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.
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I have a piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal (Europe) on our new press regulations titled ‘We have the newspapers we deserve’: ‘I have just finished studying a diagram aimed at explaining Britain’s new press laws. After having a lie-down, one single line keeps running through my head. Oddly enough it isn’t ‘recognition appointments
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I won’t often say this, but there is a must-read article at the Huffington Post today. Titled ‘The Sorry Truth Is That the Virus of Anti-Semitism Has Infected the British Muslim Community’ it is a reflection on the recent anti-Semitic outburst by Lord Ahmed of Rotherham. It an admirably honest piece of writing the author says: ‘It
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To my simple suggestion that Owen Jones apologise for claiming that an 11-month old child killed by a Hamas rocket was in fact killed by an Israeli ‘so-called targeted strike’, Owen appears to have answered ‘no’. He starts his reply: ‘In the last couple of years I’ve learned one thing: the right don’t like me
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Last November, during another exchange between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza, the left-wing columnist Owen Jones appeared on BBC Question Time. Invited to comment on recent events, what he read out (or so it appears from the tape) was a catalogue of errors about Israel. Among them were big, sweeping incorrect allegations – such
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I am delighted to say that my latest book, Bloody Sunday: truths, lies and the Saville Inquiry, has been jointly awarded the Christopher Ewart-Biggs memorial prize at a ceremony in Dublin. My co-winner is Julieann Campbell, author of Setting the Truth Free: the inside story of the Bloody Sunday justice campaign. The literary prize is
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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
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‘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
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‘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
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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:
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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
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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
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I thought that readers might be interested in this new piece from me on Islam, the Koran and Richard Dawkins’s survival instinct.
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‘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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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