Charles Moore: Margaret Thatcher and the EU

ieaTV caught up with Margaret Thatcher’s authorised biographer Charles Moore to discuss the former Prime Minister’s changing attitude towards the European Union. In this video, Moore describes how Margaret Thatcher was initially in favour of the European Community as a block against the Soviet Union and for the furtherance of free trade, but yet was sceptical of the overall project. She became more disillusioned following the Single European Act and the steps taken towards monetary union.

Margaret Thatcher: From Grocer’s Daughter to Iron Lady

The Telegraph: Charles Moore: My 18 years getting to know Mrs Thatcher » | Elizabeth Grice | Thursday, October 1, 2015

Nothing Has Changed in 25 years to Ease My Concerns about Islam

A police officer guards the entrance of Paris Great Mosque

THE TELEGRAPH: Significant numbers of Muslims see a faith-run, faith-defined state as the ultimate goal in this life

Viktor Orbán is the prime minister of Hungary. It is through his country that very large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and the Balkans now pass. At the beginning of this month, Mr Orbán said: “I think we have a right to decide that we don’t want to have a large number of Muslim people in our country.”

Mr Orbán was fiercely attacked for the motives behind his remark. I do not know enough about Hungarian politics to say whether such attacks are justified. But, regardless of the precise facts about Mr Orbán, I would guess most people in western – let alone eastern – Europe would quietly agree with his general proposition. One of the biggest anxieties about the current immigration is its high Muslim element. Is it wrong to have such an anxiety, let alone to express it publicly, let alone to want to have a system of immigration based on it?

I don’t find these easy questions to answer. Nearly 25 years ago, I wrote an article for which many people, including some I respected, criticised me. In it, I argued that difference of religion often made immigration more difficult, and that this was particularly so in the case of Islam. The piece was written not long after the first Gulf war. I mentioned our Muslim next-door neighbours (we then lived in London). I wrote that they seemed nice people, but that when, during the war, I could hear them praying through the wall, I felt uneasy. Read on and comment » | Charles Moore | Saturday, September 12, 2015


My comment:

This article is rather refreshing to read. Mr. Moore has been willing to say what probably the majority of us have been thinking for a long time. However, there are a few flaws in his line of thinking. One such flaw is this: Mr. Moore asserts that Muslims worship the same god as Christians and Jews. No they don't. This canard keeps rearing its ugly head here in the West. It is true that Muslims have the same name for God as Christian Arabs do, namely Allah. But if you look a little deeper, you will find that a Muslim's understanding of Allah is quite, quite different from an Arab Christian's.

If Allah were to be the same god as God, God would have to be schizophrenic! Nobody in his right mind could truly believe that Allah and God are one and the same. I suspect that Mr. Moore doesn't believe this either. It has been added to an otherwise excellent article in order to placate.

It should be all too clear to our political élite by now that ordinary folk feel very unsettled by the ever-increasing numbers of Muslims here in the UK and Europe. I believe it would be true to say that most people do not want them here. And for one simple reason: Not only do they not want to integrate, they wish––ultimately––to impose their way of life on us, including Sharia law.

There is but one European leader who speaks any sense, and that is Viktor Orbán. I am sure that he is many people's hero now, for having the courage to make a stand against Merkel's insanity. He is certainly mine. In actual fact, Viktor Orbán is the true leader of the West. – ©Mark

This comment also appears here

Margaret Thatcher: Life, Love & Letters

Is Islam a Threat to the West? By Abdur Raheem Green

Abdur Raheem Green (UK), well known for his efforts at the renowned Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park and Lecturer of Peace TV.

Why Charles Moore Is Wrong About British Muslims
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: British Muslims were outraged by the Woolwich attack – but it is being used to slur our entire community, writes Sadiq Khan.

Much has been written in the past month in the aftermath of the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby. One unifying message has been the importance of communities standing together, in the face of the threats posed by those claiming to follow a particularly violent political version of Islam, and from far-right groups such as the EDL and BNP. One recent contribution to the debate came from the esteemed journalist Charles Moore, whose recent biography of Margaret Thatcher is a mighty tome of diligence and detail. In contrast, his words in last Saturday’s Telegraph were a clumsy foray into a territory about which he appears to know very little.

Some of his claims in his piece are so wide of the mark they warrant specific rebuttal. Take his claim that “the only serious violence was against a British soldier” – try telling that to those from across the community in Muswell Hill on finding that the Al-Rahma Islamic Centre had been burnt to the ground, or to the 182 staff and pupils evacuated from the Darul Uloom School in Chiselhurst, traumatised by an arson attack in the middle of the night.

In his piece, Moore states that “the EDL is merely reactive” as if that’s OK. It’s far from OK. Many of the darkest chapters in recent human history have sprung from reactionary movements gaining a foothold in society. But to go on and equate the EDL with groups like Tell Mama, the charity that records incidents against the Muslim community as well as providing advice and support on how to deal with Islamophobia, as Charles Moore's piece does, is ridiculous. I don’t recall seeing those running Tell Mama flicking fascist salutes while standing next to memorials for the war dead.

Charles Moore fears that those criticising Islamist organisations for being pro-violence will be rounded on. On the contrary, not only is there no place in British society for such extremist positions, but there is no place in my religion, the religion that I share with 2.7 million others across the UK. It is incumbent on us all to root out the bad apples, and not shy away from tackling head on the very small numbers who preach hatred and violence. » | Sadiq Khan, MP | Thursday, June 20, 2013

My comment:

This article is a whitewash of Islam. For starters, were the Muslim community to have been truly outraged by the beheading of Lee Rigby, they'd have come out into the streets showing us their rage. After all, they're pretty good at showing rage when they want to do so, witness the rage that ensued upon the publication of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Further, you say that Islam is not incompatible with "Britishness." I beg to differ. It is hardly British to keep one's women in purdah; nor is it British for women to be covered from head-to-toe. To be British is to respect democracy and freedom. Islam fails on both counts: it respects neither democracy nor freedom. And as a British politician and Muslim, you should be very aware of where the problems lie. For democracy to flourish, there has to be a strict separation of Church and state. In the case of Islam, that would have to be mosque and state. But Islam respects no such separation. Indeed, Islam boasts that the political and the spiritual in Islam are one indivisible, coherent whole. I think you should read my essay on the subject here.

Where there is no separation of the religious and the political, there is no true democracy. I really would have thought you'd have understood that, being a British politician as you are.

You also say that Islam is "British" because it is about respect, tolerance, and understanding. You know that Islam is neither respectful nor tolerant nor understanding. How much respect do Muslims show for homosexuals, for example? Or people of other faiths?

I'm sorry to say, Mr. Khan, but your article is full of flaws. It is neither true nor believable. – © Mark

This comment should be available to read here also; but the moderators have taken it down. It appears that The Daily Telegraph is no longer the newspaper which stands up for the truth, or for the indigenous population of the United Kingdom. They prefer to silence us, and give Muslims a voice instead. I find this policy to be reprehensible, especially because it makes newspapers like the Telegraph enablers.

Woolwich Outrage: We Are Too Weak to Face Up to the Extremism in Our Midst
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Despite the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, David Cameron has failed to act against Islamist terrorism

It is less than a month since Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered in Woolwich, yet already the incident feels half-forgotten. In terms of the legal process, all is well. Two men have been charged. There will be a trial. No doubt justice will be done. But I have a sense that the horror felt at the crime is slipping away.

The media, notably the BBC, quickly changed the subject. After a day or two focusing on the crime itself, the reports switched to anxiety about the “Islamophobic backlash”. According to Tell Mamma, an organisation paid large sums by the Government to monitor anti-Muslim acts, “the horrendous events in Woolwich brought it [Islamophobia] to the fore”. Tell Mamma spoke of a “cycle of violence” against Muslims.

