Douglas Murray is associate editor of The Spectator and author of The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason, among other books.
Is being gay ‘left-wing’? You wouldn’t have thought so. If being gay is something which some people just are then there is no obvious reason why gays should not be of every political persuasion and none. Why should the fact that you are attracted to members of the same sex mean that you are in
Each year Anjem Choudary earns more in benefits than a soldier does starting off in our armed forces. This is a fact I never tire of pointing out – especially to Anjem’s face whenever we have the misfortune to meet. The follow-on point, which I think also worth continuing to make, is that there is something
It is amazing what some people are willing to listen to on a Saturday. I have just watched Charlotte Church’s speech to the small fringe of ‘anti-austerity’ activists in Westminster at the weekend. And my reaction is very much ‘Coo!’ Of course I knew how humourless this portion of the left can be, with their beliefs that Ukip
Honestly. No sooner have I filed a piece than along comes Sayeeda Warsi to help prove my point. Yesterday morning she popped up because another three sisters and their nine children appear to have traveled from West Yorkshire to join the thriving Islamic State. Apparently Sayeeda knows one of the families. And of course she
Should we feel sorry for people who join barbarian jihadist groups like ISIS? I ask because I had always assumed that people who volunteered to join gangs which specialise in rape, decapitation and ethnic cleansing should be looked on with opprobrium. But the ground is, it seems, shifting. Everybody needs to be a victim in
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is a strange beast. Its membership largely consists of Asghar Bukhari and his brother. Occasionally another person appears on television claiming an affiliation to the group – an affiliation promptly proved by use of the organisation’s modus operandi, viz furious shouting backed up by ferocious stupidity. Anyhow, it has
Today’s Times carries an interesting story. A new report from the Department of Education reveals that: ‘Almost one in three of England’s primary school children is from an ethnic minority – the highest level yet. One pupil in five speaks English as a second language.’ There follows some information about how these numbers are putting
Freddy’s blog on the so-called ‘rape culture’ that we in Western democracies are all meant to be struggling under reminds me of an unwittingly important moment on BBC3 last year. It was provided by our colleague James Delingpole when he appeared on something called ‘Free Speech.’ This is an almost comically appalling ‘yoof’ programme which
The former Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, is one of the most interesting thinkers, writers and speakers about today. His interventions into the public debate rarely fail to encourage thought, knowledge and indeed wisdom. I had the pleasure of interviewing him last year for the magazine just before he was due to give a major
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thehighpriestsofhealth/media.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Christopher Snowden discuss whether the NHS is too bossy” startat=35] Listen [/audioplayer]On a radio discussion show shortly before the general election I made the not terribly original point that the NHS had become our national religion. The first caller immediately objected. ‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘The NHS is far
Does anybody else remember life in Britain before the year 2000? Despite the distressing increase in the number of walking, talking human beings one meets who were born since the millennium, there must be some other people who remember those times. Yet what a picture of that era is now being painted. Take the incredibly
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/defeatingisis/media.mp3″ title=”Andrew Bacevich and Douglas Murray discuss how ISIS can be crushed” startat=39] Listen [/audioplayer]For months, the White House has been saying that it has Isis on the run. Yet each week the world sees that Isis is only running forwards. Last week, the US state department briefed that Isis was ‘a significant threat
Unencumbered by the regressive Liberal Democrats, the new government has already managed to start taking extremism seriously. The counter-extremism legislation which the Lib Dems managed to stall will be included in the Queen’s Speech next week. But the government already faces an early test of its policies. Muhammad Salah – a ‘star’ of Huda TV –
I was on the BBC on Sunday morning discussing the government’s new counter-extremism legislation. Unusually for a discussion on this area the debate seemed to me to be constructive and engaging. Perhaps this is a reflection of the changed political weather. But there was one strange thing – which is why I mention it here –
It is often said that we get the politicians we deserve. But throughout this election I have kept wondering, ‘Are we really as bad as all this?’ The answer must be ‘yes’. This bland and empty ‘campaign’ has not only been the fault of the main parties competing to govern the UK – it has
Lampedusa The young hang about in packs or speed around town, two to a scooter. Old women group together on benches around the town square in front of the church. The men continually greet each other as though they haven’t met for years. The likelihood is small. With fewer than 6,000 inhabitants, and as close
I am out of the country at the moment and I see that Ed Miliband has used the opportunity to ‘say’ in an interview with the ‘Muslim News’ that he will outlaw ‘Islamophobia’ if he becomes Prime Minister. I use ‘say’ because ‘Muslim News’ has never seemed to me an especially reputable outlet for news, Muslim
So farewell then Lutfur Rahman. On Thursday the Islamist-aligned Mayor of Tower Hamlets was found guilty of electoral fraud. The poll in which he was ‘elected’ has been declared void and he has now been barred from office. There is much to be said about this and the implications for British democracy as a whole
Nothing is capable of undermining American democracy more than its legal system. Amid the plea bargains, perp walks and 95 per cent conviction ratings for some crimes, one feature of the system stands out as particularly rank — the role of ‘special prosecutor’. A new piece of evidence relating to a high-profile conviction eight years
I have been wondering why nobody so far in this election seems to have made any mention of what most people recognise to be the biggest security problem facing this country. But then I discovered that the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, last week appeared at the Al Falah Islamic Education Centre in West London.
