Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray

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.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

The left is to blame for the creation of Donald Trump

From our UK edition

A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast with the American author and neuroscientist Sam Harris. He is one of the few people on the political left in Europe or America who recognises the problem of Islamic extremism and doesn’t mind talking about it.  For this he gets – I think it is safe to say – more trouble than the average liberal left-wing west coast American might wish to expect.  But his role on the left, along with Bill Maher, Dave Rubin and a very few others, is incredibly important not least because it should remind people that the great problem of our time does not have to be a partisan issue. But the political left has a problem at the moment.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Strange young things

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thegreendelusion/media.mp3" title="Douglas Murray and Steph Smith discuss whether all young politicians are oddballs" startat=1130] Listen [/audioplayer]Whenever the curtain is pulled back on youthful political activism, the picture is ugly. Three years ago, in Young, Bright and On the Right, the BBC followed students at Oxbridge fighting like vipers to get ahead in their university Conservative clubs. Along with the inevitable three-piece suits, wildly invented accents and endless talk of what ‘the party’ expected, there was also that characteristic lack of awareness that ‘the party’, like the rest of the world, remained largely indifferent to them.

Saturday

Douglas Murray

‘Teddy Ferrara’ is a beautifully constructed play with original things to say

From our UK edition

I don’t often get a chance to write about wonderful things. For various reasons these days I mainly find myself writing about a wide-range of lies and atrocities. But I did want to take a moment out from that routine to acknowledge something wonderful happening in London. The Donmar Theatre is currently heading to the end of a run of a play called Teddy Ferrara by the American playwright Christopher Shinn. I’ve been a fan of Shinn’s since watching his play Now or Later at the Royal Court in 2008 starring Eddie Redmayne (whatever happened to him?). That play is an exploration of some of the political and religious sensitivities thrown up by the 2005 Danish cartoons controversy.

Friday

Douglas Murray

It’s all over for the ‘decent left’, and they have only themselves to blame

From our UK edition

Two weeks after Paris we finally have some clarity from the political left. The current stance of their leadership (as expressed in the Parliamentary Labour party) is that while there is no justification for bombing ISIS, there are many reasons to bomb London. On the same evening that Jeremy Corbyn told his party that he could not support airstrikes on ISIS his old comrade (and head of the Labour party’s new ‘defence review’) Ken Livingstone shared his view on Question Time that the 7/7 bombers ‘gave their lives’ in an act of supremely selfless objection to the 2nd Iraq War. Now I know that there are a few people still on the left who object to this line of thought or try to resist it.

Friday

Douglas Murray

Another day, and another terror attack that is ‘nothing to do with Islam’

From our UK edition

Another day and another group of men from an unknown religion storm into a hotel shouting 'Allahu Akbar'. This time in Mali. Once again they take hostages. And once again they free only those who can recite the Quran. Of course our Home Secretary Theresa May along with the President and Secretary of State in the U.S. will all say this has 'Nothing to do with Islam.' Or as Secretary Kerry said a couple of days back after the massacre in Paris. 'It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean you name it'. Indeed, so long as you don't name it 'Islam'.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

On Question Time, will someone please ask Mehdi Hasan about his views on infidels?

From our UK edition

Various readers have been asking if I am doing Question Time, This Week or Any Questions this week. It's not the BBC's fault but I'm not able to be in the country at the moment. I am particularly sorry not to be able to do Question Time now that I learn that the line-up includes Mehdi Hasan and Anna Soubry. So could someone else on the panel or in the audience please point out that Mehdi Hasan has expressed similar contempt for us infidels as Isis have?

Douglas Murray

France’s civil war…

From our UK edition

In the wake of the massacre in Paris, President François Hollande said that France was ‘at war’ — and that it must be fought both inside his country and outside in the Middle East. As the French air force began dropping bombs on Raqqa in Syria, another operation was under way in towns and cities across France: 168 raids in two days. A battle on two fronts has begun. Chartres cathedral is one of the great monuments of western civilisation, but Chartres was also home to one of the Bataclan theatre suicide bombers. A man from the same area died last summer in Syria, fighting for Isis. In Lyon, theraids turned up a rocket launcher. On Tuesday night, a large-scale counter-terror assault was launched in St Denis in Paris.

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

Politicians are finally starting to admit a link between Islam and the extremists

From our UK edition

One step forward, one step back. Theresa May says in Parliament that the Paris attacks have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. And on the same day, later in the evening, her boss quite rightly says: ‘It is not good enough to say simply that Islam is a religion of peace and then to deny any connection between the religion of Islam and the extremists. Why? Because these extremists are self-identifying as Muslims.’ In saying this the Prime Minister was echoing the sensible and intelligent comments of one of his ministers – Sajid Javid – who rightly said in January after the last massacre in Paris: ‘The lazy answer would be to say that this has got nothing whatsoever to do with Islam or Muslims and that should be the end of that.

Sunday

Douglas Murray

Nine conclusions not to draw from the Paris attacks

From our UK edition

A huge number of nonsense goes around after atrocities like those in Paris. The media and social media are full of them. I thought it might be helpful to list the worst. 'This attack has nothing to do with Islam’: obviously not true. See here. ‘Islam means peace’: Very obviously not true. Incidentally the word actually means ‘submission’. Again see here. 'This attack was an attack on Islam’: No. It was an attack on the people of Paris who were going to watch a football match or a concert or eating in a restaurant. ‘MuslimsAreNotTerrorists’: Today’s leading hashtag on Twitter. Again, clearly wrong. While nobody thinks all Muslims are terrorists all the terrorists detonating at the moment are Muslims.

Saturday

Douglas Murray

Will politicians finally admit that the Paris attacks had something to do with Islam?

From our UK edition

The West’s movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault. In France, Britain, Germany, America and nearly every other country in the world it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It was said by George W. Bush after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7 and Tony Abbott after the Sydney attack last month.

Friday

Douglas Murray

The Paris attacks show that barbarians are inside the gate

From our UK edition

A wave of terror attacks has rocked Paris tonight with a restaurant, a stadium and a concert hall amongst the targets. Gunmen fired into Bataclan concert hall shouting “Allahu akbar," according to France24, and then proceeded to hold hostages; French police then went in hard and some reports have suggested that up to 100 may have been killed during the operation with 40 others killed across the city. Two suicide attacks have also been reported outside the Stade de France stadium, and explosions were heard while the France vs Germany football match was underway:- https://twitter.

Douglas Murray

Drones get the job done, as Jihadi John may have just discovered

From our UK edition

Excellent news, if it is confirmed, that Mohammed Emwazi - aka 'Jihadi John' - has discovered the hard way that seventy-two virgins have not been waiting around for him on a cloud. It is more than a year since David Cameron announced that this country would chase the murderer of British, American and Japanese aid-workers and journalists to the ends of the earth. Unsurprisingly Emwazi just had to be found in Syria. But it is good news that he has been found, not just because justice is served but because it might make other people reflect on the merits of the post-Westminster university career-path that he chose.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Loneliness and the love of friends

From our UK edition

When Hugh and Mirabel Cecil’s book In Search of Rex Whistler was published in 2012, the late Brian Sewell reviewed it with typical insight and lack of generosity. Despite recognising the artist as an extraordinary talent and perhaps the inventor of neo-romanticism, he regretted that Whistler would never be taken sufficiently seriously and pronounced it the last book on him. Happily the Cecils have now proved Sewell wrong several times over. Hugh Cecil’s father, David, was a close friend of the artist, and these volumes seem in part to constitute the continuation of a family’s love for a man who inspired affection wherever he went.

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

Why is the BBC letting the Islamic Human Rights Commission set the agenda?

From our UK edition

The farcically named 'Islamic Human Rights Commission' has featured here many times before. The last time was earlier this year when this Khomeinist group decided to award their 'Islamophobe of the Year' award to the murdered staff of Charlie Hebdo. At their 'awards ceremony' for this the IHRC even joked about what a shame it was that none of the staff of Charlie Hebdo were around to collect the award. Today the IHRC has thrown a smoke grenade into the public debate by issuing 'findings' claiming that the UK government's counter-extremism and counter-terrorism policies are having a 'negative impact' on British Muslims. The 'work' is the usual confection of non-research and pre-ordained 'findings' that you would expect from such an ideologically driven group.