Yet the only serious violence was against a British soldier, who was dead. In The Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan brilliantly exposed the Tell Mamma statistics – most of them referred merely to nasty remarks on the web rather than actual attacks, many were not verified, no reported attack had required medical attention, and so on. Yet the “backlash” argument has sailed on, with people shaking their heads gravely about the need to “reassure” Muslims. Tell Mamma equates “hate inspired by al-Qaeda” with the “thuggery and hate of the EDL [the English Defence League]”. » | Charles Moore | Friday, June 14, 2013

Charles Moore: Will There Always Be an England, Whatever the Origin of Its People?
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: We are clamping down on immigration now, but the gates have been wide open since 1997, writes Charles Moore.

EXTRACT: …Most of us do not want immigration on this scale. That is shown by every poll. But, in another sense, most of us do. You and I want someone to serve us in a bar and clean the hospitals and make cheap clothes. I want someone to drive me across town so that I can make my Colonel Blimp remarks to a friendly audience. Above all, we show, in our obsession with birth control, that we do not want to provide a big enough next generation of people like ourselves. Demographic projections now show Britain overtaking Germany as the largest EU country in 30 years or so. None of that growth will come from the indigenous white population.

All this need not be a total disaster. It is possible, though hard, to forge a United Kingdom made up of many ethnicities. Leaders like Mr Cameron are right to try to insist on common standards and better rules, rather than to despair. But whatever it is, and however well it turns out, it cannot be England. Perhaps when I am very old, my grandchildren will ask me what England was. It will be a hard question to answer, but I think I shall tell them that it seemed like a good idea while it lasted, and that it lasted for about 1,000 years. Read it all and comment » | Charles Moore | Friday, April 15, 2011

Pakistan Cancels Visit to Britain Over Cameron Terror Comments
THE TELEGRAPH: Pakistan's intelligence agency has cancelled planned talks with security experts in Britain following David Cameron's claim that elements within the country are promoting the export of terror, it is reported.

Mr Cameron's comments sparked outrage in Islamabad during this week's trip to India.

The decision precedes a three-day visit to the UK by Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President, during which he is expected to stay with the Prime Minister at his country home, Chequers.

The Times reported that senior officers from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had been due to come to London for talks on counter-terrorism co-operation with British security services.

An ISI spokesman sadi: ''The visit has been cancelled in reaction to the comments made by the British Prime Minister against Pakistan.'' >>> | Saturday, July 31, 2010

David Cameron Should Speak Frankly About Britain's Own Terrorists
THE TELEGRAPH: David Cameron's outspoken comments about Pakistan smack of hypocrisy and grandstanding, says Charles Moore.

Since David Cameron is setting a fashion for being blunt, let's join in. He got his tour this week to Turkey and India wrong.

In advance, everyone was promised that British foreign policy would now be politically and financially realistic. It would eschew Blairite ambitions to put the world to rights. It would strengthen bilateral relations and boost trade. Diplomats would no longer be valued for their thoughtful telegrams about the situation in Ruritania, but by their ability to get out and sell British goods and services. We must cut our coat according to our cloth, was the message – and then flog the coat abroad.

And so it was that a huge party of ministers and businessmen accompanied the Prime Minister to the sub-continent, talking about contracts, green initiatives and universities.

But, by Wednesday, things were not going quite right. I was struck by a juxtaposition of stories in this newspaper. One carried the headline: "Gaza is like a prison camp, says PM." Next door, was a report in which Mr Cameron proclaimed that he was approaching India with "humility". Although the Gaza remarks were made in Turkey, not India, the stories did not sit happily together. Was Mr Cameron being blunt or humble? It's hard to be both at once.

When he actually reached India, he did not lower the temperature. Speaking in Bangalore, he said that "we cannot tolerate the idea that this country [Pakistan] is allowed to look both ways and is able… to promote the export of terror". The new Foreign Secretary, William Hague, tactfully explained that the Prime Minister "wasn't accusing anyone of double-dealing". But anyone not trained as a politician or diplomat could see that he was.

