Sean Walsh
September 11, 2019
Regular contributor Sean Walsh provides us with an analysis of the last week in Parliament. So this is where we are. A government that sought but […]
August 29, 2019
Sean Walsh provides us with a humorous but much needed insight into the decision yesterday to prorogue parliament in early September. So the Prime Minister has […]
August 18, 2019
Proposals for a government of national unity are the latest symptom of the Remain insurgency’s breakdown in cognitive dissonance, which is rapidly collapsing into madness, says Sean Walsh.
August 8, 2019
Dominic Grieve thinks that it would be “extraordinary” for the Prime Minister not to step down in the event he loses a no-confidence motion. By extraordinary Grieve means unprecedented. But we all know Grieve’s relationship with “precedent” is, of course, a sort of Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor thing, a bit, as it were, “off and on”, says Sean Walsh.
August 1, 2019
Sean Walsh believes the legacy of the troubles is being weaponised to undermine a “no deal” Brexit. Even if a “no deal” break with the EU stirring sectarian violence, it may still be the right thing to do. The morality of a decision is not exhausted by its consequences.
July 29, 2019
You cannot make the Withdrawal Agreement less malignant by removing the backstop any more than you could make Quasimodo more attractive by giving him a nose job, says Sean Walsh.
July 22, 2019
An occasionally serious look at the nature, structure and logic of “the feud”: with examples from sport, philosophy and politics.
July 19, 2019
Conservatism is being hijacked. Sean Walsh asks what, specifically, the hijackers of the movement wish to ‘conserve’, aside from their embedded system of mutually agreed privileges?
July 8, 2019
The liberal pack has a curiously selective offence antennae, says Sean Walsh.
June 24, 2019
Commentators continue to peddle a false narrative over what “no deal” means and what the EU obligations are when it comes to the approaching October deadline.
June 12, 2019
Sean Walsh argues that a “details” Prime Minister is not what we want in a moment of national crisis. “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? […]
June 3, 2019
Michael Gove’s endorsement of Theresa May’s Brexit Deal and his consistent support for her leadership undermines his credibility as a candidate to successfully lead the country out of the European Union, says Sean Walsh.
May 28, 2019
Even before the votes were counted the Continuity Remainers were wrongly interpreting what people had voted for. You cannot simply amalgamate the votes in ways that suit you, says Sean Walsh.
May 23, 2019
May’s offer of a second referendum is impossible because to call for it is to announce the death of those versions of trust that made the first referendum possible in the first place. You can’t ask for ref2 without invalidating it in the mere act of insisting on it, warns Sean Walsh.
May 21, 2019
Sean Walsh discusses Scruton, Wine, Philosophy, Addiction and Recovery.
May 13, 2019
Sean Walsh discusses Blade Runner, the Prime Minister and anger at the EU Elections.
May 8, 2019
Corbyn’s refusal to dine with Trump is not hypocritical – it’s worse than that, says Sean Walsh.
April 26, 2019
Sean Walsh thanks David Lammy for the gift of a new life and for helping him escape the clutches of Nazism.
April 16, 2019
The present Brexit situation is too absurd to satirise. Unfortunately, that absurdity is a real feature of the situation and one that threatens the legitimacy of any way out of the impasse. In particular, the possibility of a meaningful second vote.
April 2, 2019
Sean Walsh describes Parliament’s discussion over Brexit as being like a bad undergraduate seminar in which nobody’s done the reading.
March 27, 2019
Sean Walsh asks what can a fake Turk chess playing machine teach us about the nature of the mind?
March 14, 2019
Yesterday’s Parliamentary fiasco was the consequence of a failure to see that from June 2016 the political/commentator class has deceived both us and them. The Commons chaos is the disorder that follows when the talent to emote trumps the ability to think, says Sean Walsh.
March 5, 2019
Sean Walsh argues we live in a post-modern context where words and truth do not necessarily correlate. Theresa May’s “off the peg” approach to language makes her an exemplary postmodern Prime Minister.
February 26, 2019
Sean Walsh believes Shamima Begum might be better off not returning to a country in which her own case has confirmed that even the occupiers of the highest offices of the land prefer to “virtue” signal rather than deal with her awfulness.
February 22, 2019
Wednesday’s Tory defections have shown that Monday’s launch had little to do with anti-Semitism and more to do with stopping Brexit. Chuka Umunna, in particular, does not come out of it well. But where all this ends is beyond reasonable speculation.
February 13, 2019
Sean Walsh discusses Donald Tusk’s recent comments regarding a ‘special place in hell’ reserved for Brexiteers without a plan, explaining that not only are they gratuitously insulting but that they are theologically inept.
February 8, 2019
Sean Walsh discusses the case of Harry Miller who was contacted by Humberside Police after he “liked” a limerick said to be offensive to the LGBT community and explores the broader implications the incident raises for the emergence of ‘intolerant liberalism'.
January 21, 2019
Public trust is essential in delivering political change. Without such trust a fundamental covenant is broken and legitimate change moves in the direction of coup d’état, says Sean Walsh.
January 16, 2019
As the dust starts to settle, Sean Walsh examines the spiritual and political physics of yesterday evening’s historic Parliamentary vote.
January 4, 2019
The Christmas break is unlikely to have seen Dickensian interventions in the lives of the Continuity Remainers so expect them to go all out for a “second referendum”. Despite the fact that in throwing out the result of the first vote they are also ditching their own mandates.
December 19, 2018
The High Apparatchiks of the modern university campus are more dangerous than the “phobias” they claim to be protecting students from. Time to start laughing at them.
December 13, 2018
Last night’s vote served its purpose: more uncertainty as the spurious cover for a second vote.
December 11, 2018
Theresa May’s mistakes in the Brexit Odyssey are well documented. But it’s not all down to one imperfect human being, says Sean Walsh.
December 7, 2018
Darwinism (or evolutionary biology) and its offer of a specific story of the evolutionary mechanism has some plausible detractors, says Sean Walsh, including Darwin himself.
December 3, 2018
Sean Walsh discusses Sir Cliff Richard's recent appearance on ITV's Loose Women and the singer's controversial support for the Blackstone ratio: the idea it is better ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
November 27, 2018
Sean Walsh explores the mind of philosopher and thinker Sir Roger Scruton, believing the Government’s decision to appoint him head of its new housing commission, ‘Building Better, Building Beautiful’ is prudent.
November 26, 2018
Overwork has led to the Prime Minister becoming deluded about the very nature of her own Brexit deal. She must take a step back for all our sake, says Sean Walsh.
November 19, 2018
May’s attempted political assassination has come to look a bit like that final scene in Reservoir Dogs in which the heist has gone wrong and everybody has a gun being trained on them. And that scene does not end well.
October 23, 2018
October 16, 2018
The common law basis of our political system means disputes are mostly local and can be resolved at that level, Sean Walsh argues. The EU’s structures were always in conflict with that intuition. The vote to leave those structures was an expression of that intuition. The Prime Minister is blind to it, hence her negotiating strategy has failed to incorporate it.
October 12, 2018
Sean Walsh believes intelligent design may be a false hypothesis. Nevertheless, the key point is that it is not a creationist or even a theistic hypothesis at all.
October 9, 2018
The claims against Justice Kavanaugh struggle to meet a formal ‘accusation’. An accusation makes truth claims and serves as an obligation to assess those claims. But if the intention is not to serve due process but to dismantle it then no such claim is being made. What has been claimed about Justice Kavanaugh does not rise above the level of slur, says Sean Walsh.
October 4, 2018
Philip Hammond lacks the charisma, dynamism and experience required to run our country at this its hour of maximum need, warns Sean Walsh.
October 2, 2018
Sean Walsh explores the moral agency driving cognitive structure. He asks why C3PO shouldn’t have as much right to the position as Luke Skywalker.
September 24, 2018
Sean Walsh asks whether the real and current political anger tainting the public mood is a symptom of efforts on behalf of those determined to overturn the June 2016 result.
September 21, 2018
Sean Walsh believes Michael Gove’s EEA proposal is capitulation not compromise.
September 14, 2018
Sean Walsh considers the Labour leader’s recent comments regarding Zionism and his ironic use of irony. He argues that at the very least the Labour leader accommodates - and quite possibly encourages, a culture of intolerance and that he sits atop a movement of activists that are ever vigilant and always anxious to find something to be offended by.
August 24, 2018
If successful, the consequences for the Remain movement’s attempts to filibuster the result of June 2016 are very dark indeed, warns Sean Walsh.
August 13, 2018
Even considering the panorama of nonsense the liberal consensus offers us it has truly excelled itself with this latest Boris debacle, says Sean Walsh. Indeed, has this piece of well-crafted rubbish been bettered, he asks?
August 9, 2018
Despite his numerable failings, Donald Trump has two virtues, says Sean Walsh: first, his ability to offend those who really ought to be offended, and, second, his ability to consistently differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton at every turn.
August 1, 2018
A meaningful Brexit is dead, warns Sean Walsh, but the damage wrought by Theresa's May betrayal is even more extensive.
July 23, 2018
Sean Walsh argues that for an interview to be more than an effort in verbal confrontation it needs to be more like a conversation – a facet lost on John Humphrys.
July 12, 2018
Sean Walsh discusses Danny Dyer - actor, thespian and well-remunerated announcer of words written by other people.
July 6, 2018
The European Union’s stated aim of an ever-closer union is based upon an intellectual confusion. It is the character of the EU itself that should determine our perception of it rather than the hum-drum trivial distractions we see daily, says Sean Walsh.
July 5, 2018
The framing of the abortion debate along the line of a mother’s ‘right to choose’ concedes too much to a secular liberalism that is both widespread and historically anomalous, argues Sean Walsh.
June 27, 2018
Sean Walsh argues that for the BBC to rehabilitate itself it needs to interrogate its default assumptions and to get serious.
May 17, 2018
Brexit Derangement Syndrome is just a natural consequence of an unhealthy attachment to politics. It’s now rampant within Project Wreck, says Sean Walsh.
May 9, 2018
The particular history and situation of Northern Ireland is instructive in terms of the Brexit discussion. Not because departure from the customs union would endanger peace, but because language matters. The “Remainers” are winning the linguistic battle. Time to push back.
May 2, 2018
It is not the responsibility of government to solve the problem of homelessness, argues Dr Sean Walsh. It is the responsibility of us all. The homeless person does not present a set of problems to be solved but a unique centre of absolute worth who can help us reconfigure our own moral landscape.
April 27, 2018
Sean Walsh believes the case for leaving the EU is at its strongest when it’s made in ways that transcend simple economics.
April 20, 2018
To say that addiction is a type of illness need not be to say that addicts are not responsible for what they do, says Sean Walsh. The active alcoholic is constrained by their illness. But freedom and responsibility are consistent with constraint. And acceptance of responsibility is a necessary condition of recovery.
March 23, 2018
Stephen Hawking’s reputation as a scientific great is well deserved. But even great scientists can get it wrong when they abandon philosophy. Science and religion, faith and reason, are not in tension but are complementary; faith is not the same as superstition.
March 9, 2018
Anna Soubry’s vapid attacks on Jacob Rees-Mogg are deranged, argues Sean Walsh. How his having never changed a nappy has a bearing on his eligibility as a political leader is unclear. Churchill never wiped a baby’s bottom, but that doesn’t mean we should have settled for Lord Halifax instead!
February 9, 2018
Last week MPs voted to temporarily vacate the parliamentary buildings; the increasing likelihood of a soft-Brexit suggests it might not be worth them moving back in, says Sean Walsh.