Douglas Murray

Friends of mine who still call themselves ‘liberals’ or ‘leftists’ occasionally confide in me that they think the left might be screwed.  Depending on how I feel on that particular day I tend to reply either that (a) they must stay and fight their political corner and make the left decent again or (b) one day they will realise that this is because the left is wrong. Anyhow – evidence for the (b) answer seems to grow by the day. The Labour leadership race aside, consider the Guardian newspaper, which is a pretty good weathervane for what has gone wrong with the left.  In the last fortnight the paper has interviewed two prominent British Muslims.

The literary emissions of the left are hardly ever enjoyable, but they can be instructive. Last year Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century became one of the biggest-selling political books of the year. Like a thousand-page Soviet report on tractor production, it hardly seemed intended to be read. The point of its success was that it could be said to ‘prove’ the left’s argument. They could then hit their opponents over the head with it and move to the next stage. Last year they questioned some premises of capitalism and now Paul Mason, the economics editor of Channel 4 News (and Spectator diarist), is here to say that capitalism is in fact over.

Bad news from the continent.  In an interview with the German weekly Stern, Laurent ‘Riss’ Sourisseau, the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo, announced that he would no longer draw cartoons of any historical figure called Mohammed. This follows his former colleague Renald ‘Luz’ Luzier saying a couple of months back that he would no longer draw Mohammed either. ‘Luz’ announced that he was leaving the magazine shortly afterwards. I don’t judge either of them for this decision. ‘Luz’ happened to be running late for work on the morning that the Kouachi brothers forced their way into the Charlie Hebdo offices and started shooting his colleagues.

Is being gay ‘left-wing’?  You wouldn’t have thought so.  If being gay is something which some people just are then there is no obvious reason why gays should not be of every political persuasion and none.  Why should the fact that you are attracted to members of the same sex mean that you are in favour of higher taxes?  Or entirely open borders?  Should being gay affect your attitude towards the European Union (in any case hardly a left/right question)? I ask because this weekend the annual ‘Gay Pride’ event happens in London and the organisers have tried to ban Ukip from attending.  The sweeping generalisation – not to mention political presumption – that this reveals is extraordinary.

Each year Anjem Choudary earns more in benefits than a soldier does starting off in our armed forces. This is a fact I never tire of pointing out – especially to Anjem’s face whenever we have the misfortune to meet. The follow-on point, which I think also worth continuing to make, is that there is something suicidal about a society that rewards its enemies better than it does its defenders. Choudary and his family rake in around £25,000 each year  and - as you can see from this newly-released video above  – we taxpayers now get even more for our money than we had previously thought.

Honestly. No sooner have I filed a piece than along comes Sayeeda Warsi to help prove my point. Yesterday morning she popped up because another three sisters and their nine children appear to have traveled from West Yorkshire to join the thriving Islamic State. Apparently Sayeeda knows one of the families. And of course she is blaming this latest example of jihadist emigration on the British authorities in general and this government in particular. She claims that the current government has 'disengaged' from Muslim communities. Now Sayeeda must know that this is nonsense. She must have some inkling of the precise and often thankless efforts to engage such communities. So this is just a pitch to get her old job back.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is a strange beast. Its membership largely consists of Asghar Bukhari and his brother. Occasionally another person appears on television claiming an affiliation to the group - an affiliation promptly proved by use of the organisation’s modus operandi, viz furious shouting backed up by ferocious stupidity. Anyhow, it has long been plain that Asghar lives in the fever swamps. I suppose Sky just think he makes good noise. But today brings a particularly moving example of where this can lead. Thanks to the excellent Jamie Palmer (@jacobinism) who reads Asghar’s Facebook rants so the rest of us don’t have to, the world can now read a real gem. Here it is. But first a warning. This is not, it seems, a spoof.

Today's Times carries an interesting story. A new report from the Department of Education reveals that: ‘Almost one in three of England’s primary school children is from an ethnic minority – the highest level yet.  One pupil in five speaks English as a second language.’ There follows some information about how these numbers are putting an ‘unprecedented pressure’ on schools which now ‘struggle to cope’ after a 2.1 per cent increase in pupils at state primary schools in one year alone. The extraordinary thing about stories like this is that they just sail by.  No politician has anything much to say about it.

Freddy’s blog on the so-called ‘rape culture’ that we in Western democracies are all meant to be struggling under reminds me of an unwittingly important moment on BBC3 last year.  It was provided by our colleague James Delingpole when he appeared on something called ‘Free Speech.’  This is an almost comically appalling ‘yoof’ programme which I did once from an ice rink in Doncaster alongside a Page 3 model and Owen Jones. Anyway, on the occasion that poor James appeared one of the subjects that came up was ‘rape culture’.

The former Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, is one of the most interesting thinkers, writers and speakers about today.  His interventions into the public debate rarely fail to encourage thought, knowledge and indeed wisdom.  I had the pleasure of interviewing him last year for the magazine just before he was due to give a major lecture in London titled ‘Confronting violence in the name of God'. The themes of that interview and talk are now significantly expanded into a book due to be published later this month.  It is called ‘Not in God’s Name: confronting religious violence'.

Does anybody else remember life in Britain before the year 2000?  Despite the distressing increase in the number of walking, talking human beings one meets who were born since the millennium, there must be some other people who remember those times.  Yet what a picture of that era is now being painted. Take the incredibly glitzy and celeb-driven campaign currently running thanks to the campaign group ‘Liberty’.  No less a site than The Spectator has run the ads. And understandably so. For they are not only well-funded but feature the icons of our time.