Great post by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England in response to the appalling front page of The Guardian following the Woolwich murder, and the equally awful coverage by the BBC.
Almost as depressing as the Guardian front page was the discussion of the Woolwich murder on Newsnight yesterday evening. One participant, the impressive Maajid Nawaz, spoke of the need for a Western narrative to challenge the world-view of Islamism. But you only had to look at the people with him to see there was little chance we would hear it last night.
There was John Reid who, as a Communist while the Soviet Union was the greatest tyranny on this planet, never bought into the Western narrative in the first place and is now employed by the security industry – though Newsnight never reminds of us during his frequent appearances. And there was Alex Carlile, a Liberal Democrat who long ago threw in his lot with the most repressive elements of Labourism.
It seems that the so-called liberal media is not giving nearly enough airtime to defending the values of western liberal democracy, instead giving a soapbox to people like the ridiculous Anjem Choudary or the totalitarian thug John Reid. While at the same time the usual suspects ranging from white supremacists to militant athiests are using the whole thing to peddle their predicatable message of hate.
It’s all very depressing.