The threat to a British liberty

yank

Once in a great long while, the leftist Spectator publishes something truly representative of liberal or conservative thought, and this is one of those times. Kudos.

Pity that it only comes because the Spectator itself has come under an illegitimate spotlight, but welcome aboard the good ship liberty, in any event.

Nicholas

Oh, but it is East Germany. And I blame you, and people like you, who sat on Question Time for 13 years, all jolly good chums, and let it happen. This could have been stopped by those with the public profile and voice to do it. But you let it happen. This is the result. Thought crime. Speech crime. The police investigating what people think and say and read and look at.

strapworld

Well, Mr Nelson, welcome to the real world. It obviously missed your attention when others have been prosecuted in the past on these draconian laws.

Like immigration, like the EU, politicians have changed this country into as Nicholas observes East Germany.

Actually that is rather fitting considering that next week Parliament will rubber stamp a major change in the EU constitution which will effectively give Germany the controlling hand in the EU.

It is time, Mr Nelson, for you and yours to wake up and act. Although I suspect it is too late.

Cabbie

Fraser do not bowdlerise my next comment!

Perry

'In a way, I felt Blair deserved it – because it was under him that such daft laws crept their way into the system.'

More work for the ruddy lawyers - a gang that include both the Hero of CMD and his 'pardner' - and the PC nazis !

Oh please let's be rid of these parasites!

Cabbie

The muslim criminals who slaughtered the Fogel family are morally depraved.

Your magazine has my registered details should Bedfordshire plod wish to contact me please forward.

Alexandrovich

Yep. Got to agree with Nicholas.
'...and then they came for you.' Shall we get on our high horses about this on your behalf? Already have. For years. But we were just eye-swivellers, weren't we.

Graham Booth

Quite right Nicholas (although I'm not sure I can see what more Fraser and Co. could have done to stop it).

I recall reading with a sort of morbid fascination and horror, Bernard Levin's regular columns in The Times, back in the 1970s and 80s, when he dealt with the many abuses of human rights taking place in the old Soviet bloc; how this academic, that community figure or other would-be critic of the regime, who had dared to speak their minds were treated.

Well, it's here now, that's for sure.

Robert Eve

What is so wonderful about decriminalizing homosexuality?

Tiberius

You do make yourself sound unrealistically naive over this, Fraser.

TrevorsDen

Bedfordshire. The twilight world of the barren landscape that is Bedfordshire. You are welcome to it.

Bocephus

The fact that a British Police Force would spend one minute looking into comments that do not incite violence against someone is an utter disgrace. Britain is not a free country and the British public and to a lesser extent British newspapers don't care because for the most part the police clamp down on views which most people - including me - find disgusting.
However, occasionally they clamp down on views which are mainstream and that briefly upsets the media. If the Guardian, Independent & BBC had stood up years ago for the BNP's right to say disgusting things we would never have reached this point. It may not be as bad as East Germany but the fact that an otherwise law abiding citizen can end up with a criminal record, which can ruin their life, for something they said is quite frightening.

sleeping dolls

I have to say that Ms Phillips is doing her cause no favours with her increasingly ranty and emotional polemics. Her column is sounding more like the crazed speeches of islamic nutters than a rational contribution to a hugely important issue.

But hey, that's the way she feels, she loves Israel, and doesn't try to hide that passion. I value her blog not least because of the arguments that follow in the comments. It would be a sad day indeed if she was prevented from telling us what she thinks, and making us all think a bit too.

AAE

I work in a profession where one-off short-term contracts are the norm, as is a pervasive marxism, the perceived consensus of which it would be professional and financial suicide to contradict in the smallest degree. And I don't imagine one could have much of a career in the public sector either without kow-towing to the inherently contradictory mantra of "equality and diversity". This Taliban thinking and control has long been ridiculed by Littlejohn, Gaunt and the like, but they are not in the accepted Westminster circles, so I'm glad that the onus has now been forced onto The Spectator which, by it's privileged position and in vociferously protecting it's own, will put at least one barricade in front of those on the long march. It'll be a big fight Fraser and I hope you and your publishers have the stomach for it because as things stand some are more equal than others, and that's just not "fair"!

Craig Strachan

Fraser: " she referred to the “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who killed the Fogel family"

Well, let's think about this one. Would it be appropriate to refer, say, to "the moral depravity of the Anglo-Saxons who killed Jamie Bulger?"

Tron

When I was young if someone said "you can't say that" the reply usually was "I'll say what I like. It's a free country!"
These days I never hear anyone say "It's a free country." I have seen people whisper behind their hands when talking about, say, the level of immigration in London.
People don't know what you are "allowed" to say anymore so certain subjects are avoided.
I can hardly believe this has happened in England under the rule of the freedom loving, lefty liberal, baby boomers. And the all-seeing gaze of the BBC.

Hysteria

what cabbie said.....

bring 'em on..

John

Well done for clocking on.

You seem to be pretty good mates with Dave - perhaps you could ask him to do something about it? He doesn't seem too bothered at the moment.

Verity

Craig Strachan - If this individual was killed in Britain, then mentioning the shared ethnicity of the majority (so far) of the British would be a bit silly.

In addition, as you are well aware, it is the fascist nature of islam that impelled the comment. Not ethnicity. So mentioning Anglo-Saxonship in an Anglo-Saxon country would be a little de trop.

Frank P

sleeping dolls

"I have to say that Ms Phillips is doing her cause no favours with her increasingly ranty and emotional polemics."

Well go back to sleep doll and leave it to others to warn of impending dangers. Nothing emotional, or ranty about our Melanie's analysis. There are some bad bastards about and she's sounding the alarm. It appears that the polite warnings over many years have been falling on deaf ears. I, for one, approve of a raised voice when the enemy is not only at the gates, but already through 'em.

When you see fire in a theatre, you don't shout fire in the whispering tenor of a lady's fart! Shout F-I-I-R-R-R-E!!! And hit the fire alarm! And call the fire brigade!

Keep punching above your weight, Melanie, get it off your chest, gal. Thank heaven there are still some journalists remaining who have the courage to report it the way it is and heap opprobrium on murderous fanatics.

And though I agree that the expressed support of the Ed. is a little tardy, it is nonetheless welcome and better late than Neather. ;-)

Matthew Blott

It's disappointing (though not surprising) that Fraser Nelson says he is proud of the bigotry that occasionally gets served up under his edtiorship. That said, I agree with the gist of his comments and am dismayed at the recent trend of the Police investigating opinions. I hope Coffee Housers understand there are plenty on the left like myself who may disapprove of racist, homophobic and misogynistic views that we unfotunately hear from time time, but we also absolutely defend the right of those who speak those opinions to be able to do so freely.

Bob

Have you yet done an article on the threat to British liberty from 'Commom Purpose'? A so called charity (a political charity)using Behavioural Modification techniques & training 'Future Leaders' of society?
http://www.ukcolumn.org/articles/dark-actors-playing-games

ndm

Funny how Fraser Nelson neither linked to the Guardian story nor brought up the following from a mere four months ago:

-- The Spectator and contributor Melanie Phillips today published an online apology to a prominent British Muslim they falsely accused of antisemitism.

Today's apology, published on the Spectator website, follows an out of court settlement in which the magazine and Phillips agreed to pay Mohammad Sawalha "substantial" compensation and his legal costs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/25/spectator-apology-muslim-antisemitism?INTCMP=SRCH

I suspect there is more than a touch of blind cowardice in his omission. The Guardian story is at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/18/pcc-melanie-phillips-spectator-blog?INTCMP=SRCH

Mike

Somewhat pompous to equate the Spectator's output with British Liberty.

Fergus Pickering

Craig Strachan, but would you wish the person who spoke of the moral depravity of the Anglo-Saxons to be prosecuted and imprisoned? You WOULD? Ah well. Its your right to spout balls. It's a free cuntry.

wsmith

Fraser,your and the media's commitment to the ostracism of the BNP and others by way of the National Union of Journalist Code of how to slam people whose politics you disagree with has done more to destroy Freedom of speech than any other single act by a so called fourth estate.I can understand how you must be feeling to be a victim of all this PC nonesense but unless the press and the individual journo stops blackballing and gives a fairer balance one must expect what goes around comes around.

Mr Adequate

I don't think the Spectator does itself any credit to continue running the increasingly deranged Phillips articles.

Her tone has definitely changed recently, and for the worst. I would describe myself as strongly pro-Israel, but by Mel's lights and in the eyes of her fans below the line, I am an anti-Semite.

Her most recent article is a 1,800 word rant with a single line in a Telegraph article as its catalyst.

The article where she castigated the press for insufficient reporting of the Fogel murders - at a time when thousands were dying in Japan - shows how she has lost her compass.

