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.
At last some leadership on Iran. And from the Conservative benches. After last week’s appalling Jack Straw piece in the Telegraph, the Conservative MP James Morris has a brilliant and blistering response in the same paper. ‘It is vital that we continue to pressure the Iranian regime through tough and sustained sanctions – and leave
‘Drones save lives’ is the title of my piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. President Obama is currently receiving criticism from left and right for his policy of targeted assassination by unmanned drones. I think among a range of bad options drones are the least bad option for dealing with the threat, and explain
‘In the ranking of dictators, Hugo Chávez is in the welterweight class’ this magazine said just a few weeks ago. Now the Venezuelan President has gone to that final meeting place of dictators great and small. And after the remnants of the international left have concluded their inevitable period of eulogy and mourning, it will
In the latest issue of Standpoint magazine I have a longish piece on the census for England and Wales. The story made the news for a couple of days at the end of last year, but I thought the census results deserved to be dwelt upon a little longer. I hope readers find it interesting:
Jack Straw cropped up in the Telegraph yesterday claiming that even if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons it wouldn’t be worth going to war over. This, it will be remembered, is the same man who as Foreign Secretary argued for full-scale military intervention in Iraq to disarm that country of Weapons of Mass Destruction which
As the late Christopher Hitchens used to say of the most vociferous, gay-obsessed clergy: ‘I have a rule of thumb for such clerics and have never known it to fail: Set your watch and sit back, and pretty soon they will be found sprawling lustily on the floor of the men’s room.’ In Cardinal Keith
I thought that readers might be interested in this new piece from me on Islam, the Koran and Richard Dawkins’s survival instinct.
‘Would you say the same thing about Jews? Gays? Or any other minority?’ This is one of the witless questions asked of anyone who writes about Islamic extremism. And it is a fascinating point in a way, taking in – as it does – everything other than the facts. Yesterday another radical Muslim cell in
There’s nothing quite like diversity. Take Manchester. It has a large Muslim population and a lot of gays. What could possibly go wrong? Last week Manchester University’s Student Union played host to the ‘Global Aspirations of Women Society’. This appears to be a front group of the extremists of Hizb ut-Tahrir and therefore by no
Is it true that the Today programme did not go out this morning? If so the strikers have done a great public service. Giving the country a day off the Today programme is one of the kindest things anybody could do, in any economic climate. I hope the generosity continues. I stopped listening years ago
How can conservatives ensure they always lose? A good place to start is to concede every lie of the left. The Conservative Party appears to be doing what it can in this regard. Take their decision to strike Rachel Frosh from their candidates list for the great crime of… linking Nazism to socialism. Frosh committed
A couple of days ago I managed to interview Lars Hedegaard – the Danish journalist currently at an undisclosed location under police protection after an assassination attempt at his home in Copenhagen. The results are in this week’s magazine. Lars was his usual calm, eloquent and forthright self. If anybody thought they could silence him,
The assassin came to his home dressed as a postman. When the historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard opened his front door, the man — whom Lars describes as ‘looking like a typical Muslim immigrant’ in his mid-twenties — fired straight at his head. Though Hedegaard was a yard away, the bullet narrowly missed. The mild-mannered
The video (below) of Galloway really does have to be seen. It is best with the sound off (for what it is worth he is lambasting a student for asking a question which is critical of Hugo Chavez). It is best from about 3 mins 40 seconds in. As well as something innately comic, there
It is now three days since a European journalist was visited at his door by an assassin. For three days I have waited for any response to this. The BBC reported the story in brief, as did the Mail and the Guardian posted the Associated Press story. But where are all the free-speech defenders? Where
I was delighted to be one of the judges (along with John Rentoul, Heather Brooke and Tony McNulty) who selected Nick Cohen’s You Can’t Read This Book as the polemic of the year at the Political Book Awards in London last night. It is a terrific read from a strong list. I hope that anyone
Sometimes a perfectly good argument can be stretched too far. I heard the resulting snapping noise last week in Cambridge during a debate with Richard Dawkins. We were meant to be on the same side at the Union. But over some months the motion hardened and eventually became ‘This House believes religion should have no
It has just been announced that my friend Lars Hedegaard, a Danish journalist and frequent critic of Islamic fundamentalism, has narrowly survived an assassination attempt at his home in Denmark. The BBC is reporting: ‘Police said a gunman in his 20s rang the doorbell at Mr Hedegaard’s Copenhagen home pretending to deliver a package and
The report of the Bulgarian authorities into the bus-bombing which killed a local bus driver and five Israeli tourists in Burgas last summer has confirmed what so many of us suspected: it was Hezbollah. Commenting on the release of the report, and the identity of the bombers, Interior Minister Tscetan Tsvetanov has said: ‘We have
I have a piece in the Wall Street Journal (Europe) this morning: ‘Take Iran At Its Word’ can be found online here. The piece asks what is required to stop the Mullahs getting nuclear weaponry. And it relates a strange breakfast experience with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini.