percent of murders caused by knives. It’s an uncomfortable fact but black British Londoners account for 45 per cent of the capital’s knife murder victims and 61 per cent of all knife murder perpetrators.

To be blunt, the police carry out these stops in areas with a preponderance of violent crime. When you combine the available population where crime is predicted to happen with the likely profile of offenders and victims, a young black man in Lewisham is more likely to be stopped than a 75-year-old white woman. There’s nothing “racist” about this, it’s common sense policing. It could very well save a life. Perhaps the parent of a young black teenager in London and not a pen-pushing progressive police chief wants more stop and search, not less. 

To be fair, the police are caught in a difficult position. Too lenient and they invoke the ire of the right, too harsh and the Guardian will devote a thousand column inches to disparaging the force as a white supremacist relic in need of immediate defunding. In truth the police are not to blame for the growing violence on our streets. Black men being stopped on the street is the culmination of a number of different factors. There are no easy answers and more often than not it raises uncomfortable cultural questions about the importance of parenting and positive male role models — 43 per cent of black African and an astonishing 63 percent of black Caribbean children grow up in lone-parent households. Without a father in the home young males often seek solace in the protection of gangs. If we lack the courage to have an honest debate about this, we risk letting down a generation of young black Britons. 

There will always be a number of prejudiced officers. But to argue that the police force is institutionally racist is absurd. No amount of plans or enforced groupthink ideology will dissuade the most ardent of bigots from acting like Neanderthals. If an officer acts inappropriately, sanction them or kick them out. Just don’t subject thousands of people to what amounts to virtue signalling on a grandiose scale. Treating individuals as potential racists, no doubt replete with “white fragility”, and you end up treating people differently according to their skin colour. Ironically, something the plan wishes to eliminate. 

It has become somewhat of a truism that progressive ideology adheres to the law of unintended consequences. Rather than bring people along, this will alienate aspiring young people from ethnic minorities from joining the police force. 

The plan is out for public scrutiny before it is updated in December. I have an idea. Ditch this stupid attempt at political pandering, drop the identity politics and treat people with respect. 

If you need a plan to do that, then maybe the police is not the right career for you.  

To some this is nothing more than a trivial he-said-she-said spat between two very privileged and pampered Hollywood luvvies. To others, it is as engrossing as the latest Hollywood blockbuster. The drama unfolding between the two has been dubbed by some as the trial of the century. When Depp unsuccessfully sued The Sun for libel in 2020, the trial took place in London. As such it was not filmed. This one, however, gets the full Star-Spangled-Banner treatment. Taking place in Fairfax Virginia and set to last 5 weeks, the whole sordid spectacle is broadcast live around the world, courtesy of Court TV.

It’s hard to believe it, but there was a time when actors were pretty much venerated as gods amongst men. People generally looked up to and respected movie stars. Glamorous and dignified, they were often larger than life, yet somehow remote and untouchable. It was as if they existed in a different world separate from our own. Influential and inspirational, actors were once something for the common man to aspire to but never quite reach.

Celebrities used to be a lot less accessible than they are today. A metaphorical wall was once in place to distance the general public from the celebrity. The rare occasions you heard from them was when you opened the pages of the latest glamorous A-list celebrity magazine or through an appearance on a late-night talk show.

Even then they were carefully managed through scripted interviews with friendly journalists or contractually protected from awkward and difficult questions posed by presenters. In short, you knew little about their private lives, or worse their political opinions. 

Alas, that was a different generation. The rise of social media has permanently reorganised not only our relationship with celebrities, but with the entire concept of fame. 

The invention of Twitter meant celebrities could interact directly with fans. With millions of followers hanging on their every word, actors suddenly found a new stage. Typing out every conceivable thought, they became free to give their opinion on everything from foreign policy to climate change. Yet often these people aren’t the best informed.

As Ricky Gervais said, most of them have spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. Engagement means disagreement, so opinions go unchallenged. All of a sudden their flaws, shortcomings and insecurities were laid bare for the world to see. 

With the rise of social media, it should come as no surprise that the Depp-Heard trial has been dubbed generation Tik-Tok’s OJ Simpson moment. Amplified through social media, it has become the latest real-life courtroom drama to capture the attention of the two stars’ fans.

Depp obsessives have been constantly mocking Heard’s histrionics and crocodile tears. According to Tik-Tok, videos featuring the hashtag “amberturd” have been viewed more than 1.2bn times. Others have been swooning over the psychologist Depp hired to evaluate Heard’s mental state. 

The cult of celebrity is dying, and the internet will be its swan song. The trial has shown how this once all powerful and pervasive cultural phenomenon is now in decline. It is inevitable that it should be happening now. Everything is changing, especially how we see the rich and famous. 

The more we open the door and peer into the world of celebrity the more we’ve come to realise there’s very little substance behind it. There is nothing particularly special about fame anymore. Rather than striving for something worthy of fame, it is more likely to be sought as an end in itself. So what explains our contemporary fascination with fame? 

In his book, The Upswing, the political scientist Robert Putnam has documented a vast amount of data that appears to show a growing level of narcissism across the western world. In the last century, Putnam argues that the US has drifted from “we” society towards an “I”. This new narcissistic outlook is found in response to the statement: “I am a very important person” Only 12 per cent agreed with this in 1950. By 1990 this had rocketed to 80 per cent. The figure continues to rise.

This pathological desire for recognition combined with growing self-obsession offers at least a plausible explanation as to why we now seek fame. Combine this with a social media generation craving instant gratification and you can see why it lures so many young and impressionable people. 

Nothing highlights the transient nature of fame more than Love Island. In 2020 the reality TV show received twice as many applicants than students applying to Oxford and Cambridge. As one anonymous casting director put it bluntly: “There’s a one-year shelf life [to Love Island fame]… Next year is the new batch of people and no one’s really going to want to know about you next year.”

The internet has democratised fame. These days anyone with a broadband connection and a webcam can go viral overnight. It has stripped celebrities of the special status they have enjoyed for generations. So perhaps this trial is a cynical marketing ploy dreamt up by the stars’ agents to thrust them back into the limelight? Hollywood is not exactly a bastion of decency. 

Those of us who don’t seek fame seem content to simply live vicariously through the contrived drama of others. Not this writer. I would rather live alone on my own island. Anything but Love Island. 

The group responsible, Just Stop Oil, blockaded oil refineries in Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. In what is becoming as fashionable as it is stupid within the world of direct action, some decided to glue themselves to the road. Maybe they took advice from fellow Just Stop Oil activist Nathan McGovern, who decided to glue his own hand to a microphone during an LBC interview with Tom Swarbick.

In order to access the Kingsbury terminal in Warwickshire, activists decided to update the old Trojan horse strategy. Like something out of The Great Escape, protestors concealed a tunnel through the use of a modified caravan. Shortly after it was towed into place on Saturday five protestors began digging through a pre-cut hole in the floor. Warwickshire police made 29 arrests. 

Police have been busiest in Essex. On Monday morning around 40 people swarmed the Inter Oil Terminal in Grays, climbed the pipework of the loading bay and chained themselves to overhead pipes. This comes just one week after 338 protestors were arrested amid protests at another site in Grays – Exolum Storage. 

Just Stop Oil’s actions have led to petrol stations running out of fuel and brought untold misery to millions who have decided to get away for the Easter holidays. Yet this appears to be the modus operandi for modern climate activists. Just Stop Oil is the latest in a long line of eco-extremist groups that fervently believe that the moral righteousness of their cause is more important than your right to peacefully go about your life. They are the younger (in a literal sense) cousin of Extinction Rebellion – the group that brought untold chaos and misery to millions of Londoners as they shut down main roads and stopped people from going to work. It was the same tactic adopted by another climate alarmist group, Insulate Britain, when they blocked major motorways like the M25 during rush hour. 

The timing of this beggars belief. A few days ago the energy price cap came into effect. Average household energy bills have risen a staggering 54 percent. These ideologically naive idiots showed up at the worst possible time. As C.P.I inflation rose to 7 percent, millions of Britons are facing a cost of living crisis. Hard-pressed households are facing the worst squeeze in living standards since the war. How many of these middle class Waitrose warriors will struggle to pay a heating bill?  It just goes to show how out of touch all these climate groups are with the reality of ordinary people. Like XR before them there is a sneering indifference to working class people.

Worse still, with ordinary people struggling to afford oil and gas, what is their solution? Should people do as the group dictates: just stop oil? Then what? If poor people can’t afford petrol, should they just buy an expensive electric car? No, just go without. Back to the Stone Age, plebs! Eco-extremism is anarcho-primitivism in action.

I genuinely feel sorry for the young activists who have swallowed this rubbish. When you look at who is behind this it may explain a lot. Heavily involved in Just Stop Oil as with XR and Insulate Britain is Roger Hallam. He made the now infamous (and unscientific) claim that climate change will kill “billions” of people. With this kind of apocalyptic rhetoric it is no wonder that “eco-anxiety” or the chronic fear of environmental doom is having a disproportionate impact on the mental health of young people.

Like XR and Insulate Britain, the direct action of Just Stop Oil cannot legitimately be covered under the traditional concept of freedom to protest as it involves taking away the freedom of others to go about their lives. 

While I passionately believe in the right to protest, it must be carefully balanced and kept in check with the freedoms and rights of other citizens. When it comes to prosecution, it should be relatively simple for a judge to decide that freedom for people to go about their daily lives must surpass the freedom of political activists to engage in militant protest. 

For some of you this story will mean very little. The average under-30 will not have heard of Neil Young. Those aged between 31 and 60 will likely say “Neil Young is still alive?” While the over-60s will ask “what is Spotify?” But for the rest of us, this is a part of a crucial debate over free speech.