Finally, the repeated assertions - above and below the line - in her blogs, that all Britons, rather than the fools of the liberal left and a few BNP loons, are anti-Semitic leaves a nasty taste.

kurup.s

Once the laws agaist th so called hate-speech are passed only the censors have freedom.

daniel maris

Fraser,

You can hardly complain when you don't allow honest comments about the life of Mohammed in this forum and people who express racist views are banned. You have also failed to be robust in defence of the right of artists to draw religious figures.

It seems to me that while racist views are deeply unpleasant, it is wrong to ban people from expressing them. The dividing line surely has to be between expression and incitement. It is wrong to incite violence or other illegal acts against individuals or groups of people.

Freedom of speech is absolutely vital to functioning democracies. We see how dangerous a lack of freedom of speech. For a decade or more politicians were cowed into silence on the issue of mass immigration, until its effects became so strong as to be unignorable, but then the damage was done.

We need freedom of speech, which means freedom of speech for speech you would never utter yourself.

Hexhamgeezer

Verily you serve up 'cask strength' opinion, but only in carefully moderated doses in no way proportionate to their popularity. And it is not necessary to swear or be libellous to be censored either.

Noa.

Fraser

I fully support the position you define. Is the Spectator prepared to defend our nearly gone freedoms and lobby the near extinct remains of the Conservative party to address these issues?

Oh and wot Cabbie said.
Wot Cabbie says.

Hexhamgeezer

Craig Strachan 19th, @ 12:29am

Fake leftist equivalence. The Fogels' butchery was a vile racist political act against an identifiable member of another creed.

The Bulger murder was not. It's genesis was collapsed social nurturing producing value free (young) criminals. And were the 2 killers Anglo-Saxon as you claim to know, or were they celtic, or a mix? Either way it doesnt matter because poor James was not murdered because of his ethnicity you berk -the Fogels were.

As you almost say, try to think about it.

Roy

What is it coming to? I've always thought Melanie Phillips very moderate and fair. The other crowd (and we know who they are) can commit treason in their anti-societal actions, yet nothing is done. They can make death threats and nothing is done. They can chase the police through the streets like dogs in an anti-establishment mob, and nothing is done. What is missing is the truth, afraid to be spoken, Melanie picks her way through the minefield very well indeed, knowing they're all there waiting. And we know who's side the umpire is on, don't we?

Fraser Nelson

Craig Strachan, I hear what you say. What I'm asking is whether it should be illegal to write what she did. You can argue that Melanie is guilty of a monstrous generalisation, and that one should not talk about "the Muslims" who carried out 9/11 because that's defamatory on Muslims. All very valid arguments. My point is that the ability to have such an exchange of views in a public forum is an essential British liberty which ought to be protected. Nick Cohen is also very good on this point.

Mark Cannon

Oh deear, oh dear! What Ms Phillips wrote was:
"Today the massacred Fogel family was buried in Jerusalem. And as anticipated, the moral depravity of the Arabs is finding a grotesque echo in the moral bankruptcy and worse of the British and American ‘liberal’ media".
If she meant to refer to the "moral depravity" of the murderer of the Fogel family, she could and should have been more careful in her use of language.
I am in favour of Ms Phillips' right of free speech and would regard any prosecution or even police investigation as an outrage. But that does not make it good manners or even good journalism to be offensive.

Publius

"The muslim criminals who slaughtered the Fogel family are morally depraved."

I second that.

Also what Nicholas and others have said.

It's time to realise what's going on out here, Mr Nelson.

ralph

Fraser,

The best approach would seem to be for The Spectator to highlight these events. Let the public see what these laws are producing.

xenophon

I agree with Robert Eve. Calling for the decriminilisation of homosexuality is nothing to be proud of; in any case I struggle to see the relevance.

ambrosine shitrit

A bloody outrage. I would gladly stand up in a court of law for and on behalf of Melanie Phillips and tell them about the fogel family massacre, and ask them if they think, investigating Ms Phillips, talking openly about the cutting the throats of a baby and children, have anything to do with Bedfordshire Police. You do realise that this also covers Luton,and one wonders who in the Police have got the time to investigate something that has been printed in a magazine, which is the Truth. I am waiting also for people to arrest me. No one will stop me from speaking the truth.

Neil Turner

Sleeping Dolls

"I have to say that Ms Phillips is doing her cause no favours with her increasingly ranty and emotional polemics. Her column is sounding more like the crazed speeches of islamic nutters than a rational contribution to a hugely important issue. "

Ranty and emotional eh ?

Just what would it take for you to get ranty and emotional ? I presume butchering Israeli infants doesn't raise your pulse ?

Erica Blair

I expect Mad Mel to plead insanity and get off!

Nicholas

Matthew Blott: "I hope Coffee Housers understand there are plenty on the left like myself who may disapprove of racist, homophobic and misogynistic views that we unfotunately hear from time time, but we also absolutely defend the right of those who speak those opinions to be able to do so freely."

Well yes. But the three pejoratives you cite are all to often used to characterise any and all opinions which do not conform to the rather strident and expectant orthodoxy of the left. Is an opponent of feminism automatically a misogynist? What is the male equivalent of a feminist? What is the opposite of an "ethnic minority"? A majority sure - but what sort of majority? The majority are constantly told by the left that they have no ethnicity and in a truly multicultural society can there even be ethnic minorities? In a society with a legitimately established Black Police Officers Association is someone who only wishes to defend and promote the rights and interests of white, Christian, English people, to celebrate their culture, heritage and history a racist? Or must we maintain the deceit of the left that every single white male figure from our history is damned by the circumstances of his times? The left have created these pigeon holes, box canyons, contradictions, inconsisencies and verbal mazes and by seeking to manipulate and censor the language around them have made matters immeasurably worse.

Also, where it somewhat breaks down is that the left do not ever use the latter two pejoratives to describe those characteristics when expressed within and as part of a certain faith. They are generally only applied to white, heterosexual, often Christian, men which is itself a form of pernicious discrimination.

The left really needs to get its house in order and to get the enormous beams out of its own eyes instead of continuing to shriek hysterically about the motes in the eyes of others.

Iain Hill

100% support. I do not always agree with MP, in fact she often outrages me, but she must be allowed to speak out. She is often contentious, but never discourteous.

whatawaste

Fraser

What about something far more sinister: hyper injunctions?

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110317/halltext/110317h0001.htm

All the MSM including yourselves have ignored this, why?

EC

The Jihad on free speech is illustrated by the show trials of Geert Wilders in Holland, Mark Steyn in Canada, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in Austria, Lars Hedegaard in Denmark. Now, courtesy of whoever is pulling the strings of the the Bedfordshire Plod, we can soon expect to see Melanie Phillips in the dock in the UK.

The UK where, thanks to laws passed by Harman et al, causing offence to a third party is now a crime. As usual facts and the truth are not admissible in defence because causing offence is the crime. It's beyond a joke, and FFS don't try to joke about how bad things have got because humour consists mostly of the truth and that might cause some fucker to be offended!

I can't say that I'm surprised about this recent development. Melanie is the most strident of the very few journalists that dare to speak out against the Jihad and the AGW fraud. I expect both parties have been trying to nobble her for some time now.

Good luck Melanie.

Scary Biscuits

"Go easy on the Bedfordshire police," says Fraser.

Well they and the CPS could help themselves by making it clear they are NOT investigating. Until they do that, they deserve all the opprobrium they get.

Maggie

It's Melanie Philips' hypocrisy that is difficult to take. I don't remember her making much of a fuss about the 1400 Palestinians killed in 20 days of slaughter by the Israelis a couple of years ago. Her outrage never extends to the drip drip drip of Palestinian deaths that has continued ever since by Israeli tank shell, machine gun, grenade launcher, rifle and airstrike. It seems she has no objection to mass murder in general so long as the victims aren't Israelis.

davidk

Disgustingly racist language. The Spectator should hang its head in shame for continuing to employ this odious woman.

Slim Jim

Suppose the Spectator (or Melanie) does get prosecuted,do you think the punishment (if found guilty) will be a £50 fine, like the one handed down to that moron who burned poppies?

Nicholas

FN: "CoffeeHousers should go easy on the Bedfordshire Police, they have probably filed this complaint in the same drawer as UFO sightings."

It's not the Plod, it's the barmy law they serve and the barmier people who promulgated it (q.v. Harm The Nation) so that other barmy people could exploit it. Last time I looked the little green men in saucers were not seeking to make what I might think or say illegal. Those who were are infinitely more sinister and a far greater threat to our society - although sometimes equally difficult to see and believe in.

Frank Sutton

Is the complainer offended by the Melanie's description of the killers as "Arabs" or "morally depraved"?

Frank Sutton

By the way, Fraser the evidence in your article that the Beds plod are investigating appears to be purely anecdotal - no comment from them?

whatawaste

Nicholas

Google: hyper injunction which has surfaced due to Fred Goodwin's super injunction being exposed. A case exists where a man had this injunction imposed where if he contacted his MP his child would be made a ward of state. Stasi or what?

wrinkled weasel

I despair when so many commenters miss the point, that point when the red mist descends and all they can do is go off on one.

This is not about Melanie Philips, it is about the way that speech is not only being politicised but it is also being delegated to the executive, and thus becoming an organ of repression.

Let's face it, visits from the plod and the shrill "look at poor oppressed me" reactions are a little OTT.

Someone expressed an opinion in the column of a respected magazine. Nobody has died. Nobody should feel personally agrieved, but some affect to do so because they are busy fighting for the top position in the pyramid of political hegemony.

There is more than an element of beligerence lurking beneath the cries of "unfair".

Jack R

What Melanie Phillips rightly did, in her analysis of the murders of the Fogel family, (and what most of the MSM did not do), was to point to who the perpetrators were, and to their moral depravity.

Bookworm

My God!

Where's the beef?

Somebody above says Melanie Phillips had to apologise last year. For what? For acting in bad faith? For acting maliciously?

Er, no. Because she reproduced a translation taken from another news source.

There but for the grace of God goes every journalist, for heaven's sake. Once something is reported news, it's reported news. So what if she had to apologise for it? It's not as if she set out with malicious intent. It was was a mistake any journalist could make.

As to the Bedfordshire Police investigation. What's her crime?

That she is unable to mangle the English language and shoehorn in every precise meaning of her post in one sentence!

If there is any doubt about the moral depravity she was talking about, it comes in what follows her introduction.

What is she supposed to do from now on?

Write huge screeds without full stops and commas? She says there is moral depravity and then details that moral depravity. There was nothing of a sweeping generalisation about it at all.

The evidence is spelt out sentence by sentence. Can any reasonable person doubt that what she details in that post is not morally depraved?

Let's take a hypothetical scenario in which someone is writing a book about the Second World War and writes: "At times, the moral depravity of the Japanese was only eclipsed by the Germans."

What would we infer from that? That every Japanese was morally depraved? Or would it more likely refer to some of the Japanese jailers in prisoner of war camps, whose ill treatment of their prisoners was only outdone by their German counterparts?

It would be the accompanying sentences that would reveal their true meaning, just as they do in Melanie Phillips' post.

I suggest those who seek clarification on what Melanie Phillips means read the rest of that post.

Or is it the case that they already have and didn't like what they found there because of all the home truths it contained and so would rather see her smeared instead?

denis cooper

I hope Melanie Philips will understand if I say that I very much hope she is prosecuted.

Not that I believe she has done anything at all which should lay her open to criminal charges, but because it's only through a high profile case with a well-funded defence that the government may feel compelled to ask Parliament to legislate to finally bring this decades-old nonsense to an end, so restoring proper freedom of speech to the rest of us who are far less able to defend ourselves.

I'm not demanding the right to provoke public disorder or incite crime or reveal state secrets, longstanding and justified legal restrictions on our freedom of speech, just the right to say what I think, and maybe make what is obviously intended as a joke, without having to fear a visit from the plod.

I don't see this as an essentially party political issue: the Tories had plenty of opportunity to repeal Section 70 of Labour's 1976 Race Relations Act:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74/pdfs/ukpga_19760074_en.pdf

which kicked it all off by creating the crime of "incitement of racial hatred", even though racial hatred is not itself a crime, and even though it violated the age-old principle of mens rea - a guilty mind, an intention to do wrong - but instead the Tories were gutless and careless of our civil liberties and chose to go along with it.

George Laird

Dear Fraser

“It’s a funny old world”.

Even in the back of a squad car?

Ask them to put on the lights and sirens if you get hauled off.

And don’t say anything till your ‘brief’ gets there. I watch old episodes of Minder!

“I have now been contacted by two journalists informing me that Bedfordshire Police are investigating The Spectator. Why? Because of the Melanie Philips blog where she referred to the “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who killed the Fogel family in Israel.”

I used to comment on her blog but she didn’t like my attitude and neither did the rest of the ‘lovefest’ members who haunt it.

“CoffeeHousers can judge for themselves if they agree or disagree with her language and views but should this be illegal?”

Free speech is legal and so is propaganda.

“The Guardian has written this story up, claiming The Spectator is being investigated by the Press Complaints Commission. This is untrue”.

Don’t you just love facts;it’s a dying art these days in politics.

“The PCC tell me that a complaint has been lodged, but that’s as far as it has gone. They investigate only if they believe there is a serious prospect that their code has been breached, and it hasn't. Our blogs, as well as the magazine, adhere to the PCC code”.

Seems fine to me!

“But all this raises an interesting point about freedom of speech. It baffles me why the Bedfordshire Police – who presumably have plenty real crime to solve – should have to sit down with a print-out of Melanie Philips' blog and decide whether to prosecute The Spectator for printing her remarks. It’s not their fault: laws have been passed which means that (for example) Tony Blair faced a six-month investigation from the North Wales Police when they read in Lance Price’s memoirs that he had been rude about the Welsh. In a way, I felt Blair deserved it – because it was under him that such daft laws crept their way into the system. Under him that Britain started to become a country where people are prosecuted for what they say, rather than what they do”.

The rise of the thought police is a problem.

“Just over a year ago, the Crown Prosecution Service put out a statement saying that they had decided, on balance, not to prosecute Jan Moir for her remarks about Stephen Gately. This again conjured up another mental image: of CPS officials, all bent over a page of the Daily Mail and working out whether the author should be put in jail. Again, think of the other crimes going in in Britain – the other demands on the CPS time. How did we get to this point? The Bedfordshire Police are not expected to be a local Stasi. Last time I checked, this is not East Germany. To me, the idea of being imprisoned for what you say, or what you tweet, is deeply sinister. And one which should raise more protest than it does”.

This is because of the rise of PC Culture, where the purpose is to label people so that they can be ignored or marginalised.

“The Spectator is in the firing line quite a lot because we are in the business of serving up cask strength opinion – and have been for 183 years. We hire brilliant columnists, and give them freedom to say what they want. We were rude about the Tolpuddle Martyrs, we offended people calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1957 (ten years before it happened), hardly an issue goes by without some kind of controversy. We don't sanitise, or homogenise. It is our columnists' honesty that gives their articles force. When I meet readers, I head one plea more than any others: "don't tone down Rod".

And you let George Laird comment here!

“We are proud to be associated with columnists of the intelligence and eloquence of Rod Liddle, Matthew Parris, Taki and far, far more. When Jan Moir was in trouble, Matthew Parris rode to her defence in The Spectator - you don't have to agree with what she wrote to defend her right to say what she thinks. This is a British liberty. We are proud to have the greatest stable of bloggers of anywhere, and proud that Melanie Philips is one of them. Those who find her opinions not to their taste have the option of not reading her blog”.

Too true!

“The last piece Melanie wrote for the magazine was about the freedom of speech. I recommend it to CoffeeHousers. We have no First Amendment protection in this country, and we're suffering from it. Freedom of expression under attack in Britain, from our notorious libel laws to this new phenomenon of police forces being asked to investigate what people put on their blogs”.

I have been censored myself because certain people objected to my take on things, it was put to me that if I didn’t remove certain posts I had written I would be disciplined by my party.

I removed the posts but told them I won’t be writing about them ever again and also this was the last time they would ever censor my blog.

Censorship is generally used by people of little intelligence who try to front that they are society’s great opinion formers.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

bubble

"It baffles me why the Bedfordshire Police – who presumably have plenty real crime to solve – should have to sit down with a print-out of Melanie Philips' blog and decide whether to prosecute"

Since fast-tracking and sociology-cops promotion above inspector is decided by willingness to kowtow to PC doctrine. People who want promotion need to actively seek out stuff like this to fill their CV with.

After years of this most senior officers are that way now so it's self-replicating and change of government is irrelevant.

The way out is to
1) Take out the top level through directly elected Chief or directly elected police authority that hires and fires the chief (who in turn can hire and fire etc).

2) Scrap fast-tracking and go back to promotion on years of service combined with an exam to maintain a minimum brains threshold. Twenty years of being spat at will knock all the sociology out of them.

Joseph Templeton

I find Ms Phillips' views particularly odious, and offensive. But the last thing I would want would be the police knocking on people's doors because of such sensibilities. "Free speech" is something of a myth, but in my view we have gone too far. So please keep offending people like me!

blazeaway

I will also refer to the moral depravity of the Arabs who killed the Fogel family.
I don't know these Arabs, or the Fogel family - but am proud to be able to say what I think without being intimidated.
The Lancashire Police are free to investigate me - and I'll repeat what I say

Sir Everard Digby

Fraser,the Spectator is as guilty as the rest of the media in allowing this situation to arise. If I may paraphrase Rosa Luxembourg:
'“Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away and becomes a caricature of itself'

Apt,I suggest. What are you going to do next? Carry on as you are -supine comrades of the political classes,or really be different? They will come for you again.....

Craig Strachan

Fraser: "Craig Strachan, I hear what you say. What I'm asking is whether it should be illegal to write what she did"

No, of course it shouldn't be subject to any legal sanction. But would a bit of judicious editing be too terrible?

inayat

Fraser: Your post is very misleading and cowardly for a couple of reasons.

1. It is clear from the actual Spectator blog post that Melanie Phillips was not simply referring to the killers of the Fogel family but to all Arabs. Here is the quote from her article:

“…the moral depravity of the Arabs is finding a grotesque echo in the moral bankruptcy and worse of the British and American ‘liberal’ media…To the New York Times, it’s not the Arab massacre of a Jewish family which has jeopardised ‘peace prospects’ — because the Israelis will quite rightly never trust any agreement with such savages — but instead Israeli policy on building more homes, on land to which it is legally and morally entitled, which is responsible instead for making peace elusive. Twisted, and sick.”

Note, that she refers to the 'moral depravity of the Arabs' and describes them as 'savages'. This goes far beyond a denunciation of the killers. It is racist speech about Arabs.

2. Melanie herself is on record as commending our laws on incitement to racial hatred. This is from her blog in 2005:

“Attacking people on account of their race is to attack what they are. Attacking people on account of their religion is to attack what they think. The former is an uncivilised attack on our common humanity. The latter is an integral part of debate in a liberal democracy.”

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=332

An “uncivilised attack on our common humanity”…I couldn’t have worded it better myself.

inayat

Here is Melanie Phillips supporting the jailing of David Irving in 2006 for incitement to racial hatred:

"For the issue raised by the Irving case is not one of freedom of speech. It is incitement of racial hatred...Context is everything. Irving’s statements are not a simple matter of gross historical error. They are not even merely an expression of prejudice. They are an active incitement to hatred of the Jews."

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001602.html

Verity

Sleeping Dolls - I haven't read Melanie Phillips for yonks because she has become increasingly obsessive about a cause that I'm not that enthusiastic about, but she has every right to write any thoughts she damn' well chooses as long as they're not libellous. Actually, I think she also has the right to write libellous thoughts as well, although would have to take the consequences of the victims taking her up on it. That would be in the manner of a civil action.

None of this is criminal law and there is absolutely no excuse for the police to become involved.

The chief, or whatever, who directed this enquiry needs to be prosecuted for criminal harrassment.

Verity

Craig Strachan - That was not the question.

Fraser (who has let us all down over Neathergate) is the editor of this publication and the final decision on whether to run anything is his. He chose to let it run. That is as it should be.

If the readership is incensed enough, they will stop patronising the mag and its advertisers, meting out the punishment of the marketplace.

Phillips did not write anything criminal and the police have no role in magazine editorship.

Verity

Inayat - I speak as no fan of Ms Phillips, but she is entitled to have have feeling about a whole race of people if she chooses.

Many people have a blanket dislike of the Irish, or the Germans. Or the French. (Or the Brits.) This is silly, but it is their legal right.

If Ms Phillips chooses to paint all Arabs with the same brush, that is her right in a democracy. You seem to have a little difficulty understanding the concept of "democracy". Anyone can hate anyone for any reason. What they cannot do is act on that hatred motivated only by race.

That followers of your prophet have difficulty getting their heads round freedom of speech is the fault of the followers of your prophet, not those of us whose ancestors developed the pillars of our legal system.

denis cooper

I don't think you can say from that article that she was positively "commending" the laws on incitement to racial hatred.

She may have intended to do so, but that's not quite the message I'd take away from her preceding sentences:

"The ostensible purpose of this bill is to give religions the same protection afforded to Jews and Sikhs, who are defined as racial groups and so are covered by the law against incitement to racial hatred.

In fact, this offence is rarely used because its curb on free speech is considered to be so draconian."

Verity

The para you praised, Inayat - "“Attacking people on account of their race is to attack what they are. Attacking people on account of their religion is to attack what they think. The former is an uncivilised attack on our common humanity. The latter is an integral part of debate in a liberal democracy.” - says nothing about arresting people who publish opinions you don't like.

"an uncivilised attack on our common humanity". Inayat grandly adds, "I couldn't have worded it better myself." Well, no, you're not a writer and you don't have the intellectual ballast.

However, even attacking, or condemning, the entirety of humanity is NOT AGAINST THE LAW IN BRITAIN.

It may be against the law of your god, but Britain is not a theocracy and his/her opinions don't obtain.

Ms Phillips is free under our British law, to write whatever opinions she chooses.

inayat

Verity: 'None of this is criminal law and there is absolutely no excuse for the police to become involved.'

Well, incitement to racial hatred is a criminal offence. The police and the CPS will have to decide whether describing Arabs as being 'morally depraved' and 'savages' constitutes hate speech. I personally have no doubt that had someone as high profile as Mel P described Jews as 'morally depraved' and 'savages' then they would be swiftly prosecuted.

denis cooper: 'I don't think you can say from that article that she was positively "commending" the laws on incitement to racial hatred. She may have intended to do so, but that's not quite the message I'd take away from her preceding sentences.'

Fair point, but I hope the second quote I provided from Mel P about the prosecution and jailing of David Irving demonstrated her support for the racial incitement laws.

logdon

inayat
March 19th, 2011 4:00pm

Mr Bunglawala strikes again eh? I won't grace you with the familiarity of a forename. I leave that to your nice , cosy Guardian readership.

Nothing better to do? What with all the upheaval in the ME between your peace loving brethren I'd have thought that this itty bitty amateur semantic stuff you seem to love so dearly and obviously revel in could have taken a back seat. For once.

Still, leopards and spots really are indivisible, I guess.

By your complete absence of any compassion for the poor Fogel family I take it sweets passed around your haunts after the news broke. After all, that's what those 'Arabs' you're so keen on defending did.

Rather than dealing with the substance of Melanie's piece you ramble around the edges, seeking trouble and then, seemingly, waste police time dealing with this nonsense.

Then again you and your ex alma mater, MCB do have a problem when it comes to Jews.

I seem to remember Iqbal Sacranie having no qualm in denouncing suicide killers when interviewed by John Ware some time back. That was until the question centred on Israel and it's homicidal Arab neighbours. Suddenly the slither commenced as he searched for his evasive taqiya laden line. Rock and a hard place? Does he parrot the usual Islamic anti-Semitic garbage or resort to evasion? In this case evasion won.

Rather than this, how many angels on a pin head stuff, why not attack the vile racist bile pouring out of Gaza and PA territories?

Or would you rather confirm the stereotype?

inayat

logdon: 'Nothing better to do?'

No - the wife has gone off with her girlfriends to watch Les Miserables, so it is either trying to make peace between the kids or respond to racism in the Spectator.

logdon: 'By your complete absence of any compassion for the poor Fogel family I take it sweets passed around your haunts after the news broke.'

The killing of the Fogel family was very tragic and very wrong regardless of their misguided decision to build a home in an illegal Jewish settlement on occupied Palestinian land.

logdon

'JERUSALEM – Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 rockets into Israel on Saturday, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said, while Hamas police beat up reporters and confiscated their equipment.'

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110319/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

Of course this is neither here nor there in that demented cocoon which call's itself the Guardian.

Rocketing civilians? Who cares?

Beating up reporters? As long as they're not their's what's the fuss?

The moral failure of the Guardian and it's apparatchik, Bunglawala has reached a nadir.

logdon

Bibi nutshells it....

'Israeli PM Slams European ‘Fusion’ of Radical Islam, Far Left

Posted on March 18, 2011 at 6:47pm by Meredith Jessup Meredith

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/israeli-pm-slams-european-fusion-of-radical-islam-far-left/

In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan Thursday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took aim at what he called Europe’s “strange fusion” of radical Islam and the far left.

“There is a new boiling anti-semitism of radical Islam that sweeps Europe as a whole, and there’s a strange fusion – it’s the only word I can use to describe it — a fusion with the anti-semitism of the radical far, far left,” Netanyahu said.

“This is the strangest union you could possibly contemplate,” he added, “because radical Muslims — they stone women, they execute gays, they are against any human rights, against feminism, against… what have you. And the far left is supposed to be for these things.”

