Patrick West

Journalist, writer, columnist for @spikedonline Author of the book 'Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche For Our Times' (2017)

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

https://t.co/jgeGflgEV1 My latest for the Spectator: how a 'safe space' culture has spawned an intolerant society

[Gareth Roberts @OldRoberts953]

Spot on from Camilla and Tim. 🔥

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@joshxhowie @oxfamgb But at least they've taken down the Palestine flags for the month, otherwise people might get confused

[Andrew Orlowski @AndrewOrlowski]

Splitters 😡

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@agw1437 @Off_The_RailsUK Exactly! It's the passive, blithe disregard of people in positions of authority these days

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

Top tip for Underground staff at Kings Cross: if you spend less time nattering to each other you might spot people brazenly pushing their way through ticket barriers

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

"despite working-class support plummeting and union dues shrinking, Labour MPs continue to kid themselves that theirs is still ‘the party of working people’ "

[Joanna Williams @jowilliams293]

By me: Reform is now the undisputed party of the working class https://t.co/JeKarKZing

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

My latest for the Spectator ⬇️

[The Spectator @spectator]

Long gone is the time, towards the end of the last decade, when we all laughed off 'safe spaces' as the latest, neurotic fad confined to university campuses.

Few are laughing now, because in the ensuing years, as this risk-averse mentality has trickled down into mainstream society, the belief in the primacy of 'safety' is having outcomes that are proving ever-more authoritarian, frightening and – ironically – dangerous.

The decision last week by the British Museum to postpone a Jewish Culture Month event, citing its responsibility to guest speakers to 'proceed safely, securely and without intimidation' is a case in point.

This incident followed a now depressingly familiar pattern, of events featuring Jewish speakers, or centred on Jewish themes, being abandoned out of cowardice, out of fear of what far-left activists or Islamists might do.

In September last year, the Bristol Brunel Academy postponed a visit from Damien Egan MP due to planned protests by pro-Palestine activists. After Egan’s visit was halted, the Bristol Palestine Solidarity Campaign hailed it as a 'victory for parents, teachers and the community'. Or in other words: a victory for mafia-like intimidation.

✍️ Patrick West

Article | https://t.co/fHxykUqMCK

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

I don't think I have ever seen so many Arsenal shirts in my life as I have over the last fortnight. Nothing to do with our society becoming more superficial and people wanting to ally themselves with success, naturally

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@Adrian_Hilton @spectator @SpecCoffeeHouse Thanks Adrian. I thought the correct appellation in schools these days was 'the Prophet, peace be upon him'

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@DreyfusJames I think they sorely estimate how much the general population has come to resent this imposition

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

News from Italy

[Corriere della Sera @Corriere]

Deportazioni di massa e odio razziale: il milionario Lowe può far perdere Farage. L'effetto Vannacci sulla politica britannica https://t.co/XZfKdfYGsg

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

My latest for the Spectator ⬇️

[The Spectator @spectator]

In our era beset with extremism and ideology – and a current woke ideology propagated in obtuse prose riddled with slogans and cliches – we would all benefit from reading him more, not less.

✍️ Patrick West
https://t.co/EoNKdDJeYh

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

Some sensible and measured words by @Robspiked just now about the Pope's concerns on AI, not least on it going against today's misanthropic trend

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@eslreading 'She is not invisible. She never has been.' - Indeed. I liked the'taciturn, miserable git side of Orwell always been self evident'

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

https://t.co/eBNzcYxJMu My latest for the Spectator: why 'Down and Down and Out in Paris and London' shouldn't be removed from A-Level courses

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

My latest for the Spectator 🔽

[The Spectator @spectator]

How can you tell when an asylum seeker professing to be child is lying? Often, it's because he has crow's feet, a receding hair-line and a beard. In other words, it's sometimes obvious.

That's what makes so risible those stories we habitually read of men who are patently not children being granted asylum on the pretence that they are. We sigh in exasperation because we know why they have been let in: they have been granted entry by a system manned or manipulated by credulous do-gooders.

Human beings are good at intuition, at assessing each other non-rationally through mental processes we don't fully understand, of spotting fakes and fraudsters by their mien, gait and ostensibly innocuous facial gestures.

Thus the notion that we could simply employ AI to gauge the truthfulness of human beings is highly suspect. How can we create technology to mimic the workings of the human subconscious when we don't entirely comprehend how it works ourselves?

✍️ Patrick West

Article | https://t.co/7Zn1ctPzgO

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

https://t.co/YRDsL1oRcf My latest for the Spectator: the government is keen to offload to AI the responsibility for deciding which asylum seekers are bogus because it means not taking responsibility for their actions

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@davidxryan I loved 'The Book of Skulls'

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

@RussTayles Even older! But thanks. In a just world the coinage would have caught on

[Patrick West @patrickxwest]

Surprised and delighted to see my Nietzsche book on sale at Foyles, nearly ten years on