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.
On Maundy Thursday a Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow was brutally murdered. Forty-year-old Asad Shah was allegedly stabbed in the head with a kitchen knife and then stamped upon. Most of the UK press began by going big on this story and referring to it as an act of ‘religious hatred’, comfortably leaving readers with the
On Maundy Thursday a Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow was brutally murdered. Forty-year-old Asad Shah was allegedly stabbed in the head with a kitchen knife and then stamped upon. Most of the UK press began by going big on this story and referring to it as an act of ‘religious hatred’, comfortably leaving readers with the distinct feeling
Well at least we all know the form by now. This morning Islamist suicide-bombers struck one of the few European capitals they haven’t previously hit in a mass-casualty terrorist attack. The standard response now goes as follows. First the body parts of innocent people are flung across airport check-ins or underground trains. Briefly there is
To the extent I have ever thought about him, I have always viewed Jeremy Clarkson as a slight irritant. This is largely because he personifies what a type of lazy leftist believes right-wingers to be like (uninterested in culture, cultivatedly thick, casually racist). But this weekend we learnt what some of us had long-suspected: that
The prime suspect for the Paris terrorist attacks has just been captured in a police raid in (you guessed it) Brussels. Salah Abdeslam has been shot in the leg by police commandos, we’re told, and has been taken for questioning. Where did they find him? In Molenbeek, the district that has quickly become known as the terrorist hub of Europe. “We
David Cameron this morning claimed that people who wish to leave the EU are ‘taking a risk with people’s jobs, taking a risk with families’ finances.’ Well then let us consider an even bigger risk that David Cameron is taking. In a visit to Turkey in 2010 our own Prime Minister announced that he would
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thedeportationgame/media.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Don Flynn from the Migrants’ Rights Network discuss deportation”] Listen [/audioplayer]There are two great deportation games. One is the carousel which Rod Liddle describes — but even this, for all its madness, pales alongside the border-security catastrophe unfolding on the continent. Thanks to geography and a few sensible decisions by
On Monday night I took part in a discussion on free speech in London for the think-tank Policy Exchange. The other speakers were ‘feminist comedienne’ Kate Smurthwaite, a student called Kitty Parker Brooks and the wonderful Munira Mirza. Jess Phillips MP failed to show up, which was a shame because I wanted to decide for
The head of Amnesty, Kate Allen, was busily talking the most terrible balls on the radio this morning. In an interview on the Today programme she reminded everyone of how bad the situation in Syria is and indulged in the usual Conservative-bashing by arguing that Britain wasn’t doing enough to alleviate the refugee situation. Despite
As some light relief from all this EU discussion, I thought readers might like to hear about Isis. Or at least what to do about Isis. The week before last I teamed up in London with General John Allen to argue that Western boots may be needed on the ground in Syria and Iraq to
Almost everything about the EU debate so far has been a fraud. The ‘Remain’ campaign has lied to the public about what David Cameron achieved in his ‘renegotiation’. They have lied about the consequences of leaving the EU, in the hope of terrifying us into staying. And now they are rushing us towards a referendum
In the wasteland of principles that is Westminster, Tim Montgomerie has always been an exception. The area is filled with ambitious, bland careerists whose idea of taking a stand (as with most of the commentariat) consists of trying to locate two ‘extremes’ before comfortably wedging themselves equidistant between them. But in resigning from a lifetime’s
I see that Hilary Benn has been doing his bit for ‘Project Fear‘. According to Mr Benn one of the best reasons for staying in the EU is that ‘President Putin would shed no tears if Britain left the European Union.’ So what? Caliph al-Baghdadi may laugh like a drain if we stay in. Anyone can
Is it really wise for David Cameron to threaten us with migrants? That is what he has done today with his warning that if we ‘leave’ the EU then the migrant camp in Calais could have to be moved to Folkestone, Dover, or our own back gardens. Not only is the claim wrong (our Calais
Even EU officials are now finally admitting that a lot – or, rather, most – of the people we have been calling ‘refugees’ are not refugees. They are economic migrants with no more right to be called European citizens than anybody else in the world. Even Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the European Commission, made
I am far abroad at the moment but have just learnt the sad news from home of the death of George (Lord) Weidenfeld, at the age of 96. As a publisher, philanthropist, convener, guru and friend he was one of the most extraordinary people in 20th and 21st-century Britain. Born in Vienna in 1919, he
I’ve never had much time for Chris Patten, generally disliking the Tory Europhile and late Roy Jenkins impersonator. But the whirligig of time brings in strange revenges and none is odder than Chris Patten emerging as the only adult in the room. In the great Cecil Rhodes debate at Oxford – a debate which like
Europe is going through a period of radical change, but it is facing this with a process of radical self-distraction. Unwilling to face up to our problems we obsess over the responses to those problems. There have been some startling recent examples. As the whole world now knows, on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, dozens of
Even if Abu Rumaysah does turn out to be the new ‘Jihadi John’, shown on video this week presiding over the murder of five innocent men, I’m not sorry I encouraged him to go to Syria and join Isis. The last time I saw the 32-year-old Briton (born to a UK Hindu family as Siddhartha
In January 2014, Douglas Murray explained in The Spectator how relations in the Middle East were becoming increasingly tense. With Saudi Arabia having now cut diplomatic relations with Iran, Douglas’s insight seems prescient. Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa’eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting
