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.
I see that the Labour party, and Labour’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt in particular, are trying to make political capital out of the ‘Trojan Horse’ Islamic schools scandal. I’ll write more about this in the coming week, but for the meantime let me point out what a steaming pile of political opportunism and hypocrisy
Just over a week ago a gunman opened fire at the Jewish museum in Brussels. Four Jews – including two Israeli tourists – were killed, shot in the face and throat. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said immediately after the killings, and before a suspect had even been identified: ‘This act of murder is the
I have consistently maintained that the Liberal Democrat party is an anachronism, a perversion and general waste of political space. So imagine my joy in recent weeks at discovering that the remaining members of the Liberal Democrat party are starting to agree with me. First there was the Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne saying in
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Mats Persson discuss the aftermath of the Euro elections” startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]It must have come so easily back then. In April 2006, the young David Cameron had already assumed the mantle of leader of the Conservative party as arranged by his predecessor, Michael Howard. And as he prepared to assume
Ukip have come top of the polls for the UK in the EU elections. Now which of the two following scenarios might we most likely expect from the other parties? Might the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, along with their amazingly loyal chorus-line in the British media, wake up sincerely believing that a ‘racist’
Well it’s polling day, and if anybody wants a spur to vote Ukip they have two options: Peter Oborne’s stirring cover piece in the new issue of The Spectator and Matthew d’Ancona’s column in yesterday’s Evening Standard. If the sight of white activists pretending to be Romanians so that they could accuse black UKIP members
A jury in the US has taken less than two days to find Abu Hamza guilty on multiple terrorism charges. He can now expect to spend the rest of his life in prison. During the 1990s and later, Abu Hamza was one of a number of extremist clerics given apparent free-reign to operate in the
Is Labour a racist party? The answer, I believe, is ‘no’. Apart from anything else, some of my best friends are in the party and I cannot think they hate themselves or anybody else simply because of their skin colour. Yet the question must be asked. For just this weekend I was rummaging through recent
Inevitably the lowest attacks have been saved until the week of the election. For months now the neat drip-feeding of anti-UKIP stories from Conservative Campaign Headquarters direct to the UK press has done everything possible to depict UKIP as a racist, xenophobic, bigoted party. This has been significantly ratcheted up ahead of Thursday’s vote. Today’s pages
Anyone who hasn’t seen Hamas TV is missing a treat. Of course the low production values are part of the fun. But for the Palestinian audiences, most entertaining of all seems to be the sight of watching Palestinian children being taught to murder every Jew. Often by an adult dressed up as a giant bumble
This has been a bad month for those who want to shut down free speech in Britain. First there was the wholesale failure of Fiyaz Mughal (whose ‘work’ I have written about before). Readers will recall that Mr Mughal – whose website, Tell Mama, claims to record and counter ‘Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred’ – used
The release of Gerry Adams felt a bit like the old days. A Unionist protest outside the police station, a rally of a press conference at a Republican club with Adams, Gerry Kelly and Martin McGuinness on the podium. Whether or not Adams will be charged with involvement in the 1972 murder of Jean McConville
Peter Hain has become a disgrace. Earlier this year it appeared that the Former Northern Ireland Minister was one of the people responsible for the cock-up over letters of amnesty for ‘on-the-run’ terrorists. Now he has gone several steps further. Just last month Hain was just telling everybody who has lost a relative during the Troubles
In one sense the arrest of Gerry Adams for questioning in relation to the murder of Jean McConville is not a surprise. On the other hand it is astonishing. I cannot think how many times over the years the connection between Adams and the McConville case – appalling even by the standards trawled during the
My colleague Nick Cohen has a piece asking ‘Are you fit to be British? Take the UKIP test.’ In it he cites a number of horrible and silly and things said by people in UKIP before he himself descends into rudeness. Stuart Wheeler is apparently a ‘cadaverous gambling tycoon’. ‘Cadaverous’? As in old? I suppose it
As so often (in my opinion) Tony Blair is almost right. In a wide-ranging speech at Bloomberg this morning he roamed over Syria, Libya, the Middle East and the West’s withdrawal of interest, let alone engagement, in the region. But it is Blair’s comments on Islam that are most interesting, are already garnering headlines and merit
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Freddy Gray discuss the return of God” startat=37] Listen [/audioplayer]What was your reaction recently when it emerged that thousands of unborn foetuses had been burnt by NHS trusts? And that some had been put into ‘waste-to-energy’ incinerators and so used to heat hospitals? Revulsion, I would imagine. But why? I
Melanie McDonagh wrote a piece on Friday objecting to ‘those pundits who find Mr McGuinness’s presence anywhere intolerable.’ As one such pundit I would like to exercise a right of reply. Not to pick a fight with Melanie – who was very nice about my book on ‘Bloody Sunday’ and whose judgement for that reason, among
I know that the official line is delight at the ‘progress’ allegedly represented by the presence of Martin McGuinness, in white tie and tails, standing to toast the Queen’s health at a banquet in Windsor Castle. But what an odious sight. Firstly because the idea that this constitutes some important step is all post-hoc prevarication. The
Readers will know that I am interested in the subject of post-Good Friday agreement ‘justice’ in Northern Ireland. Having been one of the few people to have followed the possibilities of justice over Bloody Sunday, I also recently wrote about the apparently one-sided amnesties which the last Labour government appears to have given to Republicans