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.
From our UK edition
Well Alan Rusbridger has certainly received a glowing review from his own newspaper for his appearance in Parliament yesterday. In a moving paen, Roy Greenslade today describes how his boss ‘was able to bat away MPs’ concerns without raising a sweat, despite bluster from a couple of them who sought to suggest he might be guilty
From our UK edition
David Cameron has taken a trade delegation to see the People’s Republic of China. The hope is obviously to stir up trade for Britain. Nothing wrong with that. Except that when Mr Cameron was in Sri Lanka the other week he chose to lecture the Sri Lankan government over the manner in which they put down
From our UK edition
At the start of this week I hinted that the negotiations which went on in Geneva last weekend were not a meeting of equals. On one side were the Iranians, representing the clear wishes of their unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini. On the other were the P5+1 countries joined by the unelected Supreme Baroness Catherine Ashton
From our UK edition
Well, I wondered in this place last week if David Cameron knew what he was doing in relation to the Iran nuclear negotiations in Geneva. And now the answer is clearly, ‘no’. America and Europe’s overwhelming desire to declare a deal meant that there had to be a deal to declare. The P5+1 countries, with
From our UK edition
In Geneva, America and her allies are limbering up for another round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear project. In a sign of the thaw Barack Obama and our own Prime Minister seem desperate to declare, David Cameron has spoken directly with President Rouhani for the first time. According to a Downing Street spokesman, the two
From our UK edition
The Muslim Brotherhood aren’t doing so well in Egypt at the moment. Happily they are making some gains in Britain. On Tuesday the organisation’s dauphin – Tariq Ramadan, famous Islamist ideas man, grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder and prominent double-speaker gave the Orwell prize’s annual ‘Orwell lecture’. I wonder which direction Orwell’s body is spinning
From our UK edition
What is wrong with the now almost daily apologies about mass immigration? Today it is the turn of Jack Straw. The former Home Secretary has just admitted that opening Britain’s borders to Eastern European migrants was a ‘spectacular mistake.’ He acknowledges that his party’s 2004 decision to allow migrants from Poland and Hungary to work in
From our UK edition
‘A historic catastrophe’ is how Martin Bright describes it. He is referring to the policy by which successive governments in the UK, Conservative, Labour and coalition, are accused of having promoted the worst people into the positions of Muslim community leaders. The specific case that sparks this reflection is the case of Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin. Since
From our UK edition
One of the most amusing ideas of the dim (as opposed to decent) left is that fascism is a force from the right at constant risk of re-eruption. So widespread has this idea become that even members of the Conservative party often feel forced to describe themselves as ‘centre right’ just so as to make
From our UK edition
Last night the BBC screened a documentary called ‘When Tommy met Mo’. It was good television, challenging and thought-provoking in a way that public broadcasting ought to be, is often said to be, but too rarely is. I would urge you to watch it. The programme followed Tommy Robinson during the period in which he
From our UK edition
Farewell then Sunny Hundal. The libellous blogger and tweeter has announced that he is no longer going to keep up his self-published website ‘Liberal Conspiracy’. One reason – far beyond satire – is that he is going to go to the University of Kingston to lecture on journalism. Sunny is perhaps not best placed to
From our UK edition
Last night I took part in an interesting debate for Channel 4 News. It was on the wearing of the niqab – or full face veil – in the UK. I think it was my first speaking appearance at the East London Mosque – and certainly the first time I have addressed an audience almost
From our UK edition
The front-page of yesterday’s Sunday Times carried the news that up to 20 retired members of the British Armed forces are likely to be taken in for questioning in relation to the deaths of 30th January 1972, known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. Some readers will know that I have taken a great interest in this case
From our UK edition
I have a letter in this week’s New Statesman. It is a response to an article in last week’s magazine by Mehdi Hasan. As NS Letters appear not to be published online I am pasting it here: Sir, The piece by Mehdi Hasan in last week’s magazine (‘Who needs Tommy Robinson and the EDL, when Islamophobia
From our UK edition
The first time I met Tommy Robinson I told him to fuck off. The English Defence League (EDL) had just formed and Robinson came up to me after a public interview I was doing in London. Without knowing anything much about them, I am afraid I assumed (white, working-class, Cross of St George at demos)
From our UK edition
I was on the Daily Politics earlier, discussing the Guardian / Snowden leaks and debating against a representative from the campaign group ‘Liberty’. The ‘Liberty’ representative kept saying what a lot of apologists for the actions of the Guardian (now including Vince Cable) have been saying – that Snowden and the Guardian should in some
From our UK edition
Aficionados of corruption will find much to admire in this story from Azerbaijan. Nobody expected the country’s Presidential election to be free and fair. An increased majority for the incumbent is the usual arrangement in such circumstances, heading to 100% approval and sometimes a little over. But the Azerbaijan authorities have managed something even more
From our UK edition
In the whole panoply of human idiocy is there anything so ridiculous as the outrage that occurs whenever people are reminded that spies spy? There was just such an outburst recently when Edward Snowden left his job as a contractor to the CIA and NSA, repelled, he said, by the discovery that surveillance programmes carry
From our UK edition
The London School of Economics (LSE) has been in the news recently thanks to a certain ex-lecturer who was a Marxist. But while Marxism retains some grip at faculty level in the LSE, it is — like many other universities — another variety of extremism that increasingly dictates events at student level. At last week’s
From our UK edition
I rather like Ed Miliband, and for what it’s worth I don’t think he has inherited much, if any, of his father’s rancid political views. Nevertheless the fact that Ed Miliband has often referred to his father’s thought makes Miliband Snr fair game in a way that other politicians’ parents might not be. But in the row over
