By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Perhaps I am misreading this morning's reporting of the latest Census findings, but much of it seems to suggest that a growing population is in itself a bad thing. Rising population in a developed country like the UK will indeed bring problems with it if: Much of the growth […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. "The most important gap of all, of course, is that between You and the Other, the space where the love exists. Listen carefully one night, as you lie in the dark while your Other is asleep, and you will hear the fizzing of the love in the space between […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter In 2004, I voted reluctantly against civil partnerships (though I was all for equality in relation to life assurance, tax exemptions and so forth) because I was against the state compromising its practice in relation to marriage – in other words, that it takes place between a man and […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. On Friday evening, Twitter was pulsating with messages from those who claimed that the horrific murders in Norway were the work of Islamist terrorists. Yesterday morning, it became evident that the terrorist involved in the horrific attack is almost certainly not an Islamist but a crazed fundamentalist – if […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. It's late on Sunday afternoon, the men's final has finished at Wimbledon, not a mouse is stirring at Westminster, and I don't feel like writing about politics. But I want to devote a word or two to the expected tweet sent out, at roughly this time each week, by […]
by Paul Goodman Less than a week ago, John Denham, Chris Huhne and Caroline Lucas joined together to suggest that Britain has a natural left-of-centre "progressive majority" – and that AV would empower it. The phrase was also used by Vince Cable. You may agree with this view. Or you may, like Tim, disagree with […]
by Paul Goodman Yesterday, Hamas described Osama Bin Laden as an "Arab holy warrior". And these are the people, remember, who are sometimes sold to us as a bulwark against Al Qaeda. So I sent out a tweet asking whether their Muslim Brotherhood counterparts in the UK share this view. This upset Mehdi Hasan of […]
by Paul Goodman Imagine for a moment that while the IRA was still waging its terror campaign, Gerry Adams was discovered to be swanning around inside a specially-built fort in Dublin 4 – a part of the city famous for the wealth of its inhabitants. The comparison isn't perfect. Adams ended up taking a different […]
by Paul Goodman One of the curses of British politics is MPs departing for a foreign country for a week, and returning seven days later as instant experts on everything about it. I tried to avoid that trap when writing about Syria on this site almost three years ago, having been there very briefly with […]
by Paul Goodman I list below just a few April Fools from this morning's media. That's to say, I list what appear to be April Fools: one can never be quite sure, and he first day of this month is always an agonising one for editorial judgements. So I apologise, for example, to Iain Dale […]
by Paul Goodman I made two critical observations in response to Matthew Goodwin's article Why Baroness Warsi was right to highlight the growing problem of anti-Muslim sentiment in modern Britain. First, that it isn't "striking" that anxiety about Muslims in Britain hasn't subsided since 9/11 (given the impact of national and international events). Second, that […]
By Paul Goodman "Dear Chris, A first-time voter last May would probably have been born in the year that you lost your seat in Bath. This is a reminder that although you're clearly on excellent terms with Downing Street, and have penned some of the most lucid prose about toryism written in modern times, you […]
by Paul Goodman Matthew Goodwin's article this morning on this site, Why Baroness Warsi was right to highlight the growing problem of anti-Muslim sentiment in modern Britain, has virtues and faults in more or less equal measure. I want to by-pass surface issues – such as Sayeeda Warsi's speech and various media responses – and […]
by Paul Goodman "Martyr" means "witness" – and Shahbaz Bhatti was bearing witness when he was gunned down by terrorists earlier today. Bhatti was the only Christian in Pakistan's Cabinet. But he wasn't so much bearing witness to his faith – though that is certainly true – as to the country's founding ideals of religious […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter To Israel and Palestine… I hope the Palestinian developer we met near Ramallah was a Muslim, because this would add an extra dimension to the story I'm about to tell. He is helping to construct a city – the first purpose-built one in part of what I hope will […]