Mail On Sunday Racist Platforming Backfires

In another sign that the Mail on Sunday, under the less than perfect editorial judgment of Ted Verity, is rapidly becoming a true successor to the late and not at all lamented Screws as a truly wayward newspaper, its last issue gave a platform to racist bigot Doug Murray The K, where The Great Man told anyone not yet asleep that hate crime was not really happening, something he would know about, as he contributes rather a lot of it.

Murray: a racist bigot, but an upmarket one

“Britain is one of the most tolerant places on Earth. So why do Police pretend we’re in the grip of a record wave of vile attacks by bigots … THE GREAT HATE CRIME HOAX” howls the headline, telling readers what to think without reading Murray’s tedious screed.

Murray provides little anecdote, and zero evidence, to support his argument. But he does indulge in laughably crude logic leaps and false assumptions. Take this starter: “Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and others insisted that Boris’s column last year defending the right of Muslim women to wear the burka (a column his opponents deliberately misrepresented) in fact caused a ‘spike’ in anti-Muslim hate crimes. They claim that such hate crimes rose 375 per cent in the week after his column”. And next? Keep watching.

Gina Miller: knows all about hate speech

“Which sounds impressive until you realise this is a rise from eight reported incidents in a week to 38 reported incidents [It’s still a 375% increase, Doug]. Scepticism has been poured on these figures [no citation] … Labour MPs who were attacking the Prime Minister with these bogus statistics [and now the figures have become ‘bogus’] were only using the favoured tactic of recent years [which was what? We aren’t told]”.

On he rants. “There is no country in the world more tolerant than this one [no citation]. Yet time and again in the past 20 years - and never more so than since the referendum - we have been slandered and smeared [no citation] … Political campaigners have used bogus statistics to push their own political and sectarian interests [no citation]. It is time that people named and shamed the smear-merchants [go on then Doug, give us all a laugh]”.

Jews know all about hate speech, too

So how tolerant is the UK? Let’s have some genuine citations, for once. Five days ago, Daniel Sugarman in the Jewish Chronicle told “Police investigate after 300-year-old Jewish cemetery in Kent desecrated on Rosh Hashanah … The attackers, who smashed a number of graves, are believed to have used sledgehammers”. Well tolerant, eh Doug?

Or this, from only yesterday, in the FT: “‘Toxic’ tweets aimed at MPs soar after Johnson outburst … FT analysis shows abusive messages increased following rancorous parliamentary debate”. Or this from the BBC, also from yesterday: “Police are investigating a crowdfunding page which sought to raise £10,000 to have campaigner Gina Miller killed”.

Douglas Murray is, of course, the pundit who asserted “Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”. He defended Pegida, claimed the EDL “had a point”, and has spoken in support of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson. He is, whisper it quietly, a bigot. But an upmarket one.

So it is no surprise that Stop Funding Hate has read what the MoS has allowed to be published in its pages, and asked the paper’s advertisers if they want to be associated with yet another stain on journalism. There should be no tolerance of the intolerant.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet4