Islam

Thursday

Anthony Whitehead

An elegy for Oldham

My home town of Oldham is the sort of place people imagine when they think of ‘The North’. It has mill chimneys, redbrick terraced streets and a rain-swept football ground (the third highest in the country) where supporters of the perpetually struggling Oldham Athletic queue for hot Vimto or a bag of black peas. Oldham is now the most deprived town in England, according to the Office for National Statistics. Crime and unemployment are high; investment, wages and prospects generally are pitifully low. Boarded-up shops and dilapidated factories tell a sorry tale of economic woe. It wasn’t always like this. My family’s home, in the leafy suburb of Werneth, was

Monday

Ed West

You can’t stop future Orlandos, but you can reduce the chances

I’m pro-gun control, but I come from the most heavily populated corner of one of the most crowded islands on earth, where it’s appropriate. I also grew up in a city and have only fired a gun once, which was basically an air rifle, and the results were predictably Woody Allenesque. But gun control may not be necessarily appropriate in sparse rural areas, although I do find some of the arguments made by American Second Amendment supporters strange. Whenever someone pops up and kills loads of people, the argument is that if only someone there was armed it wouldn’t have happened. Like in a school? In a club? We can’t

Sunday

Douglas Murray

We can’t ignore the religion of the Orlando gay club gunman

Last night a gunman attacked a gay club in Orlando, Florida. At present at least 50 people are confirmed dead and another 42 are confirmed injured – which would make it the worst mass shooting in American history. The gunman appears to have been a US citizen called Omar Mateen. Even the FBI is now admitting that he would appear to have had ‘leanings’ towards radical Islamic ideology. Perhaps that’s why, shortly before his murder spree, he called 911 to declare his allegiance to the Islamic State (which has since claimed responsibility for the massacre). Here’s a prediction. If the gunman from last night had proved to have been a Christian fundamentalist,

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Naked lunches and hidden bigotry

Have you got your names down yet for the Bunyadi? I’d hurry, if I were you. There’s currently a waiting list of more than 40,000, most of them homo-sexual Camden cyclists, I would guess. The Bunyadi is the country’s first nude restaurant and is, of course, in London. You go in, take all of your clothes off, sit yourself down in the noisome detritus left by the previous diner’s prolapsed rectum, and peruse the menu. Your waiters are not quite nude. They have small coverings to prevent unfortunate accidents. You would not wish to turn around in your seat to order a glass of water only to have your eye

Thursday

Richard Galustian

The West has totally misjudged the situation in Libya

Libya’s former Prime Minister Dr. Mahmoud Jibril has become the first senior leader of its Arab Spring revolution to call time on the country’s new western-backed government, saying ‘the chances of success are very slim’. This apparent failure hasn’t been caused by a lack of support, which has poured in from London and Washington in a bid to get the Government of National Accord (GNA) to stand up and walk on its own two feet. It was also hoped that by doing this, a fix could be found for the twin problems of Islamic State and mass migration. But Dr Jibril, who helped steer the country through its brutal uprising

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Yay, root out those Jew-haters, Jeremy!

A long and arduous flight back from the Caucasus, but worth it nonetheless for the meaningful protest we had staged in the fragrant and lovely Georgian capital, Tbilisi. They have opened a vegan restaurant there called the Café Kiwi — an affront not just to ordinary Georgians, but to all right-thinking people, surely. A bunch of us stormed the place carrying large chunks of grilled lamb on skewers and spicy sausages, which we flung at the epicene customers, who cowered beneath their tables and were unable to fight back because their bones had been made as brittle as matchwood by a diet consisting entirely of nuts and berries. ‘Eat some

Thursday

The Spectator

Losing faith

A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to have no religion have exceeded the number of Christians in Britain. Some 44 per cent of us regard ourselves as Christian, 8 per cent follow another religion and 48 per cent follow none. The decline of Christianity is perhaps the biggest single change in Britain over the past century. For some time, it has been a stretch to describe Britain as a Christian country. We can more accurately be described now as a secular nation with fading Christian institutions. There is nothing new in the decline of the church, but until

John Sutherland

Burning passions

This is a book which, as one eyes its lavish illustrations and dips into its elegant prose, looks as if it ought to come with an option to buy a cut-price John Lewis coffee table. On the Burning of Books is, in fact, much more than that. It wears its scholarship lightly. A weightier treatment of the topic for those interested can be found in Matthew Fishburn’s Burning Books (2008). Kenneth Baker? A name that rings bells. But what did he do? He enjoyed high office in the Thatcher years. At one point he was touted as a contender for Downing Street. His legacy is the National Curriculum. Best forgotten

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

Western liberals who banned Eagles of Death Metal are doing Isis’s dirty work

If you want to know how lost Europe is, how thoroughly it has abandoned freedom of speech, get this: two French music festivals have banned Eagles of Death Metal, the American rock band whose gig at the Bataclan was turned into a bloodbath by Isis last November, after the lead singer said some dodgy things about Muslims. Yes, six months after they watched and heard 89 of their fans being slaughtered by Isis for the crime of engaging in ‘perversity’, Eagles of Death Metal are now being shut down by festival organisers for saying allegedly perverted things about Islam. Isis must be delighted: Western liberals are doing their dirty work for them; they’re silencing

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 May 2016

Secrets of the stars The astrologer Jonathan Cainer died after beginning his last horoscope for his own star sign: ‘We’re not here for long. So make the best of every moment.’ Why do people believe horoscopes? — In 1948 psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave each of his students what he said was a unique assessment of their character and asked them to rate it for accuracy. The average rating they gave was 85%. — The assessments were in fact identical, and cribbed from horoscopes in newspapers. The students, Forer suggested, wanted to believe the descriptions and so blinded themselves to their vagueness. Old debts The Nationwide Building Society said it

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

Little Englanders, it’s time to give Sadiq Khan a break

Hell, I wait so long to be right about something and then two bits of stuff come along at once. Nine months ago I said Sadiq Khan would become London’s mayor – partly because he was a very good candidate and a likeable bloke – but more because London is one of the world’s most leftie liberal constituencies. Which should tell you about Boris’s campaigning abilities, no? I also suggested that Labour would do better in the local elections than commentators – and desperate PLP recusants – were predicting. They did. In London, Corbyn is an actual asset to Labour. Beyond the vile metropolis, he is no more of a yoke

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

I know who I’m supporting in the Corbyn-Hodge leadership contest

Christ help us – Corbyn or Hodge! I think, given the choice, I’m pretty firmly with Jezza. One deranged bien-pensant half of Islington versus the other. At least Corbyn isn’t smug. It’s one of the few things you can say in his favour. Re the anti-Semitism. There are a number of broad points to make. First, it is absolutely endemic within two sections of the Labour Party – the perpetually adolescent white middle-class lefties, and the Muslims – the latter of which now comprise a significant proportion of Labour activists and voters in parts of London and the dilapidated former mill-towns of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire. And Luton. And

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Britain’s Christian culture has risen above the recent religious brawl

Our political culture contains some tension between Jews and Muslims. And some secular anti-Semitism, particularly on the left, and some Islamophobia. But, at the risk of getting Pollyannaish, let us see the positive. This country’s main religious culture, Christianity, is not involved in any of this nastiness. It does not contain any substantial prejudice against Muslims or Jews. It is not significantly invoked by our (rather mild) nativist movement, Ukip. Yes, Farage sometimes says that he stands for Christian values, but this is just a harmless and desperate bit of rhetoric. The louder message is that the Queen asked that lovely Muslim baker to her party. Let us be quietly proud that our

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem stems from its grassroots

If I were the Conservative party I’d be getting worried: Labour’s implosion is happening too fast. At this rate they could fall apart and regroup in time to go into the next election with a respectable leader. Everybody knows the latest developments. Naz Shah MP was found to have said some anti-Semitic things on social media. After some bitter internal wrangling she was suspended from the party. Fellow MP Rupa Huq tried to come to her defence and compared anti-Semitism to any old mishap. And then Ken Livingstone smoothed it all over by talking about which of Hitler’s policies he thinks Zionists agree with. The low-point today was probably the

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Moderate Muslims are not particularly moderate

‘What’s in the news this week?’ I asked my wife as she browsed the first newspaper we had seen for a whole week, having hitherto been blissfully disconnected from the rest of the country, without phones or the internet. ‘Muslims, largely,’ she replied, flicking from page to page, ‘a bit on in-and-out, but mainly it’s the Muslims.’ Oh, good. A perpetual optimist, I had rather hoped that during our week away the frequently promised Islamic Reformation might have taken place and peace and enlightenment spread all those many miles from the jungles of Banda Aceh to the dilapidated terraces of Kirklees. But nope, apparently not. They were still up to

Friday

Jonathan Meades

The art of Jonathan Meades

Ape Forgets Medication: Treyfs and Artknacks Londonewcastle Project (28 Redchurch Street, E2), until 23 April Process, means, method: it was these rather than the results which initially fascinated me. There was an unmistakable exhilaration in discovering that I was not merely learning a new language but that I was creating a language peculiar to myself. Given that it was non-verbal the word ‘language’ is inappropriate. In every instance the words, the capricious titles I have appended to the works (the treyfs and artknacks) came after. Treyf signifies that which is not kosher. Artknack is a neoligism which suggests arts, a knack or facility, a knicknack or cheap bling, arnaque (French for a

Thursday

Theo Hobson

Channel 4’s Sex Box is far more damaging to British culture than Islamism

Last night Channel 4 broadcast a programme by Trevor Phillips, in which he worried about the integration of British Muslims. He suggested that we should switch to a policy of ‘active integration’. The night before, at the same time of 10pm, Channel 4 broadcast a programme in which the merits of having sex with a complete stranger were discussed. Some people find it very liberating, a sexpert explained, as a thrilled audience of thickos tittered. Yes I know – I wrote about Sex Box last week – one more strike and I’m officially volunteering to be the new Mary Whitehouse. My point is that sensationalist TV is guilty of falsifying who

James Delingpole James Delingpole

An inconvenient truth | 14 April 2016

‘Our findings will shock many people,’ promised Trevor Phillips at the beginning of What British Muslims Really Think (Channel 4, Wednesday). But the depressing thing is that I doubt they will, actually. I think the general British public have known for some time what Phillips’s documentary professed to find surprising: that large numbers of Muslims don’t want to integrate, that their views aren’t remotely enlightened, and that more than a few of them sympathise with terrorism. It’s only the establishment elite that has ever pretended otherwise. As former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Phillips was very much part of that elite. He commissioned the 1997 Runnymede report

Monday

Douglas Murray

Trevor Phillips is finally discovering the pitfalls of the term ‘Islamophobia’

The former head of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission has once again said the ‘unsayable’.  In a piece for the Sunday Times (ahead of a Channel 4 documentary to go out on Wednesday) Trevor Phillips unveils an in-depth new poll carried out by ICM (which can be viewed here). The findings include the facts that: 23 percent of British Muslims polled support the idea of there being areas of the UK where sharia law is introduced instead of British law. 39 percent believe wives should always obey their husbands. 31 percent believe it is acceptable for British Muslims to keep more than one wife. 52 percent think homosexuality

Thursday

Stephen Robinson

The halo slips

Peter Popham is commendably quick off the blocks with this excellent account of the run-up to last November’s Burmese general election, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy swept the board. At the time of writing this review, Suu is taking four ministries, including foreign affairs. So she will do what she did during her years of house arrest — offer a beautiful human face to the outside world of a country still under the heel of the generals. Popham seems to enjoy Burma and to understand it as much as any westerner can. Notwithstanding recent liberalisation, Burma is perhaps the second weirdest state on earth after