The dangers of “curbing extremism”

I’ve come out of blog hiding for this because I think it’s really important. And I’ll try to keep it short. These are words spoken by David Cameron this morning about the Tories’ proposed new measures for “curbing extremism”: “The problem that we have had is this distinction of saying we will only go after you if you are an extremist that directly supports violence. “It has left the field open for extremists who know how not to step over the line. But these are people who have radicalised young minds and led to people heading off to Syria or Iraq to take part in this ghastly slaughter.” The reason we’ve had this distinction is quite simple: one is an incitement to violence, the other is political...

Posted by on Sep 30, 2014 in Politics | 1 comment

NHS dentists; or, how I learned to start worrying and hate my teeth

I’ve just come back from having the second of two fillings put in at my new dentist. Why did I need two fillings, you ask? Well, this dentist is the first dentist I’d visited in over ten years. Why did I stay away for so long? I’m not really the squeamish type: I don’t have a problem with jabs, blood tests and so forth… I went ahead with a circumcision given an on-the-spot choice about having it that day, for heaven’s sake. No, I stayed away because the NHS dental system itself set the ball rolling on the cumulative fear process. The cumulative fear process, as I call it, is that process that occurs when you put something off because you’re scared of it, but the longer you put it off, the scarier it becomes, which of...

Posted by on May 9, 2011 in Politics | 2 comments