CHARLES MOORE This week, Policy Exchange, of which
CHARLES MOORE This week, Policy Exchange, of which I am the chairman, produced a survey, The Hijacking of British Islam', of literature found on the premises of more than 100 mosques. In about a quarter of the mosques, often 'mainstream' ones, some blessed by a visit from the Prince of Wales, the researchers found what could fairly be described as 'hate' literature — books with titles like Women Who Will Go to Hell (for, among another things, cutting their hair short), invitations to kill anyone who abandoned the Islamic faith, attacks on Jews, etc. Much of this material, about half of it published in English, comes from Saudi Arabia, whose King Abdullah has been having a rather edgy state visit here this week. The Muslim Council of Britain, the official umbrella organisation, says that the Policy Exchange report is 'futile' and 'plumbs the depths'. The publications criticised are not illegal, it says. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the MCB's former boss, says, 'These texts can be found not just in mosques, but in ordinary bookshops.' I am struck by how strange these defences are. What is 'futile' about surveying such material, and why is it, even if true, a sufficient answer to objections to claim that the material is not against the law? Why is the fact that you can get this stuff outside mosques a justification for selling it inside? Suppose, by analogy, that Church bookshops were found to be selling literature that said it is a good thing to kill Christians who left the faith, or to hate all Muslims or Jews or to throw homosexuals off cliffs, would Church House or the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster even attempt such defences, let alone get away with them? Another defence offered is that mosques are not always responsible for what is sold or handed out on their premises, but allow a sort of free-for-all. Why is this so? Does it not concern the MCB that such horrible things find sanctuary under a religious roof? 'The MCB does not tolerate any messages of hate,' it says on its website; yet that is precisely what is happening, and precisely what the MCB defends, saying it is the 'pioneer in creating a space for the many rich traditions of Islam'.
The excitement about the royal blackmail case this week turns on the word 'royal'. It is a word — like Pope, sex, split, gun and cancer — treasured by the media. As a result, it gets stretched. The 'royal' who is the subject of this alleged blackmail attempt is not someone with the title of HRH and he/she performs no royal duties and is not paid from the Civil List. Even less royal, then, is the 'aide' who, according to the alleged blackmailers, as reported in the press, 'allegedly claims in a video to have engaged in a sex act with the royal'. So even if the blackmail did take place and if the aide did make this claim, and even if his claim is true, it is a very, very small story indeed. An even more useful word than 'royal' in my great trade of newspapers is 'alleged'.
When I first went to India, 25 years ago, I was embarrassed by cycle rickshaws. I felt uneasy being transported by thin people much poorer than myself, especially as I watched the muscles of their calves straining to move the weight of their passengers. The whole thing emphasised inequality. Now cycle rickshaws are popular in central London as an amusing, green and almost nimble way of getting through the traffic. Recently I saw one with four teenage girls on board all screaming with delight and bantering with their driver (I imagine Health and Safety will soon stop it). And now one feels no unease at all. The physical situation is essentially the same — one thin young man exhausts himself pulling along mostly heavier people, but presumably he does not do it out of economic desperation. The embarrassment of difference is removed. Meanwhile, such is India's economic success that I suspect many of the boys who struggled to pedal me up a hill are now garage proprietors grown fat.
From time to time, this column has I: reported the threats from TV Licensing that I have received for alleged licence evasion in my London flat. The main point of the stories has been that I do not have a television, but that the licensing authorities brush aside this possibility and assume one is a cheat. Things went quiet for some time, but I recently received the most menacing letter yet. From Paul Stanfield of Customer Services (who are the customers, and how does he serve them?), dated 8 October, it told me that if I did not respond by 23 October I could expect an investigation by the Enforcement Division: 'The consequences of such an investigation can be serious.' Unusually, this letter does admit the chance that 'you do not use TV equipment at this address', but says you must let them know and 'We will arrange a visit to confirm the situation.' Since I do not need the situation confirmed, I have not replied. Nor has the Enforcement Division turned up. As politicians annoyingly say when they wish to appear tough, bring it on.
Some hunting people, particularly those in the most rural areas, think that the best way to deal with the ban is to ignore it. The law is so unworkable, they say, that it scarcely matters. This is a mistake. There have now been several convictions under the Hunting Act — the Quantock Staghounds are the latest victims. This week, the wretched Ann Widdecombe held a meeting in the House of Commons in which she showed police officers and others a film about how the ban is, in her view, being flouted. Politics has only to change a bit for the police to turn nasty. If politics changes the other way, and there is a Conservative government (no Widdecombe, thank God: she is retiring), the promise of repeal must be cashed in straightaway.
Much as I enjoy Rupert Christiansen's new collection of favourite hymns Once More with Feeling (Short Books), I must take issue with a point he makes about Newman's 'Praise to the Holiest in the Height'. The fifth stanza goes: Oh generous love! that he, who smote, In Man for man the foe, The double agony in Man For man should undergo; Christiansen says that this is 'an example of hymnal poetry in which the grammar and diction are so convoluted and compressed that the sense remains impenetrable'. Surely not. The 'he' (who smote') is God. He smote Satan (the foe') in 'Man' (Adam, referred to earlier in the hymn) on behalf of mankind. In the person of Jesus (the 'second Adam'), God submitted himself to the 'double agony' — the agony in the garden and the agony of the Crucifixion (see stanza six, which continues the sentence begun in stanza five) — also on behalf of