Spiked

Launched in 2001, as Britain’s first online-only current-affairs mag, spiked is a metaphorical missile against misanthropy.

It’s the publication that puts the case for human endeavour, intellectual risk-taking, exploration, excellence in learning and art, and freedom of speech with no ifs and buts, against the myriad miserabilists who would seek to wrap humans in red tape, dampen down our daring, restrain our thoughts, and police our speech.

spiked is a fan of reason, liberty, progress, economic growth, choice, conviction and thought experiments about the future, and not so big on eco-miserabilism, identikit politicians, nostalgia, dumbing down and determinism.

Events this week proved that the maxim ‘Truth is the first casualty of war’ is truer than ever. We’ve seen thousands of people, including a BBC journalist, tweet photos of dead Gazans that are actually dead Syrians. A pic of a pro-Russian separatist holding up a teddy bear from the wreckage of MH17 sped around the world as evidence that these foul people are rifling through dead people’s belongings, when in fact the separatists were holding an impromptu prayer session for the victims. A UN claim that ISIS is forcing all the women of Mosul in Iraq to undergo FGM was reported in serious media outlets across the world, but it later proved to be of highly questionable provenance. Too many people are looking in foreign warzones for signs and things that will bolster their already-existing prejudices and worldviews. How about we all take a step back, think, and hammer down for the truth of these complex wars?

Last week, a student mob pressured Oxford University’s Christ Church College to cancel a debate on abortion, claiming that the debate threatened students’ welfare. This week, students’ censorship-seeking continued apace. At Glasgow University, pro-Palestinian students shut down a debate featuring an Israeli delegate; and at the University of East Anglia, a student clique successfully petitioned for the no-platforming of a UKIP MEP, saying he would make some students feel uncomfortable. This is bad news. Universities are meant to be places where students have their ideas challenged – intellectual discomfort ought to be embraced, not avoided. There are stirrings of resistance with the news that Cardiff University students voted against plans to ban pro-life speakers from campus. We need more of this - more free speech, more debate, more intellectual discomfort. This is why, in the coming months, we’ll be really pushing spiked’s ‘Down With Campus Censorship!’ campaign.

This June it will be 800 years since the signing of the Magna Carta, a document that not only guaranteed certain rights to rebel barons, but also sowed the seeds of the modern era. There it is, quill-penned on age-old vellum: the idea that the state’s power needs limiting in order to free up the individual. Today, as readers of spiked know only too well, this idea is fraying - we’re barely trusted to decide for ourselves what to eat or drink, let alone determine our own futures. So to mark the Magna Carta’s anniversary, we’d like to invite you to a spiked debate, at 7pm on Thursday, 28 May, in London, where we’ll be exploring the relationship between the the state and the individual, and asking, in particular, whether the gains of the Magna Carta are being undone? Book your places here.

•   Brendan O’Neill - Environment
  Are you now or have you ever been a climate contrarian?
  The fury over Bjorn Lomborg Down Under confirms the intolerance of greens.
   
  
•   Tom Slater - General Election
  Milibrand: the myth of ‘the alternative’
  What passes for radical politics today is as downbeat as the mainstream.
   
  
•   Sean Collins - Race
  Riots in Baltimore: a crisis of authority
  The instability points to a moral vacuum in America’s inner cities.
   
  
•   Jon Holbrook - Politics
  Tower Hamlets: the tyranny of fake ‘anti-racism’
  If only Lutfur Rahman had been toppled by debate rather than a judge.
   
  
•   James Heartfield - Housing
  Reclaim Brixton: gentrifiers against gentrification
  Middle-class moaning ignores the real causes of the housing crisis.
   
  
•   Joanna Williams - Parenting
  Why not let kids walk home alone?
  The case of the Meitiv children shows how little adults trust each other.
   
  
•   Brendan O’Neill - General Election 2015
  Kick the cops out of the election campaign
  The investigation of Jim Wells is the behaviour of a police state.
   
  
•   Luke Gittos - Film
  Force Majeure: familial failures
  A new film explores the hollowing out of family life.
   
  
•   Tim Black - Celebrity
  Ben Affleck: a slave to identity politics
  From multiculturalists to feminists, too many think that we are defined by our inheritance.
   
  
•   Alexander Adams - Books
  Dyatlov Pass: a chilling mystery solved?
  Science may hold the key to unlocking a tragedy that has fascinated since 1959.
   
  
•   Duleep Allirajah - Football
  Cameron, Villa and the scourge of soccerism
  Why is the PM so keen for us to believe he’s a football fan?
   
  
•   Barbara Hewson - Law
  #NotGuilty: the myth of victim-blaming
  
   
  
•   Worldbytes - Video
  Question dine: the election and chips
  

Eight hundred years ago, in a field near Windsor in England, some men gathered to watch King John give his seal to a document designed to put off a brewing civil war. They could never have imagined the impact that their bits of paper, referred to as Magna Carta, would have on the future of humanity. The rights outlined in Magna Carta, which back in 1215 only applied to barons, would inspire revolutions and constitutions for centuries to come, everywhere from England to France to America and further afield. But today, the very idea of rights, of the sovereign individual who must not be unduly interfered with by officialdom, is under threat. Which is why, this week, spiked has launched a new website devoted to discussing Magna Carta, and more importantly how we can strength the freedom of the individual against the authority of the state in the 21st century. Click here.