Fred Sculthorp

For this month's @TheCriticMag I wrote a profile of Birmingham, the 2nd city that offers a glimpse into England's 21st century. Featuring Reform vigilantes, the thinking man's Akhmed Yakoob and ominous signs and symbols

Following last year’s riots, the British state fears an outbreak of mass ethnic violence. I was in the thick of it all day last week as protesters attacked police and left-wing marchers outside an asylum hotel. Is this just the start of something bigger?unherd.com/2025/07/will-t…

Interesting how at the end of this press release, the only example the gov can give of how Altman and OpenAI is currently helping the state is speeding up a meaningless Blairite "public consultation" exercise no one took seriously in the first place

Imv the interview wasn't fair to the guy questioned. Also, you're talking about the man who wrote this, defending the English people as the ancestral majority, in those specific terms. How is that caring nothing for the country's host people? gbnews.com/opinion/englan…

"You are a serious person who does big things"

I wrote a short piece about why we're stuck with the ideas of the twentieth (or perhaps even seventeenth) century. On AI, philosophy, and the perennial flaws of human nature.

I took this as I left the pavilion about 20 minutes after the close of the remarkable first day of the 1st Test at Lord's on July 21st 2005. Shane Warne relaxes with a cigarette on the Australian balcony

Up for a probe into whether BOSS bugged the pictures in Downing Street. The GOAT No. 10 operation - Wilson’s doctor mulling whether to poison Marcia makes Boris era look like a tea party

I wrote this about the genius of Barry Lyndon, my all-time favourite film which is unique among historical dramas for really getting the strangeness and distance of the past thetimes.com/comment/column…

New in J’accuse: Reflections on the Kemi Badenoch worldview

This pseudo-intellectual cultural christianity basically exists for the purposes of telling off posh university girls upset (rightly) by what they've seen in Gaza. There's absolutely no interest in current"religious zealots" via recent migration preaching in Ipswich etc

Last night the state lost its monopoly on violence in a boring home counties town. This morning the Radio 3 bulletin was Greg Wallace rigmarole, impending War with Russia with a gaudy Classic FM sound/aesthetic. Another one for Britain is turning into Terry Gilliam's Brazil

I basically continue to think that the 21st century hasn’t yet produced any original ideas, and that, pretty much across the board, our most pressing concerns today were already anticipated and dealt with better by 20th century thinkers (including AI).

"What if I were to tell you your 'English identity' was invented by the Soviet Union?"