Paul Butterworth

English. Man. Opinions my own, but happy to share.

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@triggerpod @ThePosieParker @HelenWebberley As someone on the gender critical side, KJK was really poor here - outclassed by HW. Others wouldn't have been.

[Helen Pluckrose @HPluckrose]

"Bad, Mad and Broadmoor"
The public debate over Axel Rudakubana's transfer confuses criminal responsibility with psychiatric treatment.

New piece in next post

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@jamesleachpoet I'm interested. So far :)

[Claire Fox @Fox_Claire]

So many wonderful tributes to Ann from those who were her proper friends, so hard to add anything new. But here's a modest postcript, because I wanted to honour her. So a very personal reflection on a totally unlikely relationship across the political aisles. Thanks to @spikedonline for asking me to write it.

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

I thought I'd just done that. It's the focus on jews as uniquely obsessed with taking the blood of innocents.

As the article says: "Instead, Israelis are portrayed as villains acting against innocent victims. Palestinians are treated as symbols in someone else’s morality play, rather than adults trapped in a ruined political order partly of their own making."

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

As I haven't banged my head against this wall as often as @Mr_Andrew_Fox, I hope he'll forgive me for trying to explain.

I suspect @MichaelRosenYes think he's being clever here, his gotcha being that Burnham didn't actually accuse jews of liking a bit of gentile baby blood in their recipes.

This obviously misses the role played by the word 'echoing'. The article is pretty clear about how the blood libel is echoed today. Firstly, relatively directly, in that Israel is accused of deliberately targeting children, often in perverse and sadistic ways. Why they would do this isn't really explained - because, to a certain audience, it doesn't need to be - "After all, this is the jews we're talking about."

But the blood libel is also weirdly echoed today in that all Palestinians become the innocents, no agency, no responsibility, only wide-eyed victimhood. Whilst Israel is held to impossible standards, Palestinians, like toddlers, are held to no standards. Our only expectation of them is to be a repository for projection of pseudo-virtue, and for some, it seems no behaviour, however barbarous and intentional prohibits that. All is either unnoticed or forgiven, and a picture painted of innocent blood, in the spilling of which the jews, as they always have, apparently take sadistic delight.

The really important word in 'echoing blood libels' is 'libels' - they were lies then, and they are lies now.

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@StaveleyUncle @Mr_Andrew_Fox @MichaelRosenYes @jumbojd It might not be very nice to call even a silly old man a silly old man - but to focus on that, rather than the blood libel issue at hand seems a little diversionary, no?

[OurFightUk @OurFightUk]

Our Fight was proud to stand in support of Dame Maureen Lipman on the opening night of the West End run of her play, Allegra.

Throughout the theatre tour she has been targeted by a campaign of abuse and intimidation from anti-Israel activists to the extent that Maureen—an 80-year-old woman—has had to hire a private security team.

Although her security said it wasn't safe for her to come out and greet us, she sent over the following statement:

"The theatre is a sacred space and not somewhere for [activists] to make political points or air their grievances. If they think they have a right to free speech then they must also accept that I also have the right to think differently to them. My intention is to bring pleasure to hundreds of people every day; sadly, theirs is to disrupt the trust between actor and audience in order to get publicity for such a hateful cause."

She concluded by sending the attached photo, and saying: "I’m so grateful to those who turned out to support me."

#MENSCH #StandWithMaureen

⁠Mensch is a Yiddish word, meaning a person of genuine decency and moral backbone. Today, in 2026, having 'moral backbone' means to stand publicly with the Jewish community at a time when visible solidarity is most in need.

To find out more about being a mensch check out our website:

https://t.co/mPNOwsY4UC

(Link is also in bio.)

[Rt Hon Nigel Evans @nigelmp]

This is nothing short of Brilliant by Ann……. Sit back and follow the straightness of the compass that will always land you on solid ground. Thank you Ann and rest in Peace whilst your legacy lives on. X

[John Boyne @JohnBoyne]

I rarely post on here anymore, but I have to say to @PeterTatchell:

It shouldn't take the news that an elderly woman was murdered rather than dying of natural causes to change a post from revelry & name-calling to 'R.I.P. Ann.'

The sheer hypocrisy of that cannot be lost on any person of good character.

This is why so many people - gay, straight and anywhere in between - find your rhetoric misogynist, divisive & hateful. People are allowed hold different opinions. We can disagree with them, we can even judge them, but every life is of value and we all leave loved ones behind.

A little bit of kindness, compassion and, quite honestly, basic human decency can go a long way.

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

EU: Lowest use of air conditioning

Highest rate of heat deaths

With US-level AC, it could save about 26,000 lives a year

Europe is rich and has, by latitude, fewer hot days than most inhabited regions

Its aversion to air conditioning is entirely because of an energy-degrowth ideology

https://t.co/6cFme3jeMr

You can see all the references in my Twitter thread:
https://t.co/4VBxE7J43W

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Why can't Britain turn its green revolution into cheap energy?

Guardian asks the right question and then don't answer it

Real answer too embarrassing — 2 systems (renewables and 100% backup) are costlier than 1

https://t.co/qK371bdCZJ

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@Gtrain62 @ProfHall1955 If you think the Soviet space programme didn't require great leadership, you might want to look up Sergei Korolev.

And before you come back with your 'ah, but he wasn't a billionaire' zinger, please remember what's being questioned here is not Musk's money, but his necessity.

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

You can, of course, come up with examples where a state has mobilised huge resources to achieve some specific goal, or where a bloke in his bedroom has written some computer code. They are rare, and at least in the case of the Soviets, rather make the point, in that in Korolev they had figure in some ways comparable to Musk.

You can object to Musk making lots of money - fair enough, but that's entirely different to denying his ability to get remarkable stuff done, which just means denying reality.

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@Toryyugo @ProfHall1955 Well, if you want to go down the 'who originated the space programme' route, that doesn't necessarily end where you'd like it to.

Appreciate you are at least willing to debate, unlike @ProfHall1955, who seems to have blocked me 🙄

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@Toryyugo @ProfHall1955 I see you've listed all the examples.

If that's how it works, I guess you and some pals will be getting together and building a space ship this weekend.

[Paul Butterworth @PaulButterworth]

@Thomas23353301 @ProfHall1955 Logic error: "repeatedly building great, complex things requires great leadership" is not the same as "this person is a leader, therefore he is great at building complex things".

You're welcome.

[Matthew @Lux1090]

The history of post-war Britain is essentially the educated middle class giddily, gleefully taking a sledgehammer to every single load-bearing pillar in society in the belief that the roof will somehow stay up through the sheer force of our own cleverness.

We're now finding out.

[Heidi Bachram @HeidiBachram]

I will never forgive Keir Starmer for recognising the State of Palestine while Israeli hostages were being tortured, starved and sexually abused. It was an obscenity to reward Hamas for evil.