Douglas Murray

I spend my life moving. Over recent years it was research. Now it’s caused by that research. But I have become adept at adding things on to each trip. In Naples at the weekend, I visited the Sansevero chapel which contains the ‘veiled Christ’ of Sanmartino — a work Canova said he would have given ten years of his life to have created. This is so moving to see in the flesh — even the nail wounds visible through the marble shroud — that you have to make an effort not to ignore the other masterworks around it. Afterwards I steal a night down the coast in Positano. The sun is searing and the Mediterranean like glass. Only the tablecloths billow frenetically in the wind that rushes down from the cliffs.

On Wednesday, two striking events happened in France. The first was that the President of the Republic led the nation’s mourning for Lieutenant-Colonel Beltrame, the policeman who swopped himself for a hostage at the siege at a supermarket in Trèbes last week. Elsewhere in Paris on the same day there was a silent march past the flat of Mireille Knoll. As a girl, in 1942, Mme Knoll narrowly escaped being rounded up by the French police and put on a train to Auschwitz. Last weekend, at the age of 85, the remains of her wheelchair-bound body were found in her Paris flat. Her body had been stabbed and burned. Mme Knoll, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease had apparently previously told police about a neighbour who had threatened to ‘burn her’.

One of the presumptions of democracy is that leaders listen to the public. But as poll after poll in Europe shows, this presumption breaks down around the subject of migration. On that — and the numerous issues surrounding it — mainstream politicians consistently ignore the public. And not only ignore them but berate them and act against their concerns. This month sees the publication of the latest poll by Project 28, whose 2017 poll of public opinion I wrote about here last summer. Once again, the Századvég Foundation has polled opinion from 1,000 respondents in each of the 28 countries of the EU. And once again, the findings are startling. Any politician should consider them; a wise politician would listen to them.

Is Allah gay? The eventuality – as Jeeves might say – would seem to be a remote one. If such a being as Allah did exist and was gay then no harm could come from stating the fact. If such a being as Allah exists and is not gay then Allah would presumably be big enough to shrug off such insinuations. And if – and I only mention the possibility – such a being as Allah does not exist at all, then it really is neither here nor there whether he, she, they, ze or zir is alleged to be gay, bi, trans or anything else. Certainly none of this should be cause for being banned from the country. Yet that is what happened last week when a Canadian journalist-activist called Lauren Southern got turned away at the UK border and refused permission to enter the country.

I do the overnight from Washington in order to be back for Jewish Book Week. Some months ago the organisers asked who I would like to interview me. I suggested Fraser Nelson or one of my other delightful Spectator colleagues. They give me Rod Liddle. Dozing on the plane, after a foul BA dinner and a beaker of Scotch, my mind throws up a highly specific nightmare. Before an impeccably liberal London Jewish audience, Rod eyes me manically and — rubbing his hands — begins with ‘So, Douglas, what are we going to do about the bloody immigrants?’ The hall goes into uproar. Sweating profusely, I appeal for calm. The event is cancelled. Of course, on the night nothing of the sort happens.

When I saw the photo of Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black holding a photo of an ultrasound, and all the subsequent headlines proclaiming ‘Tom and Lance are having a baby’ I thought one thing above all: ‘That’s strange’. Not ‘eww’, or ‘gross’, or ‘what a way to get over certain negative recent publicity’, but just ‘That’s strange’. Strange that we should have reached the point (inevitable in a way) in which two men announce that they’re having a baby and everyone is meant to just say ‘yay’ and not ask any more questions.

When I saw the photo of Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black holding a photo of an ultrasound, and all the subsequent headlines proclaiming ‘Tom and Lance are having a baby’ I thought one thing above all: ‘That’s strange’. Not ‘eww’, or ‘gross’, or ‘what a way to get over certain negative recent publicity’, but just ‘That’s strange’. Strange that we should have reached the point (inevitable in a way) in which two men announce that they’re having a baby and everyone is meant to just say ‘yay’ and not ask any more questions.

The future of modern Britain looks set to be an unusually complicated affair. Take just one piece of news that came out of the trial of Darren Osborne over recent days. According to relatives of the Finsbury Park attacker, the first trigger towards his radicalisation was watching the BBC drama Three Girls about the Rochdale grooming gangs. Evidence suggests that this drama put him on the path to deciding to hire a van and drive it into a group of Muslims in Finsbury Park a few weeks later, murdering 51-year old Makram Ali. Now of course the BBC’s drama department should not be held responsible for the death of Mr Ali. Though I would love to see a real debate on Newsnight or the like in which the BBC questioned its own apparent role in this terrible business.