Outraged that it was giving a platform to the vaccine-sceptic Joe Rogan, the Canadian rocker issued an ultimatum to Spotify. Young accused the streaming company of promoting “life-threatening Covid misinformation.” This, he said, is “causing death” and demanded that Spotify either remove his music or ditch Rogan. In a now deleted post he told Spotify defiantly “they can have Rogan or Young, not both.”

Rogan hosts the Joe Rogan Experience — a podcast where he invites guests from across the political divide to debate ideas in long form discussions. Sometimes lasting up to four hours, they discuss everything from body-positivity to trophy hunting. One of Rogan’s recent guests that has incensed Young is Dr Robert Mallone. 

In his discussion with Rogan, Mallone was lambasted for saying “think twice about giving these jabs to your kids.” Is this what really counts as “misinformation” these days? Some countries are not vaccinating young children, most notably Sweden.

Banning people like Mallone for expressing a qualified medical opinion will only reinforce scepticism, leading those who are reluctant to get vaccinated to believe there’s a vast conspiracy theory about important information being suppressed. 

But the strongest argument against banning sceptics is the free speech argument. If you remove controversial opinions from a mainstream platform like the Joe Rogan Experience, where their statements and claims can be debated and interrogated, they go into the darkness. And sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant. Rogan, for his part, has pledged to offer more balanced views on his show. 

The cynic in me thinks there’s something else at work here. Is this really a principled stand by Young? Last year he sold the rights to 50 per cent of his 1,180 song back catalogue for a reported $150 million. He has long claimed that Spotify never paid him enough. Is this all just part of a personal vendetta the cantankerous old rocker has against the Swedish streaming giant? Or is it nothing more than a cynical PR stunt to thrust him back into the limelight?

Young is no stranger to public outbursts. In 2018 he complained about Donald Trump using his song Rockin’ in the free world at campaign rallies as he didn’t have permission to use it – before admitting he had no legal way of stopping him. 

A number of commentators have praised Spotify for supporting Rogan. From a financial perspective, it was a no-brainer. The company paid Rogan an estimated $100 million for the exclusive rights to host his podcast. When you consider each episode attracts roughly 11 million listeners (ten times the audience of primetime CNN), you can see why it took no time at all for the company to make up its mind. But Spotify has not always been so principled. When Rogan left YouTube for the dizzying heights of Spotify, a number of his more controversial episodes were not made available. 

Spotfiy’s reason may have been financial but it causes me concern. How long before an artist with a much younger profile — say, Taylor Swift —does the same? We will have to wait and see.

Young is a great musician. On the Beach and Harvest Moon are great records. But we need to separate the art from the artist. Young is wrong on this. I understand his position — both he and Mitchell had polio as children. As such they owe their life to the polio vaccination. But debate dies when you silence the other side.

After a wave of public backlash from outraged Young fans, Spotify is now allegedly “taking action” to stop misinformation. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have also waded in, expressing concern to Spotify over misinformation. Seeing as they were paid a reported £18 million to work with the company, it will be interesting to see how far the couple will go to stick to their principles.

Is he right? Well, his concerns about the future of our climate do indeed appear to be impacting the mental health of the next generation. ‘Eco-anxiety’ or chronic fear of environmental doom, is having a disproportionate effect on the young. According to a 2020 survey published in the British Medical Journal, 57 percent of children are distressed about the state of the environment. 

Rather than just lazily blame this on young and naive ‘woke’ students who lack the mental fortitude of their second world war forebears, we should take the claim seriously. After all, mental illness is a serious psychological issue and one that merits close inspection. As adults, we should try and look at this from a child’s perspective and see what they see.

It doesn’t help when they switch on the TV and are assailed with news of the latest climate crisis. While they get ready for school they can sit and watch Good Morning Britain – where the weather forecast appears less like a daily forecast and more like a climate lecture. Or in the evening when the family are gathered round the dinner table, the parents could be watching Sky New’s Daily Climate Show – where to emphasise the effects of climate change they recently showed a C.G.I image of Buckingham Palace surrounded by water. A ludicrous and dramatic image when you consider the palace is 17 metres above sea level. It would mean the sea level would have to rise by 20 metres! The worst case scenario (based on high carbon emissions) predicts a 77cm rise above the 95-2014 average by 2100. Well within the range of ‘adaptation’ – more on that later. 

Or perhaps your child could be taken in by Roger Hallam. The former Extinction Rebellion leader once claimed “billions” will die if we don’t act now. With unscientific and baseless statements like this, is it any wonder children are terrified?

Prince William is not the first royal to speak out about the environment. His father, the Prince of Wales, is no stranger when it comes to making apocalyptic and ridiculous environmental statements. Back In 2008, Charles told us we had “just 18 months to stop climate change.” While just last week, he expressed his sympathy for the aims (if not the methods) of Insulate Britain. Telling the BBC that “young people concerned about climate change [are seeing their] future being totally destroyed.”

While manmade climate change is real, it will certainly not “totally destroy” the future of Prince George’s generation. Just one year before Charles made those hyperbolic remarks, southern England experienced severe flooding. The natural response by the government was to attribute this to climate change. A simple and lazy response as it drew attention away from the failure to maintain flood defences. Don’t take my word for it, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology released a report that denied climate change was responsible.

While sea-levels will rise, they will be well within the limit where their effects can be mitigated – as long as we invest in technology. 

When it comes to flooding, the best advice comes from Emma Howard Boyd – head of the Environment Agency. She believes there’s been too much emphasis on trying to stop climate change and not enough on preparing for its effects. Bangladesh’s Cyclone Preparedness Programme and the Netherlands Delta Works storm barrier are successful examples of a policy known as ‘adaptation’.

Due to human ingenuity and innovation, adaptation has helped play a part in the decline in deaths from climate change. Since 1920 and in spite of a four fold increase in population, the average annual death-toll from extreme weather events has declined by 93 percent  Based on 2001-2010 data, these weather events were responsible for just 0.07 percent of all global deaths (38,300 vs. 59 million globally). While in 2019, that number reduced by two thirds yet again to just 11,000  Still a high number but can we admit this is in some respects progress? At least compared with the ‘billions’ as claimed by Hallam.

Dramatic language combined with misleading information on climate change will inevitably contribute to this – as yet undiagnosable – condition. William is right to mention the rise in eco-anxiety, but as part of an influential institution, with alarmism like this both he and his family could ironically and unwittingly be contributing to its rise.

Hollywood’s biggest villain in recent years has not been Blofeld; it has been the coronavirus. The virus has been responsible for shutting down the entire global entertainment industry. But now, after 18 months of covid-induced delays, the new James Bond film has finally been released.

Yet the premise for the 25th instalment in the spy series eerily resembles the real world. If fiction is indeed meant to reflect reality, then No Time To Die is the most self-aware movie in a generation. 

With extraordinary prescience, the very film that cinema chains have been relying on to bring the industry back into the red depends on Bond dealing with the imminent threat of yet another virus.

Project Heracles is a bioweapon containing DNA-hijacking nanobots. The scientist developing it is kidnapped, and Heracles is stolen from a secret laboratory by SPECTRE – who in typical Bond fashion, plans to use it for nefarious means. Upon hearing the news, Bond – who has since retired to Jamaica – decides it’s time to save the world again. 

In an attempt to establish continuity and help develop Bond’s personal story, many familiar characters have been brought back. Christopher Waltz returns as Blofeld – although this time round his is imprisoned and plays a more secondary antagonist. Meanwhile, Madeleine Swann, Bond’s romantic interest from Spectre reprises her role. 

Establishing a backstory is essential if you want the audience to invest in a character’s development. But in No Time To Die, this feels extremely contrived. Especially when it comes to the spies’ love life. 

Director Cary Fukunaga has ramped Bond’s emotional story up to 11. For years we have been told that Bond is outdated. As far back as 1995’s Goldeneye, M informed Bond that he was a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a “relic of the Cold War past”. It didn’t help when Fukunaga described the character as a rapist. To inject a bit of female empowerment into the franchise, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was hired to work alongside veteran Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. 

As evidenced when Bond arrives at MI6 to learn he has been replaced by a non-white, non-male agent named Nomi. Played by Lashana Lynch, she is younger, smarter and more capable than Bond. But his quintessential English charm soon wins over our temporary 007, and she soon insists M must give Bond his old title back. As this is supposedly Craig’s final outing as the super spy, there have been countless calls for his successor to be played by a woman. Luckily producer Barbara Broccoli put her foot down and categorically denied this.  

Rami Malek is also back as Bond’s arch-nemesis Lyutsifer Safin. Now sporting a somewhat menacing facemask to cover his chemically scarred face, he really gets under Bond’s skin (no pun intended). In keeping with the emotive storyline, it is revealed that Safin has a rather sinister and complicated history with Swann, and this puts Bond’s relationship with her in serious jeopardy. A beautiful soundtrack from Hans Zimmer reinforces the emotional resonance.

Visually, No Time To Die is pure panoramic perfection. Stunning, technically proficient camerawork effortlessly captures breathtaking sunsets and landscaped vistas. Credit must go to cinematographer Linus Sandgren of La La Land fame for some gorgeous colour work. A captivating and stunning 23-minute opening sequence set in the Italian mountain town of Matera will placate even the harshest of critics. 

A Bond film is nothing without gadgets. And it’s quite clear that Q has been busy. We learn that he’s been developing a device called a Q-Dar – let’s just say it’s more suited to Ann Summer’s than MI6. 

Towards the end of the film, we are introduced to a stealth glider which instantly brings to mind Little Nellie, the gyrocopter from You Only Live Twice.

Malek’s performance as Safin is a bit one dimensional – reminiscent of Jared Leto’s portrayal of The Joker. It is common knowledge that all good Bond villains are driven and motivated by world domination – encapsulated perfectly by Javier Bardem in Skyfall. 

In No Time To Die, the character appears to be driven purely by revenge. Change is good, but Malek adds no depth to the role. I agree with Alan Partridge: stop getting Bond wrong.

No Time To Die vacillates between the ridiculous and the sublime. Stunning death-defying action sequences give way to an often contrived and convoluted plot. The scene where Bond travels to Cuba to track down the scientist feels incredibly drawn out and goes nowhere. 

Although a thoroughly enjoyable film, it is a bit long – it clocks in just short of three hours. The serialised nature that defines Craig’s legacy as Bond means the average viewer has to try and recall 15 years of interwoven backstory – as evidenced during my screening when I overheard someone close to me say, “wait, I thought he died in the last film?”

The last two Bond films (Skyfall and Spectre) drew a combined worldwide box-office just short of $2 billion. With an initial budget of $250 million, the protracted delay and mounting interest payments have caused this to skyrocket. 

No Time To Die needs $900 million to break even. But if anyone can rise to the challenge, it is Bond. 

No Time To Die won’t leave you shaken. But it might stir you.

At 8am Tuesday morning Surrey police responded to reports of an incident between junctions 9 and 10 on the M25. They arrived to find a bunch of protestors had decided to sit down in the road and form a barrier, completely blocking off one side of the carriageway and bringing traffic to a complete standstill.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the motorway, chaos ensued. While some protestors were busy pouring blue paint all over the tarmac, the police were wrestling with others as they attempted to walk out into the oncoming traffic. By 9am it was all over. At least 38 arrests were made. 

The group responsible is Insulate Britain – an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion. This is the fifth time in a little over a week that these eco-warriors have blocked the M25. On Monday they targeted the Dartford and Chorleywood area of the same motorway. Some glued themselves to the road. Police from Hertfordshire and Kent were called in to make 29 arrests.

As with most climate demonstrations, the demands are either impractical at best or illogical at worst. So it should come as no surprise that there’s something incongruous about Insulate Britain’s goal. The single-issue group is demanding immediate action on home insulation. 

So far the only thing the group has managed to achieve has been to frustrate and enrage motorists attempting to get on with their day. 

Then, on Sunday, the inevitable happened. In a distressing phone call to LBC, a caller described how an Insulate Britain protest led to a six-hour delay in treating his mother, who was in a vehicle with him when she began to have a stroke. The man sobbed as he told Andrew Pierce how she has now been left paralysed. 

Liam Norton, Insulate Britain’s ringleader, was asked by Good Morning Britain’s Richard Madeley this morning whether he had lost sleep over the incident. Norton said he had, but justified the group continuing to put lives at risk because “the future of the country is at stake”.

The right to protest and peaceful assembly is an essential part of western liberal democracy. So we must be careful not to rush in and clamp down on people freely expressing their beliefs and opinions. The whole point of a protest is to be loud and noisy – after all, what’s a protest if your views can’t be heard? This beautiful piece of people-power helps challenge injustice and hold power to account. 

But there must be a limit to legitimate demonstration. The right to protest must be carefully and sensibly balanced against the rights of citizens to freely go about their daily business. Under section 137 of the 1980 Highways Act it is an offence to intentionally block a highway. The police were initially criticised for being too lenient towards the protestors – footage emerged of an officer treating the event more like a playgroup than a protest. Yet this was promptly corrected and normal nicking service was resumed.

Not that any of this seems to bother these environmental protest groups. There is an arrogance bordering on the grotesque to believe that just because you think your cause is more righteous than someone else’s you can wilfully disrupt the lives of motorists. No doubt many of these activists will cite the Ziegler judgment in court, after a High Court judge ruled in 2017 that blocking a highway was a “reasonable” form of protest.

But there are signs that the public have finally had enough. In a scene reminiscent of the enraged commuters of Canning Town, who dragged two XR protestors down off a train, footage emerged showing frustrated drivers arguing with protestors. Many of them are in agreement with the protestors over climate change, but disagree with the tactics. When it comes to optics, Insulate Britain has failed rule number one – if you want people to support you, don’t alienate them.  

As for their demand to have all homes “decarbonised” by 2030, I have a certain sympathy, but as with XR, economics and logic are lost on Insulate Britain. With Covid having pushed government debt north of £2 trillion, to try and force immediate action on this would be catastrophic. The cost of retrofitting 30 million homes will be extortionate.

Class also plays a part. We have upper-middle class activists lecturing the rest of us on a subject most of us are already on board with. And it won’t be these Waitrose warriors struggling to pay; it’ll hit the working class.  

