“Women have no idea how much men hate them,” wrote Germaine Greer in The Female Eunuch (1970). It’s perhaps true that women, at least those who spend time online, have more of an idea than we used to. You don’t …
Tommy Robinson is copying the progressive playbook
A strange and dramatic metamorphosis has happened over the last few days. On the one hand, Tommy Robinson, the Right-wing activist and former leader of the English Defence League, has shapeshifted into a Left-leaning analyst of political protest. On the …
The truth about Britain’s teenage terrorists
To read a British newspaper or to listen to the rhetoric of counter-terrorism police, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country has incubated a new generation of child extremists. And not just any child extremists: unlike previous moral …
Britain’s futile battle against extremism
Back in 2015, word came down from on high that every British school was now bound by law to promote “fundamental British values”, lest they fall foul of Ofsted, or worse. Cast your mind back to the start of the …
The arrogance of fighting extremism
In Christopher Rufo’s new book, America’s Cultural Revolution, the conservative writer and professional shit-stirrer argues that a malevolent woke ideology, promoted by misguided Left-wing activists, has taken over America’s core institutions, “effectuating a wholesale moral reversal” under the rule of …
Manchin’s No Labels party could backfire
Third-party candidates in America don’t make history. But last week the senior senator for West Virginia made headlines, at least. Joe Manchin is hinting that he might run for the presidency in 2024, representing a new “No Labels” party advocating …
Inside the mind of a monkey-torturer
In 1944, my grandfather was serving aboard the USS Sealion (SS-315) when it became the first and only Allied submarine to sink an enemy battleship. The operation inadvertently imperilled more than 1,000 British and Australian prisoners of war. My grandfather …
How Lee Rigby’s murder changed terrorism
Like a still from a cheap horror flick, Michael Adebolajo stands with a meat cleaver and a large knife clasped in one hand. His free hand, saturated in blood, is raised towards the camera. Together with his accomplice and fellow …
The acceptable face of radical Islam
LoonWatch.com was born on April Fool’s Day 2009. At precisely 20:33:38, someone used the pseudonym “Zuhair Thomas” to register the new website with GoDaddy, an internet service provider based in Arizona. What “Zuhair” created was a platform for anonymous character …
Andrew Tate is not a terrorist
In 2020, I attended a meeting with various professionals and volunteers in Nairobi to discuss the recruitment of Kenyans by al-Shabaab, the formidable al-Qaeda affiliate across the border in Somalia. Midway through the presentations by assorted Europeans, the room began …
How the media whitewashed Isis brides
“Send the money now brother, we can’t wait. We are living with the Kafir [infidel] pigs.” This was one of hundreds of text messages I received in 2020 from Isis women living in Syria’s miserable al-Hol prison camp. As part …
The seductive horror of extremist violence
There is something horribly seductive about the spectacle of extreme violence: it’s disgusting, gut-wrenching, appalling. It’s also impossibly compelling in its extremity and strangeness: just look at it.
Anyone who builds a career out of watching such material, whether it’s …
The return of Satanic Panic
Of the 1,000 people who gave up their Saturdays to protest in London’s Square Mile, it was a middle-aged couple who stood out the most. They wore matching grey sweaters emblazoned with the words “STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING”.
Held on 17 …
Don’t fall for the Isis Matchmaker
I’ll never forget the moment I uncovered Umm Muthanna Al-Britannia’s real name. Back in early 2015, she was a brazen British propagandist and recruiter for the Islamic State. I’d been tracking her for months, almost marvelling at her shamelessness: she …
America doesn’t want a civil war
In the story America tells about 9/11, the attack was a tragedy, but a tragedy that united the nation. “We were able to come together as a country at that terrible time; we put aside differences,” said Hillary Clinton on …