Diary
DOUGLAS MURRAY Iam registered as a voter in EalingSouthall and have a problem. Though a member of the party, I could not vote Conservative. The candidate put up by 'David Cameron's Conservatives' had been a Conservative for a matter of hours and been parachuted in over any number of dedicated, and equally ethnic, party workers. I might have reined in my objections if it hadn't been for the earlier elevation of Sayeeda Warsi to the shadow Cabinet and the Lords. After a recent run-in with her on the BBC's Question Time she attacked me for referring to Islamic terrorists. I thought she only minded me identifying terrorists with Islam, but — like the new Home Secretary — it turned out she minded me identifying terrorists with terrorism. And she refused, on air, to condemn the killing of our troops in Iraq. That was enough to drive me from the fold, and emails from our troops since the programme reinforce my feelings. I couldn't abstain, though I didn't much like the other candidates. I decided I must vote on a point of principle, and found myself ticking the box for Labour — perhaps the only voter to go over to Labour because of the Iraq war.
In the Hamptons for the weekend with friends. I arrive on Saturday in time for a dinner dominated by splendid expat hacks. We sup beers by the jetty, eat by candlelight, discuss the Black trial and exchange great Scoop-like stories of foreign ventures. Terrific stuff, but I begin to gaze longingly at a hammock by the waterside. Their ten o'clock is my small hours, and after sinking further and further in my chair I leave a dinner party early for (I think) the first time.
Monday is my birthday. I have reached the unsatisfying age of 28. Away from my family in New York, I have arranged the very next best thing and go out for dinner with one of my favourite friends. Though only ten years older than me, Ayaan Hirsi Ali continues to refer to me as some impossibly young child, still refusing to allow me to pay for meals until I am more advanced in years. We go to a terribly smart restaurant which pretends to have no room, so we loiter in a corner until another member of staff comes over, conceding that at least one of the empty tables might be going spare. We leave very late and hurtle back through the New York streets, high on laughter and friendship. Sometimes people complain to me that I seem too angry when I talk about Islamist terrorists. But this wonderful and brave woman is one of a number of friends who have to spend their lives under 24-hour protection because of what they think, say and write. If that didn't anger me, then what would? I mind it — mind it deeply — and cannot pretend otherwise.
T have to be up early the next morning for 1 the event that has brought me to America. I'm due to speak on a convention panel at the Hilton starting at 8.30 a.m. I am expected at a breakfast pre-chat at 7 a.m. I sleep in, and join my co-panelists at breakfast late. They are Irshad Manji (unbelievably professional and bubbly for this hour) and the former New York Times reporter Judith Miller (colder than the waiting coffee). The panel goes well, the 3,000-strong crowd is warm, and for a discussion on terrorism we gain some good laughs. Miller and I cross swords on Hamas, but this is now routine. There is a signing afterwards which I assume isn't for me. But I am dragged to a table where my most recent book is on display. Irshad, sitting beside me, has a queue stretching far out of sight. I tell her this is similar to every author's nightmare, where you turn up to a multiple-signing to discover the author at the next table is J.K. Rowling. Irshad barely manages to scrawl her name before the next fan is up. I draw out conversations with my queue to make the periods of solitude less marked, and write lengthy, elaborate inscriptions. No one actually asks me to stop, but I can see some wondering whether a book so graffiti-ed by the author doesn't end up losing value again. For lunch I drop by the Giuliani campaign headquarters near Wall Street. I'm supporting the campaign, and advising it a little, so I go and have my brains picked over a hamburger. Here's the real thing — and it is balm to this Brit. Like Thatcher and Reagan in their day, Giuliani and his team just 'get it'. Here, just a little way away from the crater left by the World Trade Center, there's no talk of hijackers as criminals or terrorists as mere megaphones for left-wing grievance.
T fly from JFK on a flight arriving in 1 at 7 a.m. Always awful. I have to be in a meeting at my Westminster think tank at 9 a.m. I limit myself to one whisky and soda on the flight over, the lesson having been learnt too many times (good drinks, bad movie, worse sleep = poured on to the dawn tarmac at Heathrow). I read the US edition of Christopher Hitchens's new book God Is Not Great on the flight. My neighbour has the latest Ratzinger tome. We smile at each other weakly. I arrive in London enthused as ever by America, and as prepared as possible for the accelerating degradation of British politics.
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