theresa may | Pandaemonium

WHERE DOES THIS BULLY GET HIS IDEAS FROM?

December 3, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on an assault on a Syrian refugee schoolboy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the CRISPR baby). It was published in the Observer, 2 December 2018, under the headline ‘I know all about being bullied by racists. That’s the Britain I grew up in’. I cannot recall ever being ‘waterboarded’. But nor can I recall many days when, as a schoolboy, I did not return home without a bruised lip […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, hostile environment, immigration, racism, racist attacks, refugees, social media, theresa may, tobias ellwood

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE MODERATE?

October 15, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the meaning of being ‘moderate’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on AI and bias). It was published in the Observer, 14 October 2018, under the headline ‘Call yourself a ‘moderate’? You’re just avoiding the need to make your case’. To be moderate is to be good. That is almost incontestable political wisdom. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who has declared her intention to step down, is […]

Categories: Politics • Tags: austerity, british politics, european union, extremist, immigration, margaret thatcher, moderate, theresa may

LOOKING CLOSER TO HOME

June 11, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my opening keynote talk at the ‘Dehumanising the Other’ conference at the CEU in Budapest. It was called ‘Looking Closer to Home: How mainstream politics paved the way for the demonization of migrants’. A shorter version of the talk was published as the Sunday essay in the Observer on 10 June 2018. In October 2013, a ship carrying migrants sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Some 300 people drowned. It was not the first […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: africa, britain, emmanuel macron, european union, far right, fortress europe, greece, immigration, italy, lesbos, liberalism, populism, racism, theresa may, victor orban, windrush generation

ELITE RACISM AND THE WORKING CLASS AS ALIBI

April 23, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay was my column in the Observer, 22 April 2018. It was published under the headline ‘Elites still use the working class as an excuse for their own prejudices’. The ‘white working class’. It has become, in recent years, almost a synonym for ‘racist’. The belief that racism is a working-class problem, and that many in the white working class voted for Brexit for racist reasons, has become widely accepted among liberals (and not just among liberals). So, where […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, elite, enoch powell, immigration, immigration controls, racism, theresa may, windrush, working class

POST-ELECTION, NEW QUESTIONS

June 9, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Some quick, initial thoughts on the result of the UK general election, more raising questions than providing answers. . 1 It is in keeping with the lack of self-awareness and political nous that characterized Theresa May’s election campaign that she has insisted on staying on as party leader and Prime Minister, apparently to provide ‘certainty’, ‘stability’ and ‘legitimacy’. It is difficult to imagine, after the humiliation heaped upon her by the electorate, that she could seriously believe that she possesses […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, conservatives, election, european union, jeremy corbyn, labour party, theresa may, ukip

ON THOSE ‘DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS’

June 5, 2017 by Kenan Malik

In her speech outside No 10 Downing Street on Sunday morning in response to the London Bridge attack the night before, Theresa May insisted that ‘enough is enough’. ‘We cannot’, she said, ‘pretend that things can continue as they are.’ There is ‘far too much tolerance of extremism in our country’. Rooting out extremism ‘will require some difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations’. It was a speech long on rhetoric, but short on sense. It is May herself, first as Home […]

Categories: Britain, War on terror • Tags: british politics, free speech, islamism, jihadism, saudi arabia, terrorism, theresa may, war on terror

AN ELECTION BUT NOT A CONTEST

April 19, 2017 by Kenan Malik

An excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times, on the upcoming election in Britain. It was published under the headline ‘The Foregone Conclusion of Britain’s Election’. This could, and should, have been a vital election, the focus for a great debate about the kind of post-Brexit Britain people want, a fierce contest over issues from austerity to immigration. But the void where an opposition should be means that little of substance will be debated. . To […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: brexit, british elections, british politics, conservative party, jeremy corbyn, labour party, theresa may, ukip, working class

ON THE GRAMMAR SCHOOLS DEBATE

October 20, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the article I wrote last month for the International New York Times on the grammar schools debate in Britain. (I cannot publish my INYT articles on Pandaemonium until a month after it is published in the newspaper.) It was originally published under the headline ‘Why Britain Fails in Class’. Few people could have predicted the first policy on which Britain’s new prime minister would take a stand. It is none of the issues that have […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: britain, british politics, conservatives, education, equality, grammar schools, inequality, left, social mobility, theresa may, ukip, working class