HeyJaredThe Gadfly
Skewering the absurdities of our age. Making sense of the ideas behind them.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 11
- Latest publication
- Sep 22, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 12, 2026
Latest issues
The Burqa and the Cowards (opens the original)
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I was waiting for a lift at a hospital in an Islamic part of the world (not Britain, though) when the doors opened, and a man stepped out, followed by four dark figures: women, presumably, fully covered in burqas, not even their eyes showing. When my gaze finally settled on the man, I saw a face of pure hatred, aimed straight at me – the sort that might precede a violent stabbing. It all happened in seconds, and I quickly lost myself in the small crowd shuffling into the lift that he and his pro
The ‘Free Palestine’ Cult Has Come for Ed Sheeran (opens the original)
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If Ed Sheeran paraglided into a music festival and began gunning down twenty-somethings as they fled, we would call him a monster. If he then subjected the survivors to further horrors, we might reach for a few adjectives in a hopeless attempt to describe what we were seeing – a depraved and sadistic monster, perhaps. And if he had strapped on a GoPro to record every moment of the massacre, stopping midway to call his dad on a looted phone and boast of his day’s work, we might finally understand
This Intricate Rented World (opens the original)
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<img alt="a large white building with a dome with St Paul's Cathedral in the background" class="sizing-normal" height="639" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2_Bb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazona
The Man Who Wouldn’t Pretend (opens the original)
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<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="578" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kTfb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7489920a-8088-4a2f-9573-cd6069d5c2ac_770x578.png" w
What the Hell Happened to Amnesty International? (opens the original)
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Welcome to The Gadfly Dispatch – a weekly collection of notes and shorter arguments on politics, culture and whatever else has caught my attention.<img alt="Human Rights For Future signage" class="sizing-normal"
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