Faced with protests, Mr Cameron decided to defend himself. He was simply an honest man abroad, was the line. The British people, he said, did not expect him "to go around the world telling people what they wanted to hear".

Yet the fault in his "gaffes" had something to do with the fact that he was telling his immediate audience what it wanted to hear. In saying that Gaza was a "prison camp", without even mentioning Hamas, he was repeating the line of his host, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Erdogan. Mr Erdogan recently said: "I do not accept Hamas as a terrorist organisation", and one Hamas leader declared: "Mr Erdogan has become our voice." Everything, for Mr Erdogan and for Hamas, is the fault of Israel. Mr Cameron seemed to endorse this. Continue reading and comment >>> Charles Moore | Saturday, July 31, 2010

Anti-Semitism Creeps Back On To English Lawns
THE TELEGRAPH: Charles Moore reviews 'Trials of the Diaspora’ by Anthony Julius and finds the author's vigilance justified.

England can make the dubious boast of being the first country to have expelled the Jews en masse, in 1290. It also invented one of the strangest types of anti-Semitism, the blood libel. In the Middle Ages, Jews were massacred in York, Lincoln and elsewhere because of claims that they had kidnapped and killed Christian children for the blood of ritual sacrifice. This image of horror is still used against Jews. Modern newspaper cartoons – it is often in cartoons that the underlying visceral feeling appears most clearly – quite often depict Israeli leaders as deliberately killing children, and sometimes as vampiric. By a peculiar twist in our politics, such cartoons are now much more likely to appear in grand Leftish papers – such as the Guardian and the Independent – than in Right-wing popular ones.

There never was any evidence for the blood libel. But total lies can be surprisingly effective. In our time, the more important anti-Semitic lie is the denial of the Holocaust. You would think that its blatant untruth would kill it, but it turns out that the sheer scale of the lie has a curious power. Holocaust denial is a frequent feature of modern Muslim anti-Semitism, assiduously promoted by President Ahmedinejad of Iran. In this country, the Muslim Council of Britain, while not actually denying the events of the Second World War, objects to what it sees as the privileged status the words "the Holocaust" confer on Jews. It will only mark the Holocaust if other genocides are commemorated too, and many extreme Muslims pretend that Israel is itself genocidal.

Holocaust denial helps resolve a dilemma in the minds of anti-Semites. They believe that Jews secretly rule the world. But if this is true, how can it be that they allowed six million of their number to be murdered? Answer: it didn't happen! The Jews pretended they had been killed in order to win unique sympathy, set up their own state, and advance their power. The same mind-warp is applied to more recent events. Polls suggest that large minorities of Muslims believe that "the Jews" blew up the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Such madness is not confined to ignorant Muslim masses stirred up by fanatics: I have heard it seriously advanced by non-Muslims at a respectable dinner party. >>> Charles Moore | Monday, March 22, 2010

Con Coughlin: Has the West Got the Will to Carry On Shedding Blood for Afghanistan?
THE TELEGRAPH: The strategy is finally right, but our resolve could be starting to waver, writes Con Coughlin.

It has taken the best part of a decade, and we have sacrificed an inordinate amount of blood and treasure in our ill-conceived and badly executed attempts to bring some stability to Afghanistan. However, it can now be said with confidence that we have the basis of a strategy for resolving the conflict.

But have we found the formula for resolving the country's ills too late? With no let-up in the death toll, do Britain, America and the other Nato states committed to rebuilding Afghanistan really have the willpower to see the job through? >>> Con Coughlin | Friday, January 29, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: You cannot stop the terrorist threat if you are unable to profile it: Tony Blair understood the scale of the terrorist threat, and the most effective way of preventing attacks is to target the most suspicious, says Charles Moore. >>> Charles Moore | Friday, January 29, 2010

BBC Offers £30,000 and an Apology for Question Time 'Slur' on Islamic Leaders over Anti-war Protest
Former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore 'slurred' the Muslim Council of Britain while appearing as a panellist on Question Time. Photo courtesy of MailOnline
MAIL Online: The BBC has offered to pay £30,000 and apologise to the Muslim Council of Britain after airing claims that it encourages the killing of British troops.

