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.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

In response to Peter Oborne on nuclear Iran

I am pleased that Peter Oborne concedes that his co-author David Morrison was ‘foolish’ and ‘clumsy’ in his statements. Perhaps Morrison was indeed attempting ‘to be as accurate as he could about what he understood to be the facts’. But that is a statement about the understanding of Mr Oborne's co-author, not a statement about the facts. I still cannot see how anybody who accepts that President Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier could have said what Mr Oborne’s co-author said last week. To recap, over at the Telegraph last week David Morrison said: ‘I have never come across a statement from Ahmadinejad saying that the Holocaust didn’t happen.

Douglas Murray

If there was ever a time to intervene in Syria, it has passed

It is more than ten years since I first sat down with members of the Syrian opposition. Back then they included real moderates, but even these didn’t predict a bloodless transition. ‘We will have to unite the country against the Alawites,’ I remember one saying, referring to the minority from which the Assad dynasty comes. ‘Kill them?’ I asked nervously. ‘Or chase them into the mountains,’ he replied. Now, more than two years into the Syrian civil war, there may still be some Alawites but, as Paul Wood points out opposite, there are hardly any moderates. What good opposition elements there were have been killed, have fallen away or otherwise become insignificant since calls for outside help began.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Did MI6 plot against UKIP?

Dirty tricks against UKIP by the establishment are not a new phenomenon. Though in recent days the Conservative party have been found engaging in them, there are far more striking examples from the recent past. On 25 May 2001 the Spectator published a piece by Norman Tebbit that deserves to be far better known.  Tebbit recounts the tale of two serving or former British intelligence agents who infiltrated first Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum Party and then UKIP. Tebbit gives examples of how UKIP’s efforts were derailed during the period in which these agents were inside the party. It is important to stress before directing you to the Tebbit piece below that it is not conspiracy theory.

Monday

Douglas Murray

CND cannot rewrite its own history

Last week I recorded an edition of Hardtalk for the BBC which has gone out today.  It is a discussion with Kate Hudson, the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), on the future of nuclear weaponry. The discussion is available on iplayer here. A couple of observations. Firstly, I seem to have been responsible for a rare ‘corpsing’ during a Hardtalk recording. Kate Hudson took a comment by me about the ‘decades’ CND had been fighting a losing battle as an ungallant remark on her age. It was not meant as such, but did lead to a temporary break-down in discussions, for which apologies. On a more substantial matter, I see that the BBC has left on the cutting-room floor what I think was an important point.

Friday

Douglas Murray

Memo to Iran’s apologists: President Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust

Has President Ahmadinejad ever denied the Holocaust? David Morrison, co-author with Peter Oborne of a new apologia on the Iranian ‘government’, appears to think that he has not. In a bizarre and disgraceful interview with the Telegraph, alongside his co-author, Morrison recites the main claim of their book – which is that the Iranian regime is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Oborne’s Telegraph colleague Con Coughlin too kindly skewers that claim as ‘delusional’. But even more alarming than that conspiracy theory of theirs is Morrison’s claim (uncorrected by Oborne, the Telegraph’s chief political commentator) that he has ‘never come across a statement from President Ahmadinejad saying that the Holocaust didn’t happen’.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Islamophobia is a government priority. What about Islamism?

According to one of his family members Tamerlan Tsarnaev was, among other things, ‘angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.’ His efforts to refute this charge included planting bombs in the middle of a family sports event in Boston, killing - among others - an eight year old boy. The case brings to mind that of Muzzammil Hassan from western New York. Hassan was the founder of Bridges TV in the US – a station set up to help ‘non-Muslims overcome the negative images they may have of both Muslims and Islam.’ Mr Hassan was subsequently convicted and sent to prison for beheading his wife. Certainly this is not a good week for the ‘nothing to see here’ crowd.

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

America, like Europe, is dishonest about Islamic extremism

I have been in the US over recent weeks, during the period of the Boston bombings and the hunt for the perpetrators. It may surprise some British readers to know that although American public debate is undoubtedly wider and more robust than in Britain, even America displays denial and deflection when it turns out that the culprits are radical Islamists. I think of this as ‘Toulouse syndrome.’ Much of the reaction to Boston is very reminiscent of what we saw last year after the shooting of seven people in France. From the first attacks on French soldiers until after the third shootings at a Jewish school, both national and international news focussed on the possibility that the lone gunman had been a far-right extremist.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

The Philpott case should prompt debate about Britain’s underclass

The Philpott case has already turned into a row about media reporting. You can see why. It is so much easier to argue about a newspaper front-page than to talk about the terrible underclass this country has created. In a nutshell our problem is this. For hard-working couples, having children in 21st century Britain is unbelievably costly. Having been taxed at every turn of their lives they have to think extremely carefully about whether they can afford to have a child. Many will decide they cannot. Others will decide that they can but will spend endless nights worrying over how they are going to support the child they have brought into the world. If they find they can afford that first child they will still think very hard about whether they can afford a second, let alone a third.

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

Surely Katie Price demeans marriage more than gay marriage ever could?

The right of gays to have a civil marriage in a non-religious service is once again an issue. There have been large and slightly violent protests in Paris as well as on-going judicial contortions in the US. I know my support for gay marriage appears to put me in a minority among conservatives. But perhaps I could ask a question of my opponents? One of the things that opponents of gay civil marriage always say is that gay marriage would ‘undermine’, ‘distort’ or otherwise ‘demean’ existing marriage. Many people – continuing to mix up civil and religious marriage – claim that the ‘sanctity’ of religious heterosexual marriage will be undermined by a civil, non-religious, homosexual marriage.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Trenton Oldfield makes about as much sense as the entrails of a chicken

I trust everybody enjoyed the boat race this weekend  Last week the editors of this magazine made me go through the purgatory of speaking with the person who disrupted last year's race. Listeners may come away with the idea that, contrary to reports, Trenton Oldfield was coshed most terribly upon the head by last years' varsity oars. This would be a mistake. As a graduate of the London School of Economics, he has simply imbibed each and every one of the stupidities which the modern university has it in its power to bestow.

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

The British Prime Minister’s insignificance

Here is David Cameron’s problem in a nutshell. During his immigration speech on Monday he said: ‘Put simply when it comes to illegal migrants, we’re rolling up that red carpet and showing them the door.’ Just two days later it was once again made clear that the red carpet is firmly in place and no such door in sight. Abu Qatada came to the UK illegally on a forged passport in 1993. He is wanted in Jordan to face terrorism charges. Abu Qatada is an illegal migrant. Yet he ‘cannot’ be shown the door. The government needs to realise one thing: that as long as we remain a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, words like those spoken on Monday only show the British Prime Minister to be a wholly insignificant figure.

Douglas Murray

Julie Burchill, trannies and the free press

If anybody doubts that free speech would be in danger after Leveson it is worth remembering what it is already like in this country. A couple of months back Julie Burchill wrote a column in the Observer about transsexuals. It was a response to complaints by transsexuals about a piece by a friend of Burchill’s, Suzanne Moore. In a glorious broadside of a column Burchill referred to the complainants as, among much else, ‘dicks in chicks' clothing’ and ‘a bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs’. The results were endless further complaints and a junior government minister – Lynne Featherstone – calling publicly for Burchill and the editor of the Observer to lose their jobs over the column.

Monday

Douglas Murray

Despite the fanfare, David Cameron still isn’t doing anything on immigration

Well, it was right not to expect much. The full text of David Cameron’s speech on immigration is here but it can be summarised in one sentence: ‘mass migration has brought some good things, but it has also brought problems so here is some tinkering we propose.’ There are so many problems when our politicians speak on this subject. Not least is that they expect to be congratulated for saying the utterly obvious. For instance, most British people worked out a long time ago that those of us who already live here ought to have priority in housing over people who have just arrived. We also worked out some time back that an NHS which provides for the whole world is unsustainable and that if people haven’t paid into the system then the system shouldn’t pay out.

Saturday

Douglas Murray

Europe should shut the door on immigration

The Prime Minister is giving a speech about immigration on Monday.  I am sure we can all guess the content.  If anybody is interested in a break from this — or indeed if the PM's speech-writers are curious — perhaps I could humbly recommend this debate I took part in a couple of weeks ago in Athens. The motion was 'Europe should shut the door on immigration'.  I used my speech and time in Q&A to explain why although we should not slam the door, let alone lock it, Europe urgently needs to wean ourselves off the habit of mass immigration and, at the very least, to give the door of mass immigration a firm but gentle push.

Friday

Douglas Murray

Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good

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 panels,' 'regulatory appointments panels' or even 'standards and compliance arms,' memorable though all these are. 'The line is from T.S. Eliot, who almost eight decades ago derided those people who spend their days 'dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.'' The whole piece is here.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Somehow, I’m agreeing with Mehdi Hasan

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 pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn't just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it's routine and commonplace Sounds like the writing of some terrible ‘Islamophobe’ doesn’t it?

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

Is that a ‘no’ then, Owen?

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 very much, and expend a sizeable amount of energy attacking me personally rather than my writing.’ In saying that he has learned even ‘one thing’ I fear Owen exaggerates. He begins his next paragraph: ‘Hard right pseudo-intellectual [Douglas] Murray…’ Nothing worse than attacking a person rather than their writing is there?

Monday

Douglas Murray

Will Owen Jones apologise?

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 as the claim that Israel is enforcing ‘a siege which stops basic supplies’ getting into Gaza. But there were also some new and more specific errors. Take his striking and emotive claim that Israel’s ‘onslaught’ included ‘targeted strikes’ which killed children. Here is one of the things he said: ‘I don’t want to just throw statistics around – I’ll give you one example of one of those children.

Friday

Douglas Murray

A great honour in memory of a remarkable man

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 named after the former British Ambassador to Ireland. Christopher Ewart-Biggs was educated at Wellington and Oxford and served with the Royal Kent Regiment during World War II. He lost his right eye at the Battle of el-Alamein. After Foreign Office postings to numerous countries, including Algeria, he arrived in Dublin in July 1976. Twelve days after his arrival he was murdered by the IRA in a landmine attack on his car. His killers were never found.

Douglas Murray

At last. Some right thinking on Iran

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 the possibility of a military option firmly on the table. The Iranian regime must be under no illusions about our determination and resolve in preventing them from achieving their objective of developing a nuclear weapons capability. Those of us who understand the grave danger a nuclear Iran would pose – and there are many – should not hesitate to make these sentiments absolutely explicit.