menu_open Columnists
Patrick West

Patrick West

The Spectator

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Holy woke / Why is Keir Starmer wishing us Eid Mubarak?

Holy woke /					 													 						Why is Keir Starmer wishing us Eid Mubarak?
31.03.2025 3

The Spectator

Patrick West

Free speech / Why are police targeting parents who complained in a school WhatsApp group?

Free speech /					 													 						Why are police targeting parents who complained in a school WhatsApp group?
30.03.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Why are police targeting parents who complained in a school WhatsApp group?

Why are police targeting parents who complained in a school WhatsApp group?
29.03.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

London is really not as bad as people say

London is really not as bad as people say
22.03.2025 20

The Spectator

Patrick West

The audacity of ‘decolonising’ Shakespeare

The audacity of ‘decolonising’ Shakespeare
17.03.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Why Henry Kelly was popular

02.03.2025 20

The Spectator

Patrick West

RIP / Why Henry Kelly was popular

02.03.2025 20

The Spectator

Patrick West

Keir Starmer is right to cut foreign aid

26.02.2025 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

Sam Fender is correct, white privilege ignores class

24.02.2025 3

The Spectator

Patrick West

Why progressive activists feel superior

20.02.2025 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

Watch / Why is Tom Hanks mocking Trump supporters?

19.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Patrick West

The irony of the backlash against the DEI rollback

17.02.2025 3

The Spectator

Patrick West

In defence of The Apprentice’s Jana Denzel

14.02.2025 6

The Spectator

Patrick West

Society / What Gen Z gets wrong about ‘racist’ Britain

12.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Generation Bland / The inevitable rise of 'Palentine's Day'

12.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Why children peddle conspiracy theories

11.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Patrick West

Lego isn’t homophobic

07.02.2025 7

The Spectator

Patrick West

You’re nicked / Why Britons can’t stop stealing

22.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Jeremy Corbyn and the curse of the eternal 1968ers

20.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

The triumph and tragedy of Tony Slattery

15.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

Dead tree press? / What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg owe to the mainstream media

11.01.2025 7

The Spectator

Patrick West

Dead tree press? / What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg owe to the mainstream media

11.01.2025 8

The Spectator

Patrick West

What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg owe to the mainstream media

11.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Facebook is no place for politics

There was much jubilation yesterday among advocates of free speech following the news that Mark Zuckerberg is to relax restrictions on free...

08.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

Why we should be worried about Labour’s ‘Islamophobia’ plans

Is there a problem with Islamophobia? The problem is the word ‘Islamophobia’ itself. What does it actually mean, and what does taking the word and...

06.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Forgive Stephen Fry for supporting Stonewall

There has been much indignation at the roll-call of those ennobled in the New Year Honours. There’s been bewilderment that Gareth Southgate,...

02.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

Chocolat doesn’t need a trigger warning

Trigger warnings have become a totemic feature of our times, symptomatic of an age that is both hopelessly fragile and insufferably judgemental....

29.12.2024 3

The Spectator

Patrick West

There’s no such thing as a neutral centrist

Does religion matter in politics today? It certainly does, at least if you pose as someone who is neutral, as the BBC presenters do, or from the...

13.12.2024 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Toxic / Why men join the manosphere

The obsession with ‘toxic masculinity’ shows no sign of abating. As reported this weekend, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has warned...

09.12.2024 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

No, Keir Starmer: Brits don’t want ‘change’

Change. If one word can embody the political philosophy of Keir Starmer, it’s this one. The Prime Minister is ever so fond of it. Starmer deployed...

06.12.2024 5

The Spectator

Patrick West

Vegans aren’t saints or sinners

Vegans are a people both widely admired and hated. That is the conclusion of a report earlier this week, one that found that shoppers who opt for...

03.12.2024 7

The Spectator

Patrick West

Is DEI dead?

The triumph of Donald Trump and the defeat of a Democratic party beholden to identity politics has prompted many to conclude that woke ideology is...

30.11.2024 5

The Spectator

Patrick West

The trouble with Labour’s ‘respect orders’

As the Allison Pearson debacle begins to settle down, the lesson being drawn by many is that the police have no business harassing people for...

25.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Gary Lineker isn’t that bad

It’s a crying shame that we will no longer hear the insightful and original opinions of Gary Lineker. No more comprehensive and judicious...

17.11.2024 5

The Spectator

Patrick West

What the Boots Christmas advert backlash is really about

Christmas television adverts are meant to be comforting, homely, and traditional. While some find these offerings, especially John Lewis’s, overly...

13.11.2024 5

The Spectator

Patrick West

The strange death of English literature

The interest in reading books and the appreciation of English literature is at a nadir. This week it was revealed that only 35 per cent of eight to...

10.11.2024 3

The Spectator

Patrick West

Gambling laws / What Iain Duncan Smith gets right about freedom

One of Kemi Badenoch’s much-touted strengths is that she cares about British culture, society and our country’s values. She is renowned for her...

08.11.2024 2

The Spectator

Patrick West

Labour will regret its war on bus passengers

Aside from debates as to what actually constitutes a ‘working person’, the Labour government does ostensibly seem clear as to whom it wants to...

29.10.2024 3

The Spectator

Patrick West

The trouble with protest mask chic

We in Britain have become used to the hallmarks of anti-Israeli protests. There are the slogans decrying ‘genocide’. There are chants in sympathy...

12.10.2024 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

A remake of Cheers won’t work

One of the most popular sitcoms of the 1980s, Cheers, is set to return to our television screens. The show is set for a revamp, except now it will...

05.10.2024 30

The Spectator

Patrick West

The quest for diversity could finish off University Challenge

Universities today are well-known as places where progressive, hyper-liberal politics predominate. It’s only logical, therefore, that the cry for...

24.09.2024 5

The Spectator

Patrick West

Sleaze / Starmer’s freebies and the truth about Labour’s double-standards

The Labour government’s u-turn on freebies, its disclosure last night that it will no longer accept donations for clothes, is an admission that it...

21.09.2024 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

McDonald’s did not make Kemi Badenoch working class

Is it possible to change your class? Not just superficially – in moving up and down the hierarchy of social standing – but change it inwardly so...

19.09.2024 4

The Spectator

Patrick West

Robert Jenrick is wrong about the culture wars

To some people, the culture wars don’t matter. They are an irrelevance, an indulgence. A distraction from the material, bread-and-butter concerns...

03.09.2024 10

The Spectator

Patrick West

Labour’s puritanical attack on vaping

On Times Radio this morning Lucy Powell, Leader of the House of Commons, said that she wanted the government to ‘tackle the scourge of vaping’. Of...

01.09.2024 5

The Spectator

Patrick West

The culture wars are far from over

It’s only been a month since the new Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, declared that the ‘era of culture wars is over’. Yet this morning the Daily...

26.08.2024 6

The Spectator

Patrick West