The Corporation caved in after a panellist on the Question Time TV programme accused the country's most influential Muslim organisation of failing to condemn attacks on soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The broadcaster was threatened with legal action over comments by former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore during a debate about Islamic protests which marred a soldiers' homecoming parade in Luton.

Mr Moore blamed the MCB's leadership for its apparent reluctance to condemn the killing and kidnapping of British soldiers overseas. He went on to claim that it thought it was a 'good thing' to kill troops.

Faced with the threat of a writ, the BBC made an offer of 'amends' and an apology on the Question Time website. But this has been rejected and the MCB is demanding an apology on air.

The Corporation's decision to pay out will raise eyebrows in Whitehall, where ministers have refused to settle a similar defamation claim over a letter written by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.

A BBC insider said the move has also angered Mr Moore, who was not consulted over the legal response to the complaint or even informed that an offer to settle had been made.

Question Time is recorded an hour before broadcast specifically so that legal advisers can check its content for possible libels.
No legal worries were expressed over Mr Moore's remarks, which were seen as provocative but not defamatory. >>> By Paul Revoir and Abul Taher | Friday, May 29, 2009

Apology for one and not the other: Charles Moore's words compared to Hazel Blears's letter. Image courtesy of MailOnline
BBC: BBC Offers Apology to Muslim Council of Britain over Guest's Remarks

The BBC has offered £30,000 and an apology to the Muslim Council of Britain after airing accusations that it encouraged the killing of British troops.

The corporation offered the settlement after a Question Time panellist accused the council of failing to condemn attacks on British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Charles Moore, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, made the comments on the programme in March during a debate about Islamic protests at a soldiers’ homecoming parade in Luton. He claimed that the council thought it was a “good thing, even an Islamic thing” to kill troops.

The council, an umbrella organisation representing about 500 Islamic bodies in Britain, said that his claims were a “total lie” and threatened the BBC with legal action.

It pointed to a 2007 interview with its secretary-general, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, published in a national newspaper, in which he categorically condemned attacks on British soldiers.

Last night Dr Bari said: “These kinds of statements are very damaging, and we received many complaints from our Muslim supporters who said they were extremely offended by the comments. >>> Hannah Fletcher | Saturday, May 30, 2009

Charles Moore Is Way Off the Mark in His Assesment of Islam! But Right about Jacqui Smith’s Decision
The Home Secretary should instead stop the advocates of violence from entering Britain, argues Charles Moore

'The Secretary of State is satisfied" would be a good title for a satirical television drama. It is the favourite bureaucratic phrase used to convey a ministerial decision.

This week, the office of the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wrote to Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP who had been invited to the House of Lords to present his anti-Muslim film Fitna to MPs and peers there.

Miss Smith, said the letter, was "satisfied" that what Mr Wilders said "about Muslims and their beliefs… would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK".

So the Flying Dutchman reached Heathrow on Thursday, but was put on a plane back to Holland straightaway.

It is extremely unusual that an elected member of a European legislature is banned from this country when invited by members of our own Parliament. It contravenes a key democratic principle about the power of legislators to talk to one another, whether governments like it or not.

The Dutch authorities – though they greatly dislike Mr Wilders – saw this point at once, and protested to the British Government. Out of his respect for the rights of the elected, the Dutch ambassador went to Heathrow to meet Mr Wilders. It is typical of the collapse of our Parliament's self-belief that this aspect of the case has been ignored.

Anyway, the Secretary of State was satisfied. What satisfied her? I do not believe that it was the intrinsic nature of Mr Wilders's film or words. I have watched Fitna on YouTube. It takes the view that Islam is irredeemably evil. Mr Wilders has said elsewhere that "Islam is not another leaf on the tree of religion", but a totalitarian political ideology. Banning Wilders Plays into the Hands of Our Islamist Enemies >>> By Charles Moore | Friday, February 13, 2009

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