Douglas Murray

It’s a dangerous thing when you import the worst aspects of another culture. And an even worse thing when you import the worst interpretation of that worst aspect of another culture. This week marked a year since the death of George Floyd at the hands of a policeman in Minnesota. Since that time, Derek Chauvin,

There has been a huge amount of comment in recent days on the latest round of exchanges between Israel and the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. As usual whole slews of celebrities and other important figures on the international stage have lamented the fact that Israel has put so much effort into

One of the least attractive aspects of American politics is epitomised in the ‘Office of the First Lady’. The office in the East Wing of the White House has grown under consecutive presidents and, depending on the incumbent’s ambitions, can include policy and legislative initiatives. All emanate from a person solely in place because some

This article first appeared in the 20 March edition of The Spectator.The Church of England report that was leaked to Douglas Murray has now been published. You can read the full report here. With a heavy heart I must return once more to the subject of the Church of England. I recognise that is not a

There was much rejoicing among Britain’s Islamists last week when the thinktank and campaigning organisation Quilliam announced that it was closing. The Islamists were pleased because for the 14 years since its founding Quilliam has been the most prominent Muslim-run organisation arguing for a progressive, non-Islamist Islam. The exact reasons why Quilliam has shut down

I wonder exactly when we agreed that it is more of a priority to gather with strangers than to meet loved ones? You might chart a number of moments, but the presumption seems to have become fixed. You might say that it started before the pandemic with the idea that truanting from school is worthy,

Earlier this month, with the citizenry still confined to their houses, borrowing at record highs and GDP in a record slump, there was a debate in Westminster Hall about ‘conversion therapy’. An internet petition has called on the government to ‘Make LGBT conversion therapy illegal in the UK’. And so for a couple of hours

Subscribers will know that I wrote in my column for the magazine this week about the revelations by former journalist Roy Greenslade that he was an active supporter of the IRA throughout the Troubles. But there are a number of people who we should still hear from on this, and have not. One is Greenslade’s

In these winter months, we must find our amusements where we can. And like many people I was amused to learn recently that the ‘Martin McGuinness Peace Foundation’ has announced a poetry competition in honour of the late IRA leader. As Ian Acheson has noted here, there will be those who think that the last

We should talk about horizons, and the setting of desirable ones. A newspaper gave it a go the other day with the front-page news that it is possible pubs may reopen in April rather than May. Given that we read elsewhere that when pubs do reopen, they may not be allowed to serve alcohol, the

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not an easy person to cancel. She has survived the brutal murder of her colleague Theo van Gogh, lived through more than two decades of serious threats to her life and fled more countries than many people have visited. Perhaps it is for these reasons, rather than in spite of them,

You may have missed Ursula von der Leyen’s big speech at Davos last week. Most people did. Perhaps because Davos was a more low-key affair than normal this year. Ordinarily the annual summit of the World Economic Forum allows various world leaders to jet into the Swiss Alps in order to lecture the rest of