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.
Nobody is ever ‘invited’ to appear before Margaret Hodge and the Commons public accounts committee. They are always ‘hauled’ before her. Thus it was with a whole phalanx of BBC executives, past and present, this afternoon. There are really two things which came out of the appearance of Lord (Chris) Patten, Mark Thompson et al.
Readers may be interested to know that I have a piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal on the House of Commons vote last week on Syria. David Davis MP has a piece in the same edition making some broadly similar points. For me the conundrum of Syria now comes down to one particular problem.
What is the one consolation for an MP who has beaten all their colleagues to the top job? It can hardly be the luxury of having your life, circle and income open to alternate snorts of envy and derision. Nor can it be the quagmire into which nearly all attempts to solve the nation’s domestic
Back in the 1960s, the producers of the Tonight programme had a running joke for linking the show’s segments. They would use lines like: ‘And that item commemorated the 23rd anniversary of….’ Or: ‘On Tuesday Mr Jones would have been 73.’ There is something about anniversaries, however audaciously crowbarred in, that always gives the illusion
It may not have been the smartest move to detain David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of Guardian ‘journalist’ Glenn Greenwald, under the Terrorism Act. But the explosion of righteous anger over the episode is ridiculous. Starting with the outraged claim that Miranda was arrested only because of his connection with Greenwald. Wrong. Greenwald himself has previously
Amid all the bloodshed in Egypt and Syria at the moment the fact that the Israelis and Palestinians are once again at the negotiating table has received less notice than usual. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. The intense international focus on the dispute seems to me a minor contributing reason why the dispute remains unresolved.
At the weekend I was on the BBC TV programme Sunday Morning Live. We discussed pilgrimages and the ethics of the banking industry. But the first debate was the most heated. It was titled, ‘Are Muslims being demonised?’ The Huffington Post’s UK political director, Mehdi Hasan, claimed that Muslims are indeed being demonised. For my
Everyone needs something to brighten up their day. And Anthony Weiner has once again come up with the goods. Readers will recall that the Democrat politician had to resign from the US Congress two years ago after a technological mishap meant he sent a photo of his penis (or ‘wiener’ in American slang) to all
The pilot refuses to get going until everyone is seated and quiet. When we take off there are raucous cheers. I am on a midday budget-airline flight to Ibiza. Louder cheers welcome the drinks trolleys which are noisily ransacked. Along from my seat a gentleman is reading The Spectator. It transpires we are heading for
As though the sunny weather and the royal baby were not enough, here comes yet more good news. The European Union has finally banned the military wing of Hezbollah. This is something I have argued for often, including here, here, and here. After recent trials of Hezbollah operatives and Hezbollah operations – including the Bulgaria bombing
A number of columnists have written recently about how we have all misunderstood ‘the Arab Spring’. Most prevalent among them has been the claim that when the current youth-bulge in these countries grows up they will in fact turn into capitalist entrepreneurs. I concede that it is possible. It would certainly be highly desirable. But
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) Britain must bring millions more immigrants into the UK to sustain our ageing population. As the Telegraph reports it, the OBR study has found: ‘…. that allowing more than 140,000 immigrants into Britain a year, equivalent to 6million people, would help increase the overall number of people
Belated thanks to readers who wrote in about the BBC’s Question Time last week (still viewable here). It was a slightly odd edition, I thought. The panel – Margaret Hodge, Danny Alexander, Sarah Woollaston, Tony Robinson and me – found ourselves in agreement on more things than is usual on the show. On party-funding we agreed
The weekend brought the sad news of the death of Kenneth Minogue. Intellectually and physically active to the last, he died on Friday at the age of 82, while returning from a conference on the Galapagos Islands. Spectator readers will remember his essays and reviews for the magazine stretching over many decades. Some may have
As an addendum to yesterday’s post I thought I might remind readers of something about Keith Vaz. The chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee has of course just applauded the banning of two American authors from Britain because of their criticism of Islam. So I turn to Joseph Anton – the illuminating fatwa-memoir released
According to the Home Office if you are a non-Muslim and you make the following statement your presence will be deemed ‘not conducive to the public good’ and you will be barred from entering the United Kingdom: ‘It [Islam] is a religion and a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for
A terrific debate last night at the Spectator: ‘Assad is a war criminal – the West must intervene in Syria.’ I don’t think there was any disagreement on the first part of the motion. But there certainly was on the second. I spoke in opposition to the motion and much of the argument I made
Sadiq Khan MP had a piece in the Telegraph last week attacking an excellent piece by Charles Moore in the same paper the Saturday before. In his piece Sadiq makes a number of claims which are worth rebutting. First is his question, ‘Would we accept the Jewish community being talked about the way the Muslim community
I don’t think, so far as I can remember, that I have ever previously found any sympathy with the sayings of top Islamist cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. But I do appreciate his recent sentiment that Hezbollah is in fact not the ‘Army of God’ but rather the ‘Army of Satan.’ And I can find only
Is there not something odd about a Prime Minister talking of getting involved in the Syrian civil war on the very day that another 4,500 British service personnel had their redundancy notices handed to them? It has always been my belief that you should never even tinker in a conflict unless you are prepared to
