Douglas Murray
What happened to cause so many to pass adverse comment upon The Great Man can be put directly: he sat down for an interview with John Anderson, a former deputy Prime Minister of Australia, who has worked with Paul Marshall, bank-roller of Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), and Jordan Peterson. All very good and out there on the right.
The blurb demonstrates the kind of false premise behind the discussion. “In this conversation, John sits down with journalist and author Douglas Murray to discuss the war on Western culture in light of the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas”. There is no war on Western culture, save in the fevered imaginations of right-wingers with nothing better to do.
More relevant was Murray’s propensity to anti-Muslim bigotry, as he smeared Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousuf. People “like him” “have infiltrated our political system … [he] does not seem to be bothered by the situation of the Scottish people” [no citation, and none will be forthcoming]. Moreover, Murray also referred to Humza Yousuf as “the First Minister of Gaza”.
This was, as Sunder Katwala pointed out, “As wrong as ‘people like Shapps, Raab & Sunak have infiltrated our political system’”. Yet still there were those more than willing to cheer for Murray, not least former cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch, who said in Doug’s defence “I’ll never forget how Douglas Murray exposed the falsehoods written in the New Statesman about Roger Scruton”.
Fraser Nelson
“Even by its own standards, Twitter has been an asylum of late with a lynch mob going after our associate editor Douglas Murray. An interview he gave months ago has been selectively edited and republished to misrepresent him and, in effect, make out that he was encouraging riots”. No it hasn’t. And, as so often, Nelson makes Twitter the problem, which it is not.
There was more. “We never normally refer to Twitter madness in The Spectator. ‘Never waste time bouncing off the effluent of morons’, Douglas wrote in one of his superb Spectator columns”. Gosh, how intercoursing clever that isn’t. Do go on. “For a publication to be drawn into Twitter nonsense, even to condemn it, is to be indirectly edited by Twitter”.
Still failing to address the minor point that Murray said of Muslims (he claims otherwise) “If the army will not be sent in then the public will have to sort this out themselves and it'll be very brutal. I don't want them to live here. I don't want them here. They came under false pretences … These people came into our house. Many of them broke into our house illegally”.
This Nelson fails to address. But he does manage a Look Over There moment: “His column last week, incidentally - looking at the deprivation levels and local economic dysfunction in rioting areas - was thoughtful, original and generated more new subscriptions than any other article we published this year”. Which has stuff all relevance. Doug is still a nailed-on racist bigot.
His editor’s sniffy dismissal does not address the criticism. But Nelson will keep on sniffing, as he did with Taki. Cos bigotry sells more magazines.
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8 comments:
An American journalist nailed the whole freed beach bollocks a few years back - "we can now see that what the right mean by 'free speech' is the ability to lie, smear, use hate speech and spread bigotry without their opponents being allowed to demur". As ever our right is lacking in ideas and imagination of it's own, it simply copies hard right tactics from across the pond.
The whole premise of course is utterly laughable. Which voices are the loudest, the easiest to find, and the most common in the media, online and still, despit the Tories thumping from their spokes people, yup, the rights.
The "distinguishing feature" of Nelson and Murray is that they're both racist empty-headed hypocritical crackpots. As is Murdoch puppet and slob Neil. Ranting righties all.
'Twas ever thus and ever thus will be.
Doug Murray the K… yew enn tee, the same man who’s got his head up Muskrat’s jacksie…
What is free speech ?
A. A real life Monopoly "Get out of Jail Free" card which one cites upon being challenged when they have said a comment that is racist, misogynist, sexist, homophobic, or prejudiced, putting others at risk of harm ?
B. A right of personal responsibility, In which you are entrusted to account for should you say something racist, mysgonist, sexist, homophobic or prejudiced, putting others at risk of harm.
The right answer is B. I have free speech, but should I make a mistake or wicked intention, I have the duty of responsibility to take account for it. To do otherwise is not only wicked, but cowardly. And that summarises the obnoxious persona of many, many prominent right and far right individuals in our media.
Exactly. Or, more simply put, "if you aren't prepared to own what you say, then don't say it".
There's a few keyboard warriors now finding out free speech can quickly lead to loss of freedom.
The far right always wants more even though it already has everything, including full control of politics, corporate media, commerce, industry, war and military. After that, the only thing left to do is attack its own citizens. Totalitarian in fact if not name. Fascism in action without the uniforms, serried ranks and outdated salutes.
You know what happens next. Unobstructed, it always does. And here it comes, ready or not.
That counts for the right period, not just its extremes. A journalist in the UK commented that; "the right has won the political war, the ideological war, and the war of words, and yet still they aren't satisfied".
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