Welcome to Andrew Doyle’s Substack
Welcome to my new Substack. Here’s a little bit about me in case you don’t already know.
I’m a writer, comedian and broadcaster. I’ve written two books which provide a kind of overview of my core beliefs: Free Speech and Why It Matters and The New Puritans. I have a show on GB News called Free Speech Nation. I also created the satirical left-wing activist Titania McGrath. Her two books are Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism.
Perhaps like me you’re feeling politically homeless at the moment. I take the view that the notions of “right” and “left” no longer apply. What has become known as the “culture war” has effectively killed off such distinctions. The true battleground relates to the perennial struggle of Liberty versus Authority.
We are in a new world in which we are facing intolerance from those who claim to be the most tolerant of all. Groupthink is now rife, the Overton Window is narrowing, and those who express unfashionable or heterodox views are often subjected to what has become known as “cancellation”. Many have developed a strange new determination to reduce all political disputes to a matter of good vs evil. All of a sudden, we've forgotten about the art of disagreement.
I was naïve in once thinking that this was a temporary glitch. Instead, the world has seemingly careered off its axis, and many formerly sensible people have dug themselves into trenches along strictly political and ideological lines. There is little communication, because everyone is talking at cross purposes, or redefining words in order to make compromise impossible. We have somehow allowed ourselves to descend into a Manichean world of angels and devils.
Much of my writing and broadcasting work is aimed at making sense of this collective madness.
I will be exploring these issues, and much more besides, on my new Substack. And I’m keen to broaden the conversation and engage directly with what my subscribers have to say.
A Thought Experiment
Try to imagine yourself ten years ago. Try to put yourself into the mindset of the person you were in 2014. Imagine that someone had suggested to you back then that in a decade’s time police would be routinely investigating citizens in the UK for “non-crime” – thousands of people a year, in fact. Or that in ten years’ time free speech would be dismissed in the press as a right-wing talking point, and that people describing themselves as “liberals” would be calling for censorship.
Or that activists would be demanding that statues of Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and even slavery abolitionists like Thomas Henry Huxley should be torn down, and that they would be taken seriously by the establishment. Or that major corporations would be paying a fortune for visiting speakers to berate their staff for their “white privilege” and telling them they should “try to be less white”. Or that some of the world’s leading experts on race relations would be claiming that the ideal of colour-blindness, so beautifully expressed in Martin Luther’s King’s “I have a dream” speech was actually racist, and that in promoting this dream, King was upholding white supremacy.
Or that one of the most prestigious schools in London would be segregating its pupils by skin colour for after-school activities. Or that a school district in Canada would be burning thousands of books because the contents are offensive to modern sensibilities, and that they would refer to this as a “flame purification ceremony”.
Or that a film aimed at young people on the BBC would be telling children that there are over a hundred genders, and teachers throughout the country would be doing the same. Or that politicians would stumble and stutter when asked “what is a woman?” and be unable to answer the question. Or that “woman” would become a dirty word, and that companies, charities, media outlets and even some factions of the NHS would be favouring phrases like “menstruators”, “bleeders” and “people with a cervix”.
Or that male rapists would be identifying as female and being moved to women’s prisons. Or that healthy teenage girls would be encouraged by health professionals to get double-mastectomies, and that young effeminate boys would be told that they are actually girls and that they should be put on medication to halt puberty. Or that reputable medical journals would be denying biological reality, claiming that sex isn’t binary at all, but that it’s a spectrum. Or that women would be fired from their jobs and subject to threats of death and rape online for saying that biological sex is real.
If, ten years ago, you’d have been told that this is what the future would hold, would you have believed any of it? No. You would have laughed. You would have said, none of those things can possibly happen in a free and liberal and sane society.
And yet here we are.
About Paid Subscriptions
I have come to the realisation that discourse on social media is futile. It is a model designed to reward egotistical and temperamental behaviour, and this of course has only exacerbated the culture war. I find the Substack model far more productive. It is a means by which I can develop my thoughts, and seek active and productive conversations with you.
All paying subscribers will be able to comment on my posts, and I will make an effort to engage with people’s ideas directly. I am always keen to hearing opposing viewpoints – it is how I refine and develop my ideas – but on Twitter/X such back and forth often descends into mudslinging. I am interested in hearing all perspectives, and having an adult conversation. I intend to use Twitter very lightly in the future, if at all, and reserve my real conversations for Substack. If you want to hear what I have to say, it’ll all be here.
In addition to written posts, I’ll be uploading audio and visual content from time to time, as well as exploring ways to make this Substack truly conversational.
So please consider subscribing. The world needs heresy more than ever.
