Category Archives: Britain

PICTURING ANOTHER WORLD AND OUR WORLD

October 20, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the photography of Chris Killip and Graham Smith, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 16 October 2022, under the headline “To romanticise or demonise – not the only ways to frame working-class lives”. An old man walking between rows of terraced housing and, behind him, the sky erased by the huge bow of a ship being built. A teenager picking coal on a beach. A man manoeuvring his horse and cart around a car dumped […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Culture & Books • Tags: chris killip, darren mcgarvey, graham smith, lynsey hanley, photography, poverty, poverty safari, seacoalers, susan sontag, working class

A SMALL STATE NOT SO SMALL FOR SOME

October 13, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the myths of the “small state”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 October 2022, under the headline “Libertarians will let you live life as you wish – as long as you’re rich and powerful”. “I’m not going to tell you what to do or what to think or how to live your life,” Liz Truss told the Conservative party conference last week. “When the government plays too big a role, people feel smaller.” Conservatives have […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: anti-union laws, conservative party, hostile environment, liz truss, policing, small state, strikes, suella braverman, workers rights

BLUE LABOUR AND THE CRITIQUE OF LIBERALISM

October 6, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on radical and conservative critiques of liberalism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 2 October 2022, under the headline “From Aristotle to Meloni, the ‘common good’ has been used to divide and rule”. A prime minister elevated to her role on the basis of 81,000 votes from Conservative party members; the imposition of a regressive “mini”-budget; a policy that a majority of people oppose but the real challenge to which has come through the actions of a handful […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: blue labour, brothers of italy, common good, communitarians, conservatism, david goodhart, edmund burke, far right, giorgia meloni, maurice glasman, postliberals, radical universalism, reactionary right, roger scruton, universalism

LIBERALISM, CLASS POLITICS AND THE CULTURE WARS

September 29, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on changing public attitudes and the culture wars, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 25 September 2022, under the headline “Britain is becoming a more liberal and open society. But we are ever more divided too”. “The ‘woke’ outlook on national identity, national sentiment and immigration now tends to be the more popular”; and “whereas it might once have represented a widespread view, now the ‘anti-woke’ position on ‘culture war’ issues often appear to be more of a […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: anti-racism, brexit, british politics, british social attitudes, culture wars, john curtice, liberalism, social polarisation, wokeness

QUESTIONING THE MONARCHY

September 15, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the need to question the monarchy, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 10 September 2022, under the headline “We can respect popular affection for the Queen and question the idea of royalty”. King Charles III. As soon as one monarch dies, another takes her place. It is a seamless transition that, for many, is both necessary and reassuring, helping sustain the myth of monarchy that, while kings and queens may pass on, the institution endures. […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: democracy, king charges, monarchy, queen elizabeth, republicanism, royal prerogative, royalty

CUTTING ACCESS, NOT MEETING NEEDS

September 8, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the rise of the regulatory state and its impact of public services, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 September 2022, under the headline “It’s no wonder I couldn’t see a GP: limiting access to services is the point”. It’s a problem familiar to millions: the trials of trying to book a doctor’s appointment. Last week, suffering from a debilitating condition but not an emergency, I called the GP surgery to get it checked out. […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: austerity, grenfell tower, nhs, regulatory state, trilateral commission

HOME OFFICE STATISTICS AND HOME OFFICE PROPAGANDA

September 1, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the reality of immigration statistics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 August 2022, under the headline “There are lies, damn lies, and then there is Home Office propaganda about migrants”. There are Home Office statistics and then there are Home Office press releases. And the gap between the two is often so wide that even the most resourceful migrant would be unlikely to discover a way of navigating from the one to the other. Last week, the […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: afghan refugees, albanians, asylum seekers, channel migrants, home office, immigration, immigration statistics, priti patel, refugees, rwanda deportation scheme

MANAGING THE UNWANTED

August 25, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Britain’s Rwanda deportation scheme, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 21 August 2022, under the headline “Treating refugees like ‘waste people’ is abhorrent, wherever they end up”. “There are state control, security, surveillance structures from the national level down… Political opposition is not tolerated and arbitrary detention, torture and even killings are accepted methods of enforcing control too.” The email from a Foreign Office official to colleagues in the Home Office in response to Britain’s plans to […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: deportations, fortress europe, human rights, offshoring, paul kagame, priti patel, racism, rwanda, rwanda deportation scheme

THE ENDS OF EDUCATION

August 4, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the working class and the meaning of education, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 July 2022, under the headline “If education is all about getting a job, the humanities are left just to the rich”. “We rented a garret, for which we paid (I think) 25s a year, bought a few second-hand forms and desks, borrowed a few chairs from the people in the house, bought a shilling’s worth of coals… and started our […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Culture & Books • Tags: browne report, david runciman, diversity, education, education cuts, humanities, jonathan rose, robbins report, universities, working class

CLASS AND POWER IN CONTEMPORARY BRITAIN

July 28, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on class, power the different social meanings of “regulation”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 24 July 2022, under the headline “Worship the rich, neglect the poor? Adam Smith’s words still capture how power works”. If you want to see how class and power operate in Britain today, look at the different ways in which “regulation” is applied to working-class people and businesses. In the one case, it is about imposing ever-tighter restrictions, making it increasingly […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Justice & Liberties • Tags: adam smith, anti-union laws, conservative party, grenfell fire, grenfell tower, strikes, trade unions

ON DIVERSITY AND ITS LIMITS

July 21, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on diversity and the Tory leadership campaign, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 July 2022, under the headline “Give me a pale male PM with great policies over a ‘diverse’ one reinforcing inequality”. It is not the British version of the Obama moment, when the election in 2008 of an African American to the White House appeared to mark a significant moment in American history. The magnitude of slavery in US history, the memory of […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: conservative party, diversity, identity politics, racism

IN DEFENCE OF STRIKES

June 29, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of trade unions and the right to strike, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 June 2022, under the headline “Enemy within? Hardly… most people see why we need unions prepared to strike”. The Tories love the working class. So long as workers can help them win red wall seats. So long as they can paint them as “socially conservative” and use them as alibis for legislation hostile to immigrants or welfare claimants. So […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Justice & Liberties • Tags: british politics, conservative party, inequality, labour party, levelling up, mick lynch, rail strikes, rmt, strikes, tony blair, trade unions, working class

OFFENDING THE GATEKEEPERS

June 15, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on attempts to ban the film The Lady of Heaven, was my Observer column on 12 June 2022. It was published under the headline “Film bans are less about offence, more ‘community leaders’ showing who’s boss”. “Birmingham will not tolerate the disrespect of our Prophet… You will have repercussions for your actions.” So claimed a leader of a Muslim protest against the film The Lady of Heaven. There were similar protests in cities from Bradford to London. Fear of “repercussions” led the cinema chain […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, fatimah, free speech, gatekeepers, gurpreet kaur bhatti, hanif kureishi, hudud, islam, mf husain, muslims, offence, roshan muhammad sakih, salman rushdie, sharia, shia, sunni, the lady of heaven

THE UBERISATION OF BRITAIN

May 4, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on labour insecurity in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 1 May 2022, under the headline “In the name of job flexibility, ‘Uberisation’ is spreading its tentacles across society”. In the late 18th century, as the impact of the Industrial Revolution bit into the lives of the nascent working class, the high cost of fuel, one study notes, “forced inhabitants of many southern regions to abandon home cooking”. Fuel costs were much greater in the south […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: anti-union laws, fire and rehire, gig economy, labour insecurity, labour market, margaret thatcher, new labour, p&o, poverty, thatcherism, tony blair, trade unions, uberisation, working class

SOVEREIGNTY NOT JUST WHEN IT IS POLITICALLY CONVENIENT

March 30, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the British denial of sovereignty , was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 March 2022, under the headline “As the imperial ties are being cast aside, a royal tour was always going to be a farce”. Sovereignty, we are told, matters. It matters in Ukraine. It matters in Brexit. And, for some, the freedom afforded by sovereignty in the one instance is analogous to that afforded in the other. Many of those who celebrate sovereignty against […]

Categories: Britain, International • Tags: british commonwealth, british empire, caribbean, caroline elkins, chagos islands, john stuart mill, kemi badenoch, nigel biggar, royal family, sovereignty, windrush scandal