Friday

Douglas Murray

The ‘Stop the War coalition’ is a meeting point for hardline Stalinists and Islamists

From our UK edition

The 'Stop the War coalition' is no such thing. It is a meeting point for hardline Stalinists and Islamists to pursue their own imperial policies. Anyone in any doubt of this need merely consider the organisation's leadership and history. Currently their membership's views on Syria seem to range from those supporting Russian intervention in Syria to those unbothered by it. But they are campaigning against any Western involvement, of course. It seems that a 'Stop the War coalition' meeting in Parliament last night (chaired by Diane Abbott) managed to pull off the Stalinist trick of discussing Syria while refusing to hear from any Syrians.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

‘European values’ won’t last long without national borders

From our UK edition

Fascinating events in Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orban continues to come under fire from other EU member states for trying to maintain what we used to call ‘borders’. This has now led Orban into direct confrontation with Hungary’s richest export – billionaire financier George Soros.  Orban identifies Soros as being one among a number of ‘activists’ whose organisations share part of the blame for encouraging migrants to come to Europe and for lobbying Europeans to regard borders and sovereignty as things of the past. Soros has now responded in a most illuminating manner, confirming that the many groups he funds are indeed working for precisely the ends Prime Minister Orban described.

Friday

Douglas Murray

Shaker Aamer, Guantanamo and the questions that won’t be asked

From our UK edition

A nation rejoices! After a campaign waged from the political right and left, the UK can now finally welcome back Shaker Aamer. This is the man generally described as ‘the last British resident’ in Guantanamo. As he returns to these shores we can confidently predict that he will now be accorded the same human-rights hero status previously accorded to such luminaries of that scene as Moazzam Begg. Of course Aamer’s supporters claim that he was only in Afghanistan in 2001 because he was carrying out ‘voluntary work for an Islamic charity.’  Another case of someone just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Funnily enough Shaker Aamer is an old friend of Moazzam Begg.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

How can multiculturalism both cause and cure racism?

From our UK edition

In recent weeks there have been two prominent examples of what some people in Britain term ‘Islamophobia’. The first involved a woman on a London bus shouting to two identifiably Muslim women that they should ‘go back to their own country.’  She goes on to call them ‘Fucking Isis bitches’. The whole ugly scene was recorded by another passenger and widely trailed around the internet, subsequently leading to a woman’s arrest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfQryY7Jvy4 The second incident was also filmed on a passenger’s phone and took place on a London bus a few days later.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

William Shawcross is right: Islamists are skilled at lawfare

From our UK edition

Regular readers may recall the charming group ‘Cage’. This is the organisation which made headlines earlier this year when Mohammed Emwazi (aka ‘Jihadi John’) was outed as one of their associates. The response of ‘Cage’ was to extol what a ‘beautiful’ young man Jihadi John was, and claim that if it weren’t for Britain’s security services their friend would never have thought of cutting off infidel heads in the Syrian desert. After that PR low, the Charity Commission suggested that UK charities like the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust might be unwise to continue shelling out hundreds of thousands of pounds to the group. There are strict rules in the UK about the activities of charities.

Monday

Douglas Murray

The government’s new counter-extremism strategy is careful and rigorous — albeit with one major flaw

From our UK edition

The British government has published its counter-extremism strategy, unencumbered by the Liberal Democrats who held a similar strategy up for five years of coalition. There is much to be said about this strategy, a strategy which is to my mind the most advanced, careful and rigorous counter-extremism strategy anywhere in the Western world. While the US government remains unwilling to even identify the major source of extremism in the world today, the UK government is taking a lead in being willing to both identify and tackle Islamist extremism as the major source of concern, while acknowledging that other concerning types of extremism also exist. Crucially the strategy strengthens the powers of Ofcom, the Charity Commission and other bodies to do the job they need to do.