Douglas Murray

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 her thought crime on Twitter. Thanks to a left-wing stink being kicked up on the same medium, her career – including twenty years in the NHS – is now apparently nullified overnight. She has had to step down from her role as a Police and Crime Commissioner and now she cannot stand for the Conservatives at an election. A party spokesman has said: ‘these comments are completely unacceptable and it is right that she has stepped down’.

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 is also something slightly unsettling about this video. The court-looking background (in fact the Oxford Union), the field-marshal at ease attire of the man, his gait, gestures and manner of speaking: what does it remind you of? Personally, it reminds me of how lucky we are to have been born in an age when voters can see what a person like Galloway is really like when he encounters someone who challenges his views.

I was delighted to be one of the judges (along with John Rentoul, Heather Brooke and Tony McNulty) who selected Nick Cohen's You Can't Read This Book as the polemic of the year at the Political Book Awards in London last night. It is a terrific read from a strong list. I hope that anyone who hasn't already read it will now take the opportunity. There could hardly be a more appropriate time to do so.

In 2008 one of Britain’s best and most courageous men, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, said that there were parts of Britain which had become no-go areas for non-Muslims. For these comments he was met with widespread scorn and denial. Nick Clegg – then merely leader of the Liberal Democrat party – said the Bishop’s comments were ‘a gross caricature of reality.’ William Hague said that the Bishop had ‘probably put it too strongly’, while the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) accused him of ‘frantic scaremongering.’ So how interesting it is to read of the arrests made by police in recent days of a number of men for a string of incidents in London. These involve radical Muslim men trying to enforce Islamic law at night in parts of London.

Should Jews leave Britain? The question is prompted by this piece written by the Israeli journalist Caroline Glick. Glick recently came to London to take part in an Intelligence Squared debate. The debate was about Israeli settlements. Glick and Danny Dayan attempted to explain to the London audience that Palestinian rejection rather than Jewish settlement in the West Bank is the primary reason there is still no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The debate is now available on Youtube and there you can see the deeply rancorous tone of the discussion. At one point Lord Levy’s son, Daniel Levy, (arguing against Glick and Dayan) has to be almost physically restrained by his own co-debater (William Sieghart).

I have been out of the country for a couple of weeks and away from the sweet furore of the internet. I'll be posting in the coming days on some of the bigger things which have gone on while I have been away. In the meantime, readers who are interested can read here a piece of mine published last week in Die Welt. Written before David Cameron's recent pronouncements, it is an attempt to explain the legitimate reasons for British EU-scepticism to a German audience.

An interesting if depressing edition of Any Questions on Friday. Interesting because of Sir Malcolm Rifkind and occasionally because of Simon Hughes. Depressing because of one person: Harriet Harman. There is a theory that the Republicans lost the recent US election in part because the wind they thought they had behind them — the economy — blew against them. This happened because the electorate remembered who was in charge when the catastrophe started and thought the inheritors of the situation deserved more time. The Labour party could stand a chance of getting back into power in 2015. But to deserve this they have to be honest enough to admit that while in office they ran up a terrible deficit and debt. They should then promise not to do it again.

Trying out new career options on LBC this morning, Nick Clegg inadvertently illustrated several serious political truths. A caller claimed to have been a member of the ‘Liberal Democrat’ party – indeed an ex county-councillor in Surrey.  But he said that he had recently ripped up his party membership card.  Happily, however, he proceeded to read from it. Before this morning I had never heard anyone recite this hilarious document.  But if the caller was telling the truth the card says: ‘The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

For anybody who needs reminding of how stupid ‘clever’ people can be, can I recommend Guido’s post on the Ralph Miliband lecture series?  Each year the London School of Economics still holds an annual commemoration of the dead Marxist now best known of as the father of David and Ed.  Much that has gone wrong with our universities can be learnt by briefly considering these events. This year the lectures will include the blogger Laurie Penny talking about ‘Women, protest and the nature of female rebellion’.  She will be doing this in LSE’s Sheikh Zayed Theatre. But best of all is to recall the 2010 lecture given by LSE alumnus Saif Gaddafi.  People really should watch Professor David Held’s introduction.