Verity

We're not talking about the islamic vs Everyone Else conflict.

We're talking about freedom to say and write what one chooses.

Let's stick to the point.

Victoria

@Cabbie:

"The muslim criminals who slaughtered the Fogel family are morally depraved."

Two questions for you:

a) Has Israeli authorities even caught the murderers of the Fogel family? As of today, they haven't.
b) If not, how can you assume it was Muslims? It may have been the many Palestinian Christians, if Palestinians at all.

Your bigotry is clear. I hope the police do contact you.

ndm

Fraser Nelson would do well to heed the advice The Economist provides in a current leader:

-- Mainstream parties would do better to address the extremists head on. Instead of stoking anti-Muslim sentiment by claiming, as Germany’s interior minister has, that Islam has no place in a country, explain the importance of integrating minorities. Instead of demonising the Greeks, spell out the arguments for keeping the euro together. Instead of hinting that governments can hold globalisation at bay, explain its benefits and the costs of resisting it. That may sound Panglossian, but it is better than raising voters’ expectations only to dash them later. That’s what Mr Sarkozy did in 2008 when he pledged to keep a steel plant from shifting production abroad. The jobs went anyway. Little wonder if voters flock to parties that seem to offer a more robust bulwark against painful change.

-- Dealing with extremists is never easy for moderates, but addressing voters’ concerns honestly, and making the argument against the far right stoutly, is the best approach. Those who steal extremists’ clothes end up looking too much like them.
http://www.economist.com/node/18389008

In writing this, The Economist demonstrates a far better understanding of the nature and perils of European extremism than does a Fraser Nelson who glories in his continued publication of extremists like Melanie Phillips.

Victoria

Maggie writes:

"It's Melanie Philips' hypocrisy that is difficult to take. I don't remember her making much of a fuss about the 1400 Palestinians killed in 20 days of slaughter by the Israelis a couple of years ago. Her outrage never extends to the drip drip drip of Palestinian deaths that has continued ever since by Israeli tank shell, machine gun, grenade launcher, rifle and airstrike. It seems she has no objection to mass murder in general so long as the victims aren't Israelis."

Here, here.

Melanie Phillips' work is inciteful - in hate that is. The worst thing is that she (and her followers) insulting and slurring Islam and 'Arabs' just produces even more hate because it generalizes on a largely peaceful Arab/Muslim population. I wonder how she'd react if I had written a comment after the 2008 Israel invasion of Gaza about 'the moral depravity of the Jews'? There would have been an absolute uproar!! You are right to point out her - and that of her regular Spectator followers, a lot of which are pro-Israeli fascists- I feel strongly that Phillips' racism has no place in British media if we are to promote respect and mutual acceptance any more than the BNP has a role.

The REAL threat to society is not Islam, any more than it is Judaism, or Israel or Zionism in fact. It is ignorance.

logdon

Verity
March 19th, 2011 6:40pm

Freedom to say and write whatever one chooses doesn't usually involve beating up reporters.

logdon

inayat
March 19th, 2011 5:58pm Report this comment

The killing of the Fogel family was very tragic and very wrong regardless of their misguided decision to build a home in an illegal Jewish settlement on occupied Palestinian land.'

Eerily similar to your old boss's evasions. Always the equivocation.

And that of Hamas where no Jew can be innocent or a civilian because they took part in a democratic process and as such are all culpable.

David

The Bedfordshire Police are not really thought of as cutting edge law enforcement but they do apparently have "previous" for this sort of "Wasting Police Time".

INSERT>
http://www.bedfordshire-news.co.uk/News/Police-lie-in-wait-for-blogger-accused-of-stiring-up-racial-hatred-online.htm

Published: 13/01/2008 00:00 - Updated: 05/02/2010 15:30
Police lie in wait for blogger accused of stiring up racial hatred online

James Cunliffe
Police are threatening to arrest an internet 'web logger' for incitement to racial hatred the minute he returns to Britain.

Paul Ray, who 'blogs' as 'Lionheart', left Britain for an undisclosed location in the Middle East two years ago.

He claims he was receiving death threats which made it impossible to stay in his home town of Luton.

Since leaving Britain, he has regularly updated his blog with news and opinions on subjects such as the heroin trade, Islamic fundamentalism and police corruption.

Bedfordshire on Sunday understands that Mr Ray has been intending to return to Britain for over a year, in order to make preparations to emigrate officially and permanently.

Mr Ray is a self-confessed former drug dealer and now a born-again Christian.

On January 3, Mr Ray received an email from Bedfordshire police which he has since posted on his website.

From Hate Crime office Ian Holden, it read: 'The offence that I need to arrest you for is "Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.

'You will be arrested on SUSPICION of the offence.

You would only be charged following a full investigation based on all the relevant facts and CPS consent.

'Paul, I will see you on the 19/02/08 when I will tell you everything that you need to know.

'Due to being out of the office for six weeks I will not have access to my email as of tomorrow 04/01/08. Ian.'

Mr Ray did not respond to BoS's emails but in an internet post he wrote: 'This charge if found guilty carries a lengthy prison sentence, more than what most paedophiles and rapists receive, and all for writing words of truth about the barbarity that is living in the midst of our children, which threatens the very future of our country.'

A spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said: "We are aware of this particular internet site and we are taking action."
ENDS

David

Maybe Melanie is not at too much risk? I was aware they were considered bad, just not quite HOW bad.

INSERT>
From Times Online October 9, 2007

Bedfordshire Police trail in league tables
David Byers
Bedfordshire has been ranked as the worst police force in England and Wales, according to government figures released today, as Ministers warned forces that their funding was about to "flat-line".

The force was given just one point out of a possible 21 in the latest Home Office Police Performance Assessment, which was published this morning.

Ministers announced that inspectors were working with the force to improve its performance, which was ranked as either "poor" or "fair" in all seven categories examined under the assessment.
SNIPPED FOR BREVITY ........

Nicholas

"The killing of the Fogel family was very tragic and very wrong regardless of their misguided decision to build a home in an illegal Jewish settlement on occupied Palestinian land."

What a disgustingly repulsive sentiment. It was just tragic and wrong. The last bit you added shows that to you it was not "regardless" you despicable insect.

Victoria

"It's Melanie Philips' hypocrisy that is difficult to take. I don't remember her making much of a fuss about the 1400 Palestinians killed in 20 days of slaughter by the Israelis a couple of years ago. Her outrage never extends to the drip drip drip of Palestinian deaths that has continued ever since by Israeli tank shell, machine gun, grenade launcher, rifle and airstrike. It seems she has no objection to mass murder in general so long as the victims aren't Israelis."

Here, here.

Melanie Phillips' work is inciteful - in hate that is. The worst thing is that she (and her followers) insulting and slurring Islam and 'Arabs' just produces even more hate because it generalizes on a largely peaceful Arab/Muslim population.

Davka

It is increasingly obvious that the 'Muslim lobby' is pursuing a strategy of lawfare in order to shut down their opponents' free speech

AAE

Further to Nicholas 9.40pm - It can't be repeated often enough that for the Left, the Fogels, those murdered in the Twin Towers, the London Underground etc. etc. brought their own deaths upon themselves. But this perversion never applies to the contrary, so anyone for instance expressing post-7/7 opprobrium on Islam is a xenophobic, islamophobic racist, whilst the Islamic murderers themselves did nothing to attract this unjustified hate.
How does Left wing ideology, which is both perverted and simplistic, and whose pat, moronic, kneejerk responses crumble under the smallest empirical examination, flourish?

harryf

But the Spectator does moderate its comments before they appear and Rod Liddle's blog is the only one where I have had a comment moderated out - and, seriously, it was pretty inocuous, so shame on you.

Derek

Verity

Glad you managed to get your reference to Neathergate in; I did no, though perhaps my differentiating between the long history of love of liberty in England by contrast with the shorter record of other parts of the Kingdom may have been seen as a foul.

I am surprised, though you have mentioned it before, that you are not particularly warm to Melanie Phillips obsession; to me it seems the focal point of so many of our concerns for our civilisation.

Sir Everard Digby - well said!

ndm

Fraser Nelson writes:

-- We hire brilliant columnists, and give them freedom to say what they want.

Melanie Phillips may once have been a brilliant columnist but her brilliance faded decades ago. I certainly don
t see much courage in a magazine which routinely deletes comments critical of their star blogger.

honest

I live in a world of morality turned upsidedown. It is true that Melanie used emotive language of generalisations and a derogatory nature. I can see that. But these are emotional times. Infants being slaughtered in their sleep bring out our basic instincts of what is horrifyingly evil in this world and our own human nurturing loving desire to lash out against that evil and shake others into WAKING UP AND SEEING THAT EVIL.

