Charlie Hebdo stood alone. What does that say about our ‘free’ press?
listen to ‘Douglas Murray discusses the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine’ on audioBoom
Douglas Murray
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.
Wednesday
Monday
The damning, shocking, depressing life of Jeremy Thorpe
Jeremy Thorpe by Michael Bloch Little, Brown, pp.606, £25 The back story of Michael Bloch’s biography of Jeremy Thorpe is a story in itself. The book’s appearance, in the same month as its subject’s death, is only possible because it has been on ice for many years. In the 1990s the author had numerous meetings with
Wednesday
The oldest trick in the detainees’ book
The £31 million al-Sweady Inquiry is in. And it describes claims that up to 20 Iraqis were killed and mutilated by British troops after a battle in 2004 as “without foundation”: ‘Sir Thayne Forbes said Iraqi detainees who alleged they were tortured and abused – and subjected to mock executions – had given evidence that
Tony Abbott is no common sense speaking politician — just look at his comments on ISIL
Wow. Anyone who still harboured the idea that Australia was led by no-nonsense, common sense speaking politicians should look away now. Here is Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, talking about the motivations of the man who held a shop full of people hostage earlier this week and then murdered two of them: ‘The point
Tuesday
From Sydney to Peshawar – Islamic extremists are civilisation’s common enemy
Yesterday it was Sydney. Today it is Peshawar. Yesterday a coffee shop. Today a school. Yesterday a lone gunman. Today a gang of them. If anybody wondered about the global and diffuse nature of the challenge that Islamic fundamentalism poses, the last 24 hours have given another demonstration of the problem. Yet what is amazing, after
Sunday
‘Torture is torture’ ignores the complex nature of intelligence gathering
On Thursday I was on the BBC’s ‘This Week’ to talk about the CIA and torture. It is, for many reasons, perhaps the most gruesome subject possible. And not just because of the hideous allegations involved, but also because it is one of those subjects which people wantonly lose their reason over. Like a small
Thursday
Isis murder a homosexual man (but presumably it has nothing to do with Islam)
I see that Isis have begun the holiday season by ‘executing’ (or murdering) a man who they say was homosexual in Syria/Iraq. They did this in the traditional manner, by throwing him off a tall building and then stoning him to death. They have helpfully provided photos of the process online. An accompanying statement from Isis reads: ‘Following
Why are we abandoning the Middle East’s Christians to Isis?
She took the call herself the night the Islamic State came into Mosul. ‘Convert or leave or you’ll be killed,’ she was told. The callers, identifying themselves as Isis members, knew the household was Christian because her husband worked as a priest in the city. They fled that night. Like many of their Christian neighbours
Monday
The Kremlin thinks Russell Brand is good news. Does that not worry him?
An interesting story in today’s papers: ‘Russia’s last politically independent TV station will be forced to close at the end of this month after the state-owned company that transmits its signal said it would be taken off the air.’ This comes at the same time, as our cover story last week showed, as Putin’s propaganda
Friday
Should the next coronation service in Westminster Abbey include readings from the Quran?
Earlier this week the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries, suggested in the House of Lords that the next coronation service in Westminster Abbey should include readings from the Quran. The good Bishop and I had a chance to discuss his idea this morning on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. You can listen to it
Saturday
We’re too frightened of appearing ‘racist’ to have a debate about immigration
A rather typical 24 hours in the life of modern Britain. Everyone does another round of ‘we need to be able to talk about immigration.’ The main parties once again say (as though this were a great revelation to the rest of us) that it is not racist to talk about immigration. The Labour and
Tuesday
Baroness Warsi uses her retirement to provoke British Jews
If anyone ever wondered what the over-promoted, incapable and incompetent Baroness Sayeeda Warsi was planning to do in retirement, now we know: provoke British Jews on Twitter. Today, after four Jews, one a British citizen, were butchered while praying in Israel, Sayeeda Warsi used the opportunity to taunt British Jews. Not just the Zionist Federation but
Monday
Another American citizen has been murdered — and it’s nothing to do with Islam
I suppose this is the inevitable end-point of the ‘nothing to do with Islam’ meme. Another American citizen has had his head chopped off by a gang of men aspiring to instigate the teachings of Mohammed as they see them. And what does the President of the poor victim’s country say? Here is Obama on
Saturday
Am I responsible for inciting a British jihadi to join ISIS?
I fear I may be done for incitement.My friend and expert on all things ISIS, Shiraz Maher, alerts me to the fact that Abu Rumaysah has gone, apparently to fight in Syria. Shiraz and I last encountered him on the BBC programme Sunday Morning Live, alongside nobody’s idea of a push-over Dame Ann Leslie. (You
Thursday
Citizenfour: the paranoia of Snowden & co will bore you to death
In simple entertainment terms Citizenfour isn’t as interesting as watching paint dry. It is more like watching someone else watching paint dry. People with opinions on Edward Snowden tend to divide into those who think he’s one of the biggest heroes of all time and those who think he’s at least one of the worst
Thursday
To make asylum work, we’ll have to talk frankly
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Justin Marozzi, Douglas Murray and Fraser Nelson discuss immigration” startat=53] Listen [/audioplayer]It is the easiest thing in the world to say who should come to Britain and why. But if there are people who should be coming here, then surely there are others who should not? It is through our unwillingness to address
Tuesday
‘Swamped’ much? David Blunkett 2014, meet David Blunkett 2002
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Mats Persson and Matthew Elliott join James Forsyth to discuss Europe and migration.”] Listen [/audioplayer] Last week saw an example of the cynicism, not to mention circularity, of our immigration debate that is too important to miss. The former home secretary, David Blunkett, took to the pages of the Daily Mail to support
Thursday
Jonathan Sacks on religion, politics and the civil war that Islam needs
Jonathan Sacks has an impressive track record for predicting the age we are in. In his 1990 Reith Lectures, ‘The Persistence of Faith’, the then chief rabbi pushed back against the dominant idea that religion was going to disappear. In the early 2000s, he predicted a century of conflict within Islam. And he was one
Thursday
Why would jihadi terrorists attack Canada? Better to ask: why not?
The attacks in Canada probably seem non-sensical to some people. After all, much of the press and political class in the West has spent years trying to cover over the motivations of people like those who have spent this week targeting soldiers and politicians in Canada. ‘Why did they target Canada?’ headlines are asking today.
Monday
The UK doesn’t need Barroso’s ‘positive’ messages about the EU
What a godsend to Ukip José Manuel Barroso must be. On his recent short visit to the UK he not only managed to tell the British public that limits to immigration (desired by the overwhelming majority of the British public) would be ‘illegal’. He also managed to tell us that if we left the EU,
