“Peak Woke”

Disney has pulled out of its Doctor Who partnership with the BBC after just two series following what critics called the show’s “woke” rebrand.

The US streaming giant has confirmed it will not be involved in the next series of the sci-fi favourite following reports of lacklustre viewing figures.

The break-up means Doctor Who will not return to TV screens until Christmas 2026, with a special episode written by original showrunner Russell T Davies.

Canada’s practice of Indigenous land acknowledgements, viewed by many as a pivotal component of reconciliation, is not without its critics, including some Indigenous leaders and scholars who see them as a performative token gesture.

Andrew Schulz: "I think it's funny when governments try to enforce care… like anytime I'm performing in Canada if it's on an indigenous area they make me do like…"

Joe Rogan: "Land acknowledgement?"

Andrew: "I said that kinda seems like bragging."pic.twitter.com/CC5VFR57cc

— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) October 22, 2025

The centerpiece of a new exhibit in Los Angeles is a mangled junkyard of a statue, with horse and human limbs glommed together like some kind of zombie Ichabod Crane. Now dismembered beyond recognition, the piece was once a statue of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

Is there a cure for the civilization-ending woke mind virus?

I was all set to write a column weighing in on the excellent Helen Andrews piece at Compact about the feminization of our institutions and the damage that’s done — though what I would say is that Alla Margolina did an excellent job expounding on that subject in a post we picked up at RVIVR.

And then something else came up, which really deserves a bit of treatment.

The Metropolitan Police has said it will no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents to end the practice of officers having to police “toxic culture war debates”.

Scotland Yard today announced that the comedian Graham Linehan would face no further action after he was arrested last month over three tweets.

OH, the BBC. The front cover of Radio Times for the week beginning yesterday draws our attention to a season of FEMALE-LED shows. Of course it does. The viewing public wants nothing more than another tranche of hard-boiled, resourceful, compassionate girl-bosses leaving their male colleagues trailing helplessly in their wake. After all, who could possibly object to a female boss?

Woke began the day, 20 years ago, when Larry Summers was forced out of Harvard for saying there are innate differences between men and women, argues Helen Andrews in Compact. His cancellation was feminine, because all cancellations are feminine – and the rise of wokery is synonymous with the Great Feminisation as women become majorities in Western workplaces. Here’s an excerpt.

In 2019, I read an article about Larry Summers and Harvard that changed the way I look at the world. The author, writing under the pseudonym “J. Stone”, argued that the day Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard University marked a turning point in our culture. The entire ‘woke’ era could be extrapolated from that moment, from the details of how Summers was cancelled and, most of all, who did the cancelling: women.

If any institution in the world provides evidence of Freud’s concept of the death instinct, it is the Church of England. With unfailing aim, it does whatever will hasten its demise, already quite advanced. Shortly after it appointed Sarah Mullally as Arch Social Worker (formerly Archbishop) of Canterbury, it proceeded to vandalize its mother church, Canterbury Cathedral, not by forbidding but by actually commissioning graffiti on its ancient columns, incensing almost everyone but a small coterie of evangelical Wokeists.

Last month, leftists erupted when it was announced that former gaming titan Electronic Arts (EA) had been sold to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a firm owned by Jared Kushner. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund joined Kushner’s Affinity Partners to acquire the studio behind the “Madden,” “Battlefield,” and “Sims” franchises in a $55 billion deal.

EA had long been gamers’ preferred corporate villain. A pivot to live-service models in contrast to well-crafted single-player narratives alienated core fans, ballooning budgets meant that the company had to squeeze every penny out of consumers through predatory practices like loot boxes, and activist influencers within the company began poisoning content with their woke ideology. By the time the Saudis and Kushner appeared, shareholders were desperate to ditch a dying company.

Quebec is banning the use of gender-neutral inclusive language in all official communications.

French-language Minister Jean-François Roberge will present legislation at the National Assembly to this effect Wednesday.

He said newly emerging gender-neutral words, which are often used by transgender and non-binary people, create “incoherence” in Quebec’s official language.

Because nouns are gendered, Roberge’s rules also prohibit writing in a way that neutralizes them. Newer neutral pronouns like “iel” – which is used similarly to “they” in English – won’t be allowed either.