Maybe lashing out with exaggerated language is a knee jerk reaction to such horrific, unimaginable, sinister actions but what are we to do when human beings break into the apparent safety and security of our homes and murder us in our sleep.

What would you rather, the senario above or some angry, emotional outburst of despare as M.P. expressed her God given right of speach at such an atrocity.

Tell me, are these 'crimes' comparable?

If it were your family, your children, I imagine the words spewing from your lips would be unchecked, unreserved, full of the embittered emotion that many of us are feeling that when such heinous crimes occur, the world (Turned Upsidedown) choses to focus on the reaction and not the real issue.

Nicholas

Bedfordshire Police "Hate Crime Office"? I'm surprised that with the present state of law and order they still have the funding, personnel and time to pursue such nonsense. Do they have an "Anti-Social Behaviour Office" one wonders.

And what action did they take in respect of certain threatening, abusive and insulting placards being displayed on the streets of Luton contrary to the 1986 Act? Anyone know?

Paardestaart

Apart from the free speech aspects in this case – I mean: EU-lawmakers have been creating a totalitarian monstrum for decades, so what else is new – isn’t it high time to investigate the special character of islamic rage? Cutting off people's heads seems to be one of the more humane ways of killing in the islamic world. Wouldn't it be useful to try and find out why the believers are so prone to torture and maim; why they even tear each other limb from limb? What makes for the character of islamic ‘anger’?
Doesn’t it demonstrate once more the futility of our constant coaxing and cajoling israel to the conference table? No force on earth will pacify 'palestinians' - these people were invented to whip up obsessive hatred against the pitiful little parkingstrip at the meditterranian islamists say they crave, and surely we all know that. Serious people are now calling Israel 'the greatest threat to world peace', but surely every sensible person knows that that is preposterous? We should be honest and acknowledge what really lies at the root of this contention: to thwart muslims will drive them insane, and when they get mental they turn off the oil spigot so we will starve, and then they'll start killing off people all over the world.
If nothing else does, this should make us grateful to the poor israeli’s They ask nothing more than to be the bone the civilized world throws to the wild things prowling outside the gate..

steve bronfman

Victoria, "a) Has Israeli authorities even caught the murderers of the Fogel family? As of today, they haven't.
b) If not, how can you assume it was Muslims? It may have been the many Palestinian Christians, if Palestinians at all."

-Actually 2 Palestinian "Police" were arrested a couple of days ago. You obviously only rely on the slanted British press for your news which is probably why you're so ill-informed and ignorant.

Babs

honesty, Bunglawala and all apologists for Islamist terror use emotive language without any awareness of the offence they cause and often with little basis in truth or reality. They themselves have lost contact with reality and the capability to differentiate between truth and the lies they tell.

Why should there be such a blatant double standard when Mel Phillips calls out the Islamist-inspired infamy of the murders in Itamatar for what they are? How come the likes of Bunglawala always get a free pass from the media and particularly the Guardian?

Yesterday over 50 rockets were launched at Israeli civilians in southern Israel from Gaza and Hamas proudly claimed responsibility for that singularly infamous act of "bravery." Yet watch them bleat if Israel should retaliate (and I hope they will) and the world will remain silent except to condemn Israel for defending itself.

George Laird

Dear All

As someone who Melanie Philips permanently deleted, I was one of the few lone voices to tackle her propaganda head on.

Then I was silenced.

And I can't believe I am the only one.

On her blog as I say it is a 'lovefest' with Queen Phillips holding Court and the 'cheering' section waiting for her every utterance.

Before launching into wild applause.

Fraser says 'brillant' blogger, I say propaganist who deserves to be pulled up.

With our exercising of free speech.

I upset many on her blog and then my opposition was snuffed out.

Truth be told Melanie Phillips is a like an old movie star caught in a rut.

Evenually she will realise that she isn't an opinion former because she can't take on the big fights anymore.

Not even up to taking on a humble Glaswegian pottering about the place.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Babs

George Laird, I note that you campaign for human rights. A question: Do you also campaign for the human rights of Israeli/Jewish civilians in southern Israel and on the West Bank?

It's a fair question. Try to answer it without qualifiers, unlike Bunglawala who would no doubt support the human rights of Israelis, provided they disappeared.

Babs

Inayat, would you like to remind the nice ladies and gentlemen about your "Tribe of Judah" remarks and tell them whether you meant them to apply to all Jews or some?
Doubtless you will try to wriggle off the hook by saying here as you have said elsewhere that you were young when you said them, but Ed Hussain tells us that you taught him antisemitism and you haven't sued him for libel.

In case you are too ashamed to admit it, people can look at the following link to get a measure of you http://tinyurl.com/5sasz6d.

You are also on record, aren't you, as being a supporter of Mawdudi, a rabid antisemite, and of sharia. You are on record as refusing to condemn stoning because you said it would mean your going against your prophet.

David

Perhaps Mr Bunglawala will reveal to us if he has made a complaint to his friends in the Bedfordshire Police from his home in Luton Bedfordshire? OR did he merely slip the word to a journalist or two to provoke an incident and comment? His idea of sport?

It is to be hoped thay have the wit to ignore him. We should.

logdon

Babs
March 20th, 2011 4:21pm

Babs, back in the mists of time when Laird first appeared on these pages his Campaign for Human Rights credentials were examined by other posters and it appears that no such position exists.

He also refused all questions regarding the veracity of his self proclaimed post.

Take from that what you will but it does point to an unsettling view that at the very least, he is not what he purports to be.

Care in the Community springs to mind.

Ignore him, he'll go away.

PS

He also surfaced on the Guido Fawks blog, commenting in a completely different style and vernacular as if to ingratiate himself with that merry crew. I suspect they, growing tired of his patronising idiocy also threw him out.

logdon

Victoria
March 19th, 2011 10:05pm

It's hear, hear, as in listen. Words fail me. Yours especially.

harpolian

wholeheartedly support and you melanie phillips - am often shocked by how biased the bbc seems to be - we need reporting like yours!

Motti

Beds Police should take more interest in what's happening in Luton. There are emore than enough Islamic fundamentalists there to worry about. but of course, they must not be insulted, otherwise Saudi Arabia will withold oil

Augustus

The Bedfordshire police should be made to sit down with a photo of that lovely three-month-old Fogel baby. How morally depraved has a human got to be to take a knife to a
sleeping baby and kill it?

Victoria

Logdon -

"Victoria
March 19th, 2011 10:05pm

It's hear, hear, as in listen. Words fail me. Yours especially."

Clearly words do fail you.

Yours truly.

Victoria

Steve Bronfman

"-Actually 2 Palestinian "Police" were arrested a couple of days ago. You obviously only rely on the slanted British press for your news which is probably why you're so ill-informed and ignorant."

Ooh ouch! It's becoming a bit of a trend for the pro-Israel lobby to bring out their bag of insults when they are upset. Funny how, when it suits them, these are also the people who defend a right to 'free speech' when they can distinguish between verbal bullying and reasoned debate. Probably the reaction of someone who knows they are wrong.

Anyway Steve. Actually I don't pay attention to British media. I like to look at as many sources as possible, including might I add, the likes of ynet, Ha'aretz, J Post and Ma'an News. I haven't bowers seen this story so for the sake of clarity I'd be grateful if you could post it.

Thanks.

cityca

Fraser,

Please do go on publishing and defending Melanie. I don't agree with everything she writes, but so much of it is 100% spot on. This piece in question falls right into the spot on category.

Bunglawala may have shot himself in the foot here. This story of the killings has been pretty much ignored by most of the msm. By his actions, the atrocity may finally get the airing it deserves, even if it is part of a story about a court case.

Augustus

sleeping dolls - I agree with you that the crazed speeches of Islamic nutters that it is an Islamic duty to murder as many Jewish innocents the world over, not just in Israel, is a 'hugely important issue.'
And what is the 'holy' Koranic imagiary of
Jews shared by Arab and non-Arab Muslims, children and adults, alike? They are apes and pigs.

Vicky Pollard is an amateur

davidk
March 19th, 2011 12:53pm
Disgustingly racist language. The Spectator should hang its head in shame for continuing to employ this odious woman.

Don't worry Dave, they don't actually pay Victoria.

Joe Kaffir

Melanie is one of very few bloggers/journalists with the courage to say what is necessary with no concern for her saftey. She, sadly, but literllay puts her life in danger from murderous "savages" who have already murdered individuals they disagreed with in Holland and other European nations. She should be applauded and supported to the hilt not for her views, not for freedom of speech but because "you" could be next. Those left liberals who attack her without dealing with her arguments are merely useful idiots who, in the long term, undermine the values that they hold dear.

strength to your arm Melanie. and to the spectator generally.

Fergus Pickering

I think, Victoria, you mean 'hear, hear'. It is short for, 'Hear him! Hear him!' Or her of course. Just trying to be helpful.

Stephanie Tohill

I agree. As distasteful and racist as I found Melanie referring to the 'moral depravity of the Arabs' (as a group, all of them, every last one) she should have the right to say that and worse.

It's not a police matter

Yedidya S

Thank you. Carry on sticking up for these principles

JS

Well said, Fraser! When freedom of expression goes, what's left?

Matt Pryor

I agree 100%. This is where it starts. Melanie deserves the support of anyone who values freedom of speech - whether they like her views or not (I do, by the way!).

Steve Tierney

I like the Spectator, which is why I subscribe. But it's not the regular purveyor of edgy right-of-center journalism that you portray. Nor do you have "the best blogs" (the Telegraph does.)

Nevertheless, I agree with the principle of what you've written. I wish you'd be this forthright more often.

charlene hale

In days of austerity I will endeavour to purchase a weekly hard copy of the Spectator due to the excellence of the journalism, integrity to truth, moral fibre and courage. Viva Spectator! Thank you for standing up for truth, and justice rather than taking the line of least resistance, the line most lucaratively advantageous unlike those who are mouthpieces of propaganda. I shall say no more lest the boys in blue have to pay you a visit for me blogging some thought crime.

Ian Walker

What might be helpful would be a statement by parliament that there is NO right not to be offended, and no interpretation of any law, including the Human Rights Act or any of the discrimination laws should ever be used to draw that conclusion.

It's a truism that in a free society, the right to free speech should take precedence over all others, including the right to life. It's horrible, and uncomfortable, but the way to deal with it is through reasoned argument, not the blunt truncheon of the law.

Augustus

How convenient for the Chairman of Muslims4UK that Melanie Phillips represents
a more newsworthy threat to Arabs than the murder of a young family in its home.

Melanie Phillips, thank God, provides a refreshing corrective to media obfuscations
generally. So Good for Israel for making clear to Fatah and the lot of them that every act of terror will have a price tag attached to it, and will do far more to bring Palestinian Arabs to their senses than
anything the UN, Eurabia or Obama can say.
And anyone who says that Melanie Phillips was referring to all Arabs as morally bankrupt is off his head. She specifically said: "The moral depravity of THE Arabs..."
not the moral depravity of Arabs, i.e. all
Arabs. All such reporting does is, in fact, make people wonder whether or not all Arabs are indeed morally depraved, which again only stokes up more multicultural bigotry.

Eugene

You haven't noticed that, far from it being "funny old world," you've been already for a long time living in a terrifying new Orwellian world. Living quite comfortably.

logdon

Victoria
March 20th, 2011 10:59pm

Ignorance is defensible.

Defence of ignorance is not.

Babs

cityca, Bunglawala often shoots himself in the foot - it's miraculous he has feet at all!

He's a gift to seekers of honesty about the real intentions of Islam in the UK and its attitude to the other. Somehow or other he can never manage to unequivocally condemn gratuitous violence perpetrated by it anywhere in the world.

I am glad he has less intelligence than a gnat. He'd be dangerous rather than merely spiteful if he were clever.

Ian Walker, it's commonly accepted now that Muslims alone have the right to be offended and have the right to offend everyone else. This is not in the statute books, of course, but it has crept into our discourse and grown because our politicians lack the spine to deal with it as it should be dealt with. Politicians are, of course, desperate for the Muslim vote. Go figure.

MairT

George Laird an embarrassment to Glasgow University and Glasgow. In fact, he is probably the thug with the megaphone that stands at the top of Byres Road.

John Hall

"Because of the Melanie Philips blog where she referred to the “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who killed the Fogel family in Israel."

But that's not EXACTLY what she said, is it? Nice try Frazer. Freedom of speech? YES. Allowing spitefully concocted falsehood to pass as informed opinion? NO.

Augustus

John Hall - Yes it is. "And as anticipated,
the moral depravity of the Arabs (who killed the Fogel family in Israel) is finding a grotesque echo in the moral bankruptcy and worse of the British and
American 'liberal' media - a sickening form
of armchair barbarism..."

Is everyone blind that they can't see what the topic is about? It's condemning a
media form of armchair barbarism influenced
by depraved Arabs who carry out such crimes. Nothing to do with all Arabs the world over. I think people either must be nuts not to see this, or they are deliberately trying to silence free speech
by devious means. Muslims can't hide behind victimhood forever.

Patricia Shaw

you know damn well that the Spectator treads the thinnest of lines when inciting race hate, on its wall where muslims are referred to as rag heads and the rest, and in Phillips' outrageous blogs.

Good luck to the Old Bill.

hiro

Although I despise most of what M Phillips writes, her views largely the complete opposite of mine, I do think it absurd that she should be punished, investigated, etc, because of them. Just debated, and proven wrong. I am on the left, and nearly everyone I know on the left would agree with me. I don't know how it has got like this. But there are other things that are off limits to lefties as well - it goes both ways. Try being critical of soldiers in this country, for example. Try having a 'leftist' debate about the IRA - you'll soon get people willing to punish, williing to snoop, monitor, etc.

George Laird

Dear All

Have you noticed on the Spectator that when I speak out, I get abused?

Case in point, MairT!

This horrible person has taken me to task for speaking the truth and she has made accusations against me instead of addressing my points.

Who is the intellectual thug?

“George Laird an embarrassment to Glasgow University and Glasgow. In fact, he is probably the thug with the megaphone that stands at the top of Byres Road”.

Sounds like MairT got a knock back from the guy and has harboured some sort of personal grudge. Honestly, it wasn’t me; I am a humble Glaswegian pottering about the place.

Have a read of this:

http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-minutes-in-life-of-george-laird_12.html

And for the record, I don’t own a megaphone, or have used a megaphone or have traded in megaphones!

On top of that in my past I have done charity work (raises back of left hand to temple).

Since when is it an embarrassment to fight for what you believe in?

What a very strange person Mair T is, then she is a Melanie Phillips supporter.

Finally, one day MairT, you will find true love, there is someone out there for you, it just isn't me.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Augustus

Patricia (the worm that always tries to bark) Shaw - And you know damn well that this is a witch-hunt. And it failed!

Roger Pearse

Thank you for having the courage to publish this article, rather than buckling under. We have seen no comparable threat to freedom of the press in this country in centuries.

I hope we are all familiar with Ezra Levant's dictum, "The process is the punishment"? The "investigation" is just a method of harassment, a process by which the powerful can inflict "maximum disruption" on their victims. The victim is stressed and threatened and obliged to pay large sums to lawyers, even if the "case" is eventually dismissed.

Note how the Guardian and Independent act as accomplices.

So long as only the right are subjected to these laws, the situation will get worse and worse.

Hegemony

I think there's a number of points to be made here, each warranting a discussion of their own.

Firstly, I'm a bit of a freedom of speech fundamentalist. However, this, like the True-May case recently, isn't quite as it's being presented. In the case of Melanie, she said that Arabs were morally depraved. Not "The Arabs who murdered", but just "the arabs". Pretty sure that would have been at least a subject for investigation under previous laws, before the New Labour era. And it isn't necessarily an issue of "PC gawn mad" or the like. You could argue it's inciting hatred. *shrugs*. I'd still argue she has the right to hold and express those views (just as, actually, I'd argue True-May has the right to hold and express his - the big issue with the True-May thing with me was not necessarily that he was expressing "racist" views - I don't actually think he was, "little Englander" would have been a more accurate description - but that, due to his stated views, he was admitting practicing racial *discrimination*). So, basically, she has every right to hold those views, and indeed, disseminate them as long as they cannot be proved to have caused racial violence, but let's not, for the life of us, pretend that what she said was not tarring an entire "race" with the same brush. Because it was.

The second issue is consistency - as a welshman, I don't think Tony Blair or Anne Robinson should have been investigated for their (rather infantile) remarks about the welsh. Sniggered at, mainly. I don't think Melanie Phillips should be arrested for what she wrote. I also don't think that yer man with the poppy burning should have been arrested, charged, fined. I wonder how many of the posters riding to the defence of Mel agree with that though...when it comes down to it, we need universalist principles, and the first is "you don't have the right not to be offended". You have the right not to be discriminated against, or your race, sexuality, whatever used against you in that manner. And there's an argument for making a distinction between random crimes and ones that are motivated by racial or whatever prejeudice, I'm fine with that. But really, the solution to someone talking nonsense is to tell them why they are talking nonsense. Ironically, for such a bastion of "free speech", I've had relatively innocous comments on Melanie's blog removed...strange that eh?

