This video about Calum Thwaites, Bill Leak, Professor Bob Carter and Professor Peter Ridd that we showed to 500 attendees at the IPA’s 75th Anniversary Gala Dinner is why I’m so proud to work at the IPA:
Brendan O’Neill, editor of the brilliant Spiked, was the keynote speaker and talked about Brexit and the importance of liberty. Click here for the full video – my favourite part is when he says ” every idiot member of the politically correct class who says freedom of speech only benefits rich white men and has no benefit to oppressed groups ought to be dragged to the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews”:
If you weren’t able to join us on the night, here are some of the photos from the magnificent event:
Brendan O’Neill also sat down with Peter Gregory and I for an hour long interview on The Young IPA Podcast. You can listen to Part 1 of the interview on iTunes, the IPA website or any other podcast platform you use. Part 2 comes out tomorrow, so make sure you subscribe for free to the podcast!
The latest two episodes of The Great Books of Literature Podcast with John Roskam and Andrew Bolt have just been released. These two episodes are on Radetzky March by Joseph Roth and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – which John is not a fan of! Listen on iTunes, the IPA website or any podcast app you use.
President George HW Bush died on Friday last week. The editors of National Review said Bush was “by nature a captain, the ideal executor.” Daniel McCarthy in The Spectator USA was more critical, saying “if you don’t like Donald Trump – if you didn’t like Bush II or for that matter Bill Clinton – you should wish that George H.W. Bush never got into politics.”
However the worst coverage of Bush’s death has got to be the 800 word hit piece Slate published on…his dog. They said a moving photo of Bush’s dog lying next to the casket that went viral was “simply a photograph of a dog doing something dogs love to do: Lie down.” Twitter wasn’t kind.
Students of the now-defunct Sigma Chi fraternity at Stanford responded to requests from a university administrator to remove the ‘potentially discomforting symbol’ of the American flag from their property in the best way possible – they started flying a bigger flag.
| “(Woke) as far as I’m concerned, is the most annoying word of the 21st century so far. So when I say I’m anti-woke I basically mean hopefully that I’m a bit more chilled out than those people. A bit more willing to be offended and give offence and not so uptight about every single issue.” – Brendan O’Neill, Spiked |
Article of the week:
France is burning after mass protests over President Macron’s fuel tax increase, which was put forward to reduce France’s climate emissions. Already four people have died and over 250 have been injured. As Jonathan Miller explained in The Spectator USA on Monday, Macron’s “hubris, arrogance and almost autistic detachment from the French in the street is in a class with Marie Antoinette” saying to the French ” let them buy Teslas.”
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Peter Gregory
There is lots of positive news from Africa these days – a decade of accelerated growth, the reduction of trade barriers and, as Tyler Cowen wrote in this informative piece in Bloomberg last week, increasing peace and stability. Tune in to The Young IPA Podcast next week when we interview Linda Kavuka of the African Students For Liberty, all the way from Kenya, to talk about Africa’s burgeoning liberty movement.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Dr Bella d’Abrera, Literacy and numeracy skills are declining as students are taught to be more politically active – The Daily Telegraph
- Evan Mulholland, Turnbull’s act of woeful hypocrisy – The Sydney Morning Herald
- Dr Janet Albrechtsen, Speech to the IPA’s 75th Anniversary Celebration – IPA Today
- Daniel Wild, Get rid of Paris Agreement and RET – Sky News The Bolt Report
- Gideon Rozner, The reason the Victorian Liberals lost – Sky News Credlin
