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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Free speech in Britain is being pulled in two completely opposite directions. On the one hand, thanks to the increasingly tortuous mission-creep that is the Leveson Inquiry, there are a range of demands for greater regulation of the print press. Today’s rather surprising letter to the Guardian by various Conservative MPs is an example of
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The words ‘Saville’ and ‘Inquiry’ have taken on a somewhat different meaning in recent weeks. But this is just to tell interested readers that my book on the original Saville Inquiry, Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry is out now in paperback. If you can still find a bookshop then you might find
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This week the National Theatre opened another new play — its seventh — by Alan Bennett. For those who know only his earlier work, Bennett remains the Queen Mother of British literature, a national treasure adored by all for his cosy charm and twinkly-eyed naughtiness. But anyone who holds this view has clearly not seen,
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What is the role of a commentator in an election in which he or she cannot vote? And how would I vote tomorrow if I could? The response of many British journalists to the American elections is to do one of several things. These include becoming either a mystical seer or a partisan hack. The
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Differences between the US and the UK are often commented upon. But the storm ‘Sandy’ this week has highlighted one in particular. It is no criticism of either President Obama or Governor Romney to say that it seems strange to me to see them hugging and otherwise comforting people who have lost their homes and
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The politics of poppy-wearing shift slightly each year. The unofficial rule used to be that poppy-wearing began at the start of November. In recent years this has crept forward further and further into October, largely, I think, because of politicians and the BBC. The BBC lives in terror of someone appearing on one of its
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Why are UK taxpayers paying salaries to terrorists? The answer, as I explain in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, is Alan Duncan. The International Development Minister has been told repeatedly that money provided by the UK taxpayer to the Palestinian Authority’s and its ‘general budget’ is being used to pay salaries to Palestinian terrorists in
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What does the Jimmy Savile case tell us about received wisdom? Over the last few weeks it has become clear that one of the most famous people in Britain was known by very many people to be an active, abusive paedophile. Many other people in broadcasting knew it. People in charities he was associated with
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Because our Parliament discusses little of significance anymore, most of the public tend to ignore it. The perception that the weekly silliness of Prime Minister’s Questions constitutes Parliamentary business is enough to put any normal person off. And apart from that weekly bun-fight, even the media barely bothers to report on the work of either
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I have a piece in this week’s magazine on the fall of Barack Obama. I’m not saying he may not still win, just that even if he does he will be a diminished President. It’s available online here.
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If a US presidential election has the potential to wear down foreign observers, let alone the American public, imagine what it must do to the candidates. The challenger must spend years campaigning for the endorsement of their own party — fighting rebellions and pandering to diehards — while the incumbent has to work equally hard
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Yesterday 10,000 Muslims travelled from across Britain to the London offices of Google to demonstrate that they do not understand anything about the country they live in. The protest was one of a number planned against a film uploaded onto Youtube some months back. One of the organisers, Sheikh Masoud Alam, described the film thus:
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I am starting to believe that this country is no longer interested in news, only gossip. Sometimes the gossip is about a celebrity, sometimes a celebrity politician. Twenty-four hour news-channels suggest that the removal of a dead entertainer’s gravestone constitutes ‘breaking news’. We have just had three party conferences so empty and insular that the
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I suppose we should not be surprised that the Tweet-police (formerly the British police) have now extended their remit to become the Facebook Police. Today, getting caught for an actual crime is very rare in Britain. As anybody who has ever been robbed will know, most thefts are not even investigated by the police. It
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If readers have a couple of hours to spare can I recommend watching a debate which took place in America last week? Not the predictably unenlightening Presidential one, but a discussion of one of the most important and complex dilemmas of our time. Organised by the excellent Intelligence Squared US, the motion is: ‘Better Elected
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We have had the dreaded cartoons, films, teddy-bear and more. But I bet that until now nobody imagined we would ever see a (cue dreaded music) ‘Pineapple of Hate’. Yet despite the now familiar feeling that this is all some terrible spoof, the fruit has joined the growing list of household items which can be
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A great historian has died. He joined the Nazi party in the 1930s, spurred by a fear of the communism which was then spreading through Europe. Although he survived for many decades to see the consequences of the ideology, he nevertheless remained nostalgic for, and loyal to, fascism. He also retained an active interest in
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As I may have intimated last week, political conference season is a particular kind of hell. Most of us just are not diverted by faked class warfare or efforts by Ed Balls to be more ‘butch’ than David Cameron. Anyhow – whilst the few remaining members of political parties come together to remind the rest
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As a rider to my earlier blog I wish to put in the following as evidence. It became plain to me some years ago that people who have absolutely no political point tend to revert disproportionately to grandiose claims regarding their opponents (both real and imaginary). It gives them a passing sensation of importance which
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Are there any words in the English language more soporific or depressing than: ‘Liberal Democrat Party Conference’? My paucity of blogs in the last few days can be put down solely to this fact. Even the many fascinating and disturbing things occurring in the world are somehow made damp by the knowledge that this annual