Thirdly, it's interesting that the right is now waking up to this. In my youth, I knew men of the hard left - not agitators or troublemakers, just party members for whatever little leftist cult - or self confessed anarchists - again, just philosophical agitators who maybe attended the odd demo here and there but never actually *did* anything bar marching or selling whatever newspaper their little clique organised. These gentlemen (because it was mainly gentlemen) were harrassed by Plod on a routine, almost daily basis because of their views, stated and unstated. Not because of anything they had done, or would do (afair, not one of them ever committed even a public order offence), but because of their views. Now, I didn't happen to share their views then. I don't share them now. But really? Freedom of speech? When *did* we have it in this country?

Patricia Shaw

I can t believe Nelson's defence is so wafer thin with one limp wristed retort to his critics.

Nelson;

- Why do you not have a Muslim blogger of the stature, conviction and some might say repulsiveness of Phillips? If your own in house motto is to be believed, you owe it to us and to yourselves to be equally fress in speech to all sides. ESPECIALLY on shit issue.

- Why is this site given in the main to Zinoist bloggers and Zionist respondents, or at the very least to those rampantly supportive of the Israeli Right?

- Why is your own personal stance so pro Israeli Right? Who s paying your salary?

Patricia Shaw

Augustus, if you can t be doing with truth, go spin some lies on Mel's blog.

peter woods

what a wonderful non- job you have.

Bob

"The Spectator is in the firing line quite a lot because we are in the business of serving up cask strength opinion – and have been for 183 years."

And yet I doubt if Phillips' floam-flecked ranting would be published if the targets were Jews and not Muslims.

Augustus

Patricia Shaw - As your asking questions:
why are people like you so filled with hate?
And why shouldn't the Jews have Israel? It is they who made it famous.

Edward in the USA`

Bob March 23rd, 2011 6:01pm:
"And yet I doubt if Phillips' floam-flecked ranting would be published if the targets were Jews and not Muslims"

Well foam-flecked rantings against Jews are regularly featured at The Guardian's sad CiF.

Daniel

What has happened to the UK? So sad.

Ian Solomon

Good for you Fraser for bringing this to the attention of the public.

M Greenhill

It's about time you and those like you took a stand like this against the "double-think' of the so-called liberal left.

Californian

Bravo Mr. Nelson. It's about time someone is not intimidated and states the truth.

Emetty

I support journalists' right to report and express themselves in the press and in particular Melanie Phillips whose articles I appreciate. Sometimes the truth hurts but we should be prepared to face the truth about ourselves without being "offended". It gives us the opportunity to see the need for change.

janey argent

MAY GOD BLESS MELANIE PHILLIPS!! Bless her for being herself and having the courage and committment to say what many thousands of rational people think and feel. Long may she continue to speak out in her wonderfully eloquent way on behalf of many, many like-minded British citizens.
Janey

Marion

Melanie Phillips was simply reporting the truth about the terrible murder of the Fogel family. PC'ers get off her case and concentrate of what is REALLY happening!

Liberty1

Shocking article from the perspective of this reader on the west side of the pond.

A point of order if I may to help us 'rebellious yanks' understand this issue better: Who exactly is contending that invading a home and using a knife to brutally butcher a civilian family of five (including a 4 month old baby) in their sleep is anything less than 'savage'?
Have the authorities of good law and order in the Kingdom of George now been completely removed of reason? Perhaps they might consider it a better application of their public trust and resources to investigate whomever might be motivated to file such complaints against what is without reasonable doubt, an act of atrocity against the natural law and order in civilized society.

Nefarious! What kind of person or group might reasonably defend such behavior, and what might be their motives for doing so?

Using the word 'savage' to describe such acts is an understatement. I shouldn't have to make the argument that persons committing such heinous and savage premeditated and hateful behavior against their neighbors have rightly earned the label "savages".

Suggesting that such acts are anything less than savage events perpetrated by savage persons is the much greater offense to decency and the public good.

Aloma Halter

I support your right to be heard and to try to tell the truth as objectively as possible.

Essexgirl

I believe the press has the right to freedom of speech and I also thank Melanie Phillips for drawing attention to the kind of violence perpetrated against Israel on a day to day basis. She has the courage to report a story otherwise ignored in our press so I say three cheers for her and shame on those who are 'investigating' her. She is doing a good job and we want more like her, please!

Babs

"- Why do you not have a Muslim blogger of the stature, conviction and some might say repulsiveness of Phillips? "

Simple answer, because there isn't one who would come forward and condemn unequivocally the support of murderers, suicide bombers and thugs?

Remember you are talking of stature here. I am taking you at your word

Babs

Correction, there are many Muslim bloggers - notably Bunglawala - who are repulsive all right in their support for terror and Islamism. Why not suggest one?

Babs

Liberty1, a supporter of Islamist terror, of bin Laden and an arch antisemite. He lionised bin Laden in a pamphlet he wrote and is on record as supporting stoning as a punishment because not to do so would be asking him to deny his prophet. He couldn't carry an argument in a bucket and has often been trounced in debate by Melanie, which is probably why he has complained to the police about what she said.

And of course what she said is fair comment.

Jo

We are living through dangerous times for free speech and free thought in our country. Our basic freedoms havent been threatened in this way since WW11. The tragedy is that this time the threat comes from within. We need magazines like the Spectator and brave columnists like Melanie Phillips more now than ever. The very fact that one can use the word brave, without irony, speaks volumes for our current situation. Eternal shame on the Bedfordshire police for gutlessly aquiessing in this blatant fascist attempt to suppress free speech.

Rafi

Melanie Phillips should be applauded for her clear-headed and clearly expressed revulsion for the horrific crime of one or more savages. Her words should be echoed by all who wish to protect true liberty. Her bravery should be an inspiration to all. Obviously she did not attack any but the guilty - and that does include those thousands who rejoiced at the butchery of a the family while they slept. Sweets were given out by savages in Gaza to children being raised to mimic the perpetrators. That Gaza administration IS the one Israel is being asked to accommodate, and never will. And what if a writer were wrong? Could any writer be more wrong than the writers for The Guardian? Or the BBC on Israel-related news? Do the members of Muslims4UK know anything about the legal tradition of their host country?

Joseph

To INAYAT and others who claim that Melanie Phillips, in her article, insulted all Arabs: She did no such thing. She referred to certain of those people with whom Israel is being asked to negotiate. The most difficult to negotiate with, Hamas, does not recognise Israsel. That is however, not cause to call them - and the majority of Gaza's population that elected Hamas - savages. No it's not their lack of recognition of Israel that calls for such an epithet, but rather their own stated and clearly published goals as set out in Article 7 paragraph (b) of the Hamas Charter.
In this charter it is Hamas and the Arabs of Gaza who voted for them, and not Melanie Phillips, who define themselves. Articel 7 calls for the destruction of Israel and specifically for the murder of its Jewish population - men women and children. The people of Gaza had fully five years to read the charter and consider its clear, published intent before democratically voting for the party that wishes to implement it. It is that same population that publicly celebrated the murder of the Fogels. Savages

Pious

In the word of Voltaire (in 1770)

I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Paul Worthington

There is reference here to Britain having become like East Germany. There are, however, some differences. The powers that were in the old German Democratic Republic (the "democratic" to be understood like the "life" in Life Insurance) were imposed by Russian tanks after the country had been in the hands of the asylum escapees. Britain's current sinister thought policing is entirely home grown in a country that was once famous for its defense of fairness and feedom. Or perhaps not entirely home grown; a large part of it is based on the fear of the reactions of those who respond to irritation by organised hatred, and are easily irritated because of their adherance to a creed totally alien to the culture in which they are living. A new meaning to conscience making cowards of us all?

However, I am happy to report that East Germany threw off its yoke and is a refreshingly free place these days. Good luck Britain!

Paul Worthington

[Der Webeditor, Please consider this corrected version instead of the error riddled version I sent a couple of minutes ago. Thank you!]

There is reference here to Britain having become like East Germany. There are, however, some differences. The powers that were in the old German Democratic Republic (the "democratic" to be understood like the "life" in Life Insurance) were imposed by Russian tanks after the country had been in the hands of the asylum escapees. Britain's current sinister thought policing is entirely home grown in a country that was once famous for its defence of fairness and freedom. Or perhaps not entirely home grown; a large part of it is based on the fear of the reactions of those who respond to irritation by organised hatred, and are easily irritated because of their adherence to a creed totally alien to the culture in which they are living. A new meaning to conscience making cowards of us all?

However, I am happy to report that East Germany threw off its yoke and is a refreshingly free place these days. Good luck Britain!