If they carry on in this way, they’ll have no one left on their side.

This newfound confidence stems from a landmark ruling from the highest court in the land. In June, the Supreme Court decided to overturn the convictions of four activists who disrupted an arms fair at the Excel Centre in East London in 2017. At the first trial before magistrates, the prosecution needed to prove that “limited, targeted and peaceful action, which involved an obstruction of the highway, was unreasonable.” Because the protest had only lasted 90 minutes, the judge concluded that the protest was “reasonable”. This was later reversed at a higher court before the Supreme Court upheld the original decision to acquit the protestors.

Named after one of the protestors, the Ziegler judgment is often cited by Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists in order to help provide legitimacy for their cause. But the right to protest and peaceful assembly must be balanced carefully against the rights of citizens to freely go about their daily business. The scenes of some police officers standing back and letting the disruption go on unabated has not helped. But the police are not entirely to blame here. They are just trying to keep up with the latest law and court rulings – which are at best tricky to navigate and implement.  

For example, it is an offence under section 137 of the 1980 Highways Act, “if a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway.” Quite clear – intentionally block the road and you’ll be arrested. But a High Court ruling from 1965 argued that “lawful excuse” should include “reasonableness” – and this was cited by the Supreme Court in the Ziegler ruling. 

As daft and woke as the MET police appear – just take a look at the “hate-crime cars” adorned with ghastly rainbow stripes – they are not to blame if the law is confusing. After all, “reasonable” is just as vague and subjective as “grossly offensive” in the Communications Act and perception” in the College of Policing’s Hate Crime Operational Guidance. Tyranny loves a grey area.

Whatever XR says about the Ziegler judgment, it doesn’t allow them to block off one of the busiest cities in the world, nor stop thousands from getting on with their lives.  

XR’s justification for their increasingly extreme and disruptive behaviour is predicated on the urgency which they believe underpins their cause. This self-righteous ends/means rationality makes them feel as if they can act with impunity because they feel billions will die if we don’t act now. We all want a cleaner healthier environment but the imminent heat death of the planet is not borne out by the evidence.

The United Kingdom has decarbonised its economy faster than any other G20 country. Emissions have fallen 41 per cent since 1990. As a result, our carbon emissions are lower than at any period since the Victorian era. Globally we are responsible for just one per cent of all emissions. 

To reach net-zero by 2050 will be a logistical nightmare, involving the retrofitting of energy efficient boilers, insulation and electric heat pumps. Not to mention the monumental price tag. The Climate Change Committee estimates the cost of net-zero to be £50 billion a year from 2030. But to reach this goal in just four years – as XR demands – is just ridiculous. 

All of this is happening while the government attempts to codify coherent legislation on the right to protest through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. A new offence in the Bill of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” has been introduced while plans are in place to make noise unlawful if it is “seriously harmful or oppressive.” 

They may be the most annoying middle-class protest group in recent history but they are not terrorists – as one commentator has labelled them. We have to tread carefully here because as much as a lot of us want XR to clear off, if they become a proscribed group, what of other protests that are noisy and subjectively deemed “harmful” by the state?  What’s a protest if your views can’t be heard? This needs to be taken out of the Bill. 

But if you hold a city of nine million to ransom just because you feel your cause is more important than anyone else’s, it has to be clamped down on. Criminal damage destroys property. And the state is supposed to defend the property rights of its citizens.

Once again, XR has chosen the wrong country in which to do this. China is planning to build 43 new coal-fired power plants and is currently responsible for 27 per cent of all global emissions. 

Or perhaps they could head to Afghanistan to help the Taliban, who recently announced a plan to tackle climate change. 

The number of people dying from drugs in England and Wales continues to rise. Drug-related deaths rose to 4,561 last year – the highest level since records began in 1993. The prohibitionist approach of getting ‘tough’ on drugs has clearly failed. It’s time to discuss the possibility of a new approach. 

Not everyone who takes drugs will develop substance abuse problems or become an addict. Every weekend, hundreds of thousands of people will take illegal drugs – most will indulge in relatively innocuous street drugs like cannabis or nitrous oxide. Others may turn to the less frowned upon state-approved option of prescribed pharmaceutical medication. Maybe you’re suffering from insomnia so a sympathetic friend gives you one of their prescribed valium to get some much-needed sleep. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, these people are all technically breaking the law.

It is my honest opinion that those who do so should not be arrested or, at worst, put in prison.

In 2019-20, 68,000 people were arrested for drug offences in England and Wales. Out of the 82,000 individuals languishing in our overcrowded and understaffed prisons, 11 percent are incarcerated for drug possession. With the annual cost of housing a prisoner at roughly £39,000, releasing these non-violent offenders would free up almost £500 million. 

The money saved could be used to fund and staff drug treatment facilities. Not everyone wants to be helped but those that do should be supported. When £8 million was cut from drug treatment services in the East of England in 2013, there was a twenty percent rise in drug poisoning deaths across the region over the next five years.

