Islamophobia

With one week to go, are the Conservatives back on track to being the biggest party? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss the state of the election campaign with one week till polling day and which party has the momentum. Fraser and James have also interviewed Boris Johnson in the magazine this week, who reveals his concerns about inequality — is this the opening salvo for his leadership campaign? Based on Boris’s comments, Tim Montgomerie and Ryan Bourne also debate the future of conservatism and what ideas the next Tory leader might embrace in his or her manifesto. Is finding a different role for the state a core part of this? And how much does the legacy

In the 1970s, there was a big difference between bullies and cry-babies. Your mum would have preferred you to hang around with the latter, but sometimes the former had a twisted charisma so strong that you found yourself joining in the taunts of ‘Onion Head! ’ at some poor unfortunate creature sporting a cranium of a somewhat allium caste. After a bit, of course, if you had anything about you, you realized what a knob you were being and went off to sample the more solitary, civilized pleasures of shoplifting and reading Oscar Wilde with the bedroom curtains closed. But you could be certain, as you festered in your pilfered

Like you, I suspect, I have been terribly worried these last few weeks over the plight of 15-year-old Amira Abase. Amira fled the country on 17 February in order to take up an exciting and challenging position as an in-house whore for the vibrant and decapitating warriors of the Islamic State somewhere in Syria, probably Raqqa. She travelled with two like-minded school friends from the local caliphate of Bethnal Green and not much has been heard of her since. We wring our hands in anguish at the fate which might have befallen this girl. It is of course commendable that she, along with so many other fervent young British Muslim

It seems that the laughably misnamed ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ did not like my last piece. Indeed the Khomeinist organisation has written to complain to my editor.  Here is their letter: Dear Sir, I note that Douglas Murray’s article published on your website yesterday has several points of concern. Most pressing is the fact that he suggests that the charity wing of IHRC organised the Islamophobia Awards. You are providing your readers will [sic] false information as this is not the case. I trust you will therefore make the correction immediately by removing all references to IHRC as a charity in the context of this article, which is all about the

I have always treated the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ event with the scorn it deserves. Not least because each year this fantasy prize for a fantasy concept is run by a British Khomeinist organisation laughably named the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission.’  The nominees include anybody opposed to the agenda of Islamic extremists, including Muslims.  Of course each year, whilst laughing at it, those of us who are regular nominees also regard it as being to our great good fortune that the IHRC is a British charity operating in the United Kingdom rather than an Islamic charity operating in an Islamic country.  If the latter were the case then rather than laughing

The terror attack in Paris last week represents Islamism’s most explicit declaration of war on free society. Non-Muslims were slaughtered in a non-Muslim country to avenge a so-called crime against a blasphemy law that is not even Islamic — but merely Islamist. If there’s any blasphemy here, it’s that of Islamism itself against my religion, Islam. At last, on New Year’s Day, the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, did what no other leader of the Muslim world has done to date: he named Islam’s real enemy. In a gathering of religious clerics at Cairo’s ancient Al Azhar University, he called for the rescue of Islam from ‘ideology’. His speech

Under the headline ‘Norway didn’t give into Islamophobia, nor should France’, Owen Jones writes on the Guardian’s Comment is free website that Norway’s response to the Anders Breivik massacre in 2011 ‘was not retribution, revenge, clampdowns’, and that ‘the backlash [Breivik] surely craved never came’. Norway, he writes, ‘stood strong’. But did it really? I’m half Norwegian. I adore the country, and I would – and do – fight its corner any day of the week (even against our Swede-loving editor). Norway certainly hasn’t given in to Islamophobia, but it has reacted. No matter what Owen Jones says, there have been some changes in the Norwegian public’s general attitudes. In

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Sean O’Callaghan and Govinda Clayton join Lara Prendergast to discuss talking to terrorists.” startat=808.5] Listen [/audioplayer] In a world often devoid of good news, there has been a fine development on the farthest-flung shores of insanity. The British National Union of Students aspires to represent students, though traditionally tends only to represent those students who are politically ambitious and possess left wing views. In any case, its latest idiocy is that it has tied itself in knots over the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – Isis. A condemnation of the ebullient Islamic group was tabled by a student of Kurdish descent. The Kurds, some people will recall,

Just over a week ago I wrote a piece in the Spectator asking if we were on the verge of an anti-Muslim backlash that could spread beyond the strongholds of the aggrieved white working class in Barking and Rochdale and into the home counties. After the gloating videotaped murder of David Haines, a British aid worker, the answer is increasingly likely to be yes. The Telegraph is carrying a piece by the international affairs analyst Shashank Joshi headed: ‘Where does the Islamic State’s fetish with beheading people come from?’ He begins: ‘Of course, the practice of beheading is invoked in the Koran, but only the most extreme Islamic militants carry it out

On Sunday there was a rally in London demanding ‘zero tolerance’ of anti-Semitism. About 4,500 people gathered in front of the Royal Courts of Justice. Speakers who addressed the crowds included the Chief Rabbi, Maajid Nawaz and me. Among the things I told the crowd was to expect more and to demand more of their ‘communal leadership’. Long-term readers will know that I’ve never had much time for communal leadership of any kind. I don’t like the groups who claim to speak on behalf of all Muslims – groups which disproportionately represent a politicised and fundamentalist hard-line interpretation of their faith. And I don’t like groups that have claimed to

Peter Clarke, a former counter-terror chief, has published a report today which reveals that an ‘aggressive Islamist agenda’ was pursued in ‘Trojan horse’ schools in Birmingham. He has found evidence of a coordinated plan to impose strict Islamic teaching on pupils. This piece by Douglas Murray was originally published in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 14 June 2014: Who’s up, who’s down? Who’s in, who’s out? While Westminster spent last week gossiping about which minister’s special adviser said what, in another city, not far away, a very different Britain was unveiled. On Monday, the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, published his damning investigation into the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair. Ever since allegations

I have a nominee for idiot of the week. I had never heard of him until yesterday, but he is one ‘Andreas Krieg’ who the Daily Mail has referred to as ‘a Middle East security analyst at King’s College London in Qatar.’ Mr Krieg was quoted in a story on the violence in Iraq, Syria, Kenya, Nigeria and elsewhere. This included stories so bloodthirsty that it is hard to look at some of the pictures which accompany the text. It should also be remembered that most of the victims of this violence are Muslim. And so are all of the perpetrators. So how, on being asked for a reaction to

I have been honoured to receive a number of awards in my career. Yet one which I have especially yearned for has so far eluded me. Now it seems finally within my grasp. Since I began writing I have dearly hoped to catch the eye of the judges for the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ title. There are a number of reasons. Firstly because one of its earliest recipients was Polly Toynbee. Anything that Polly wins is something I covet. Secondly, I have always desired the award because the term ‘Islamophobia’ itself is so fantastical and ridiculous. Winning an award with it in the title would be like waking up to discover I