March 14, 2024 - 4:00pm

→ Labour MP calls Lee Anderson a ‘snowflake’

There was no love lost between Labour MP Dawn Butler and Lee Anderson today when she called the newly defected Reform MP a ‘snowflake’ on X today. Anderson was responding to The Spectator front cover which showed an unflattering caricature of him holding a wooden plank, looking menacingly down at Rishi Sunak.

Caricatures are meant to be just that — caricatures — but the former deputy chair of the Tory party clearly didn’t see the funny side. He responded to the cover by claiming that it “made me look fat and old with a big nose”, rounding off the tantrum by warning that “legal advice being sought.” At least the Speccy artist didn’t include the Odysseus of Ashfield’s clay feet.

→ Margaret Atwood criticises Canada censorship bill

Who can guess which Canadian public figure wrote the following about Justin Trudeau’s new speech bill? “If this account of the bill is true, it’s Lettres de Cachet all over again. The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting! Trudeau’s Orwellian online harms bill”. No, it’s not Jordan Peterson. In fact, it’s novelist Margaret Atwood, who criticised the Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, on X.

We’ll give her a pass on using possibly the most over-used cliché in the English language to describe the law (“Orwellian”), but her concerns appear to be well-justified. Bill C-63 would allow judges to imprison adults for life if they advocate for genocide and impose house arrest if there were reasonable grounds to believe a defendant “will commit” an offence. Euthanasia, censorship and open borders — all seems well in the Great White North!

→ Scholz gets schooled

Olaf Scholz is among the least popular politicians in the West — and it’s easy to see why. Compare his rote, heavily scripted remarks on Israel with Malaysia PM Anwar Ibrahim’s fluent defence of Palestinian rights. There are strong arguments to be made for either side, but the contrast in style and substance between the two leaders left one clear winner.

“You cannot find a solution by being so one-sided and erasing 60 years of atrocities,” said Ibrahim. “The solution is not just releasing the hostages. What about the settlements”? Meanwhile, in his inimitably robotic manner, Scholz repeated for the umpteenth time that Israel had a right to defend itself and that Germany supported a two-state solution. No wonder Germans are clamouring for an election…