With roughly half of the deaths involving opiates, money should be invested to finance the implementation of regulated safe injection sites. Evidence from the United States shows that this has countered the risk of overdose and significantly lowered mortality rates.

When Portugal was faced with rising drug deaths at the turn of the century, it tried a new approach. The country decided to decriminalise the possession of all illegal drugs. Contrary to what some critics believe, it is still illegal to deal drugs in the country. But those found in possession of a small quantity of drugs are either given a fine or receive health and social support. No-one gets the stigma of a criminal record or prison sentence. In the ensuing years, deaths from opioid overdoses dramatically dropped. Now, Portugal has one of the lowest drug death rates in the EU: 6 deaths per million. Contrast this with Scotland. With 1,339 drug-related deaths last year, the country recently became the drug death capital of Europe. Scotland’s per million death rate is 315 to 350 times higher than Portugal. When you realise that Portugal has a population twice the size of Scotland, it is a case study in liberal humanism.

Cleveland Police started a Heroin Assisted Treatment programme in 2019. It gave 14 of the area’s high-risk addicts a safe place to inject diamorphine three times a day.  After twelve months, the evidence was positive. There was a vast improvement in the health and quality of life of those that remained on the scheme. The trial has been estimated to cost around £12,000 a year per addict – a third of what it costs to keep someone incarcerated for a year. Plus, when you factor in what an addict racks up in court costs and NHS treatment, it has been estimated that this could result in close to a fifty per cent reduction to the tax bill. 

It’s radical and It will no doubt have its critics, but I would like to point out that we already prescribe government subsidised opiate antagonist drugs like Methadone and Buprenorphine to drug-dependent patients. Ironically these drugs have a much longer half-life than heroin – making them much harder to come off. 

The war on drugs is not a real war. Wars eventually end. Fifty years of enforcement and what have we accomplished? We have wasted millions locking up non-violent drug offenders, yet people still continue to take mind altering substances.

One thing is certain, we will never arrest our way out of this. Until we move away from punishment and prohibition and begin to seriously focus on health and harm reduction, the prisons and the graveyards will unfortunately continue to swell.

Launched on Instagram earlier this month, some of the group’s demands are your standard illiberal class war clichés. A “private school free” LSE – a proposal that would no doubt call for the removal of many of the university’s international students – and a call for diversity quotas to be installed to ensure more ethnic minority academics are hired. In 21st century parlance they wish to “decolonise LSE”. But most bizarre is the demand to create a lecture series in honour of David Graeber – a left-wing academic who lectured at the university.

There is nothing unusual or wrong with a campaign to remember the life of a revered professor. The reason I find the statement strange is because of the group’s own hypocritical stance when it comes to academics from a different intellectual background. The group’s manifesto doesn’t appear to extend to other revered academics who have taught at LSE. 

I am referring to Friedrich von Hayek – one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. Hayek lectured at the university between 1931 and 1950 – going on to win the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974. The Austrian-born British economist was a passionate advocate for free markets. Throughout his illustrious career Hayek wrote countless books arguing that markets are synonymous with freedom. Any governmental intervention into the economy leads to tyranny, or – as he puts it in the title of his classic 1944 work – The Road to Serfdom. For this reason, LSE Class War believes the Hayek Society – which bears the classical liberal’s name – should be disbanded, as its pro-capitalist ideology is “harmful to marginalised students.”

Speaking of LSE Class War’s authoritarian stance, Vice-President of the Hayek Society Maxwell Marlow, said: “If they want to make LSE private school free, their self-purging would make Stalin proud.” It’s hard to disagree. This kind of censorious activism wouldn’t have been out of place in the old Soviet Union. Now it appears to be running rampant throughout all of our elite educational institutions.

It was only a few weeks ago I wrote about Oxford University’s student union employing sensitivity readers to remove “problematic” content from its student newspaper. When you attempt to censor the opinions of others you rob people – in this case students – of the ability to fully engage in critical thought. It is only by hearing the other side of the debate – no matter how “injurious” you may find the words of your opponent – do you develop the essential skills to think both clearly and rationally. Now there’s an easier answer: just remove those who hold different views.

During Hayek’s lifetime, his leading opponent and staunchest critic was John Maynard Keynes. Although the two intellectual heavyweights of economic theory never publicly debated, the pair frequently exchanged letters between 1927 and 1944 and openly attacked each other’s work. It was only ten years ago that ardent supporters from both ideological sides engaged in a fierce debate. The battleground? The LSE. How times have changed.

What of the marginalised students these class warriors are trying to vicariously defend? Well, capitalism is the best system we have to combat global poverty. Since 1990 the number of people lifted out of extreme poverty has fallen by almost one billion. Meanwhile Africa’s embrace of capitalism and trade liberalisation has become the world’s fastest growing continent for investors – leading The Economist to call the 21^st century “The African Century”. This has been achieved due to those evil free-markets so despised by LSE Class War. 

