Writing from the Threshold
End of year reflection: On place, vocation, and finding a voice
Good day to my followers and subscribers — I hope you’re all enjoying the festive season.
For me, this period is usually a time to reconnect with friends and to reflect on the year just gone. In doing the latter, my writing became a point of focus. It’s been a foundational year.
I’ve never really thought of myself as a “writer” in the journalistic sense, nor as a creative. What I have always recognised, though, is an ability to hold complexity — to think beyond the surface and into questions of moral anthropology. That’s not something I ever deliberately pursued, beyond conversations with family and friends.
I’ve written occasionally for publications on questions of identity, but this year was different. This year was about using Substack to shape a voice. For the first time in my life, I approached writing as a medium for disciplined intellectual reflection.
It has been a life-changing experience — one marked by growth in faith, in relationships, and in moral clarity. I’ve also been genuinely surprised, and deeply encouraged, by how many of you have resonated with what I’ve had to say.
Writing has opened doors and formed connections I could never have imagined. I’ve found myself in conversation with political commentators who have cited my Substack pieces as helping them better understand moral worlds they observe from a distance but have never fully inhabited. In a small but meaningful way, the newsletter has become a bridge between inner-city urban life and the worlds of Westminster, Oxbridge, and the think-tank ecosystem.
One thing I’ve been less consistent about sharing is that, alongside Substack, I’ve also been writing for national publications whenever the opportunity arises. Over the past year, my work has appeared in The Telegraph, New Statesman, UnHerd, and Spiked, among others.
As a way of rounding off the year, I thought it would be helpful to share five of my favourite pieces — in no particular order — that I published outside Substack:
The new racism of the British right
Labour is ruining one of Britain’s great success stories
British courts shouldn’t have to protect Islam of criticism
Christmas trees aren’t anti-Christian
Finally, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all of you who have engaged with my writing — whether by commenting, sharing it with others, or simply reading and recognising the way I try to make sense of the world (even when you disagree).
My hope for the coming year is simply to build on what has been started here. This Substack has become my intellectual playground — a space where I’ve developed frames and coined terms that have since travelled with me into my writing elsewhere. It’s not something I take for granted.
Wishing you all a very happy new year. And then — we go again.
Happy New Year in Advance.