Although loved by some on the right – according to John Ranelagh, Margaret Thatcher kept a copy of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty in her briefcase – he was no conservative. Ironically, the very book the former prime minister praises features an essay entitled Why I am not a Conservative. Hayek championed freedom and equality of opportunity. Something LSE Class War has failed to understand. According to Marlow, three quarters of the Hayek Society’s leadership are working-class, state-educated students. An irony lost on this most combative of groups. 

The people of this beautiful island – to adopt another well-worn cliche – appear to be full of latin fire. Many of them are fed up with the country’s authoritarian and brutal communist government. A lot of their anger is directed at its chronic mismanagement of the economy. Rising prices and food shortages have meant many have taken to the streets to voice their anger and frustration with Miguel Díaz-Canel – Cuba’s President.  

What started as a small protest against power blackouts in the town of San Antonio de los Baños has spread all over the island. In scenes rarely seen since the regime took power in 1959, thousands of demonstrators have poured onto the streets of Havana chanting ‘Freedom!’ ‘Down with the dictatorship!’ and ’No tenemos miedo’ (We are not afraid).

If the risk of mass starvation wasn’t bad enough, factor in a global pandemic and you have the very real possibility of a mass uprising on your hands.   

Coronavirus has dealt a severe blow to the country’s economy. In order to generate revenue for its predominantly state-run industry, the country relies heavily on tourism. With this vital sector effectively shut down by the global pandemic, its economy has contracted by 11 per cent. 

There might be some good news. Cuba is developing its own vaccines – its Abdala vaccine is said to be 92 per cent effective against the virus, although a healthy degree of scepticism is necessary as all information is strictly regulated by the Communist Party. But the virus has run rampant and cases have spread inexorably throughout the island. Bereft of basic medical equipment, the country’s vaunted healthcare system has completely broken down. Medicines are being traded between citizens on WhatsApp and Telegram. With prices contingent upon access to US dollars or euros, it is the poorest who inevitably pay the most in this most volatile of currency black markets. 

In response to the protests, Díaz-Canel took to state-run TV to urge “all the revolutionaries [and] communists” to take to the streets to protect the country – meaning defend the government. Around 300 counter-protestors decided to heed the call. As they sought to quell the demonstrators, the internet was shut off and protestors were beaten and fired at while journalists were attacked by police officers. The right to protest is heavily regulated in Cuba. According to Amnesty International, since the protests began at least 140 Cubans have been detained or simply “disappeared”.

The country has a vice-like grip on communications. Press freedom is non-existent. The country has been rated among the “least free” on the Press Freedom Index – 171 out of 180 countries. For context, that’s just 6 places above China. 

So it came as no surprise when Black Lives Matter (BLM) decided to praise the country by putting out a message on social media sharing “solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent.”

It’s not the first time the group have been in awe of the communist regime of Cuba. They were gushing in their praise of former dictator Fidel Castro after his death in 2016. Castro frequently organised mass executions while murdering dissidents and imprisoning his political opponents. He also offered a safe haven for Assata Shakur – a woman convicted of the murder of a police officer – who broke out of prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba. 

Whenever Cuba comes up, BLM and the far-left always claim that its problems can be attributed to America’s ongoing trade embargo with the country. Known by Cubans as ‘El bloqueo’, sanctions have been imposed on Cuba by successive US presidents since 1958. Dianne Abbot has adopted this reductionist and simplistic narrative, tweeting “The blockade is the source of all Cuba’s economic difficulties.” While Cuba has hundreds of problems, there is a certain sense of truth in this. I kind of agree. The blockade should come to an end. If only to let the country fail on its own terms. This would rob the far-left of the standard “American Imperialism” excuse whenever the country hits the headlines.

With this in context, is it any wonder that Cubans are fleeing their once loved country and heading to Florida? In some cases using rusted iron sheets and spades as makeshift rafts to cross the one hundred miles of shark infested waters to escape Díaz-Canel’s brutal one party dictatorship. 

This might explain or at least give us a reason why Joe Biden doesn’t want Cuban immigrants. From their own experience they have lived through the type of repression reminiscent of all Marxist governments. They have seen their beloved country wrecked by an authoritarian, centrally planned economic system embraced by Cuba’s governing elite. As such, they tend to vote Republican. According to the Pew Research Centre, among registered voters in the United States, 58 per cent of Cubans identify as Republican. 

By openly supporting Cuba, BLM has given tacit approval to one of the most illiberal and hostile governments in the world. Its support is a PR disaster – a politically naive love letter to the island’s repressive communist regime. It absolves the dictatorship of any wrongdoing when it comes to the human rights abuses and suffering of 11 million Cubans, and dumps all the blame on the United States. All while eulogising a cop-killer.

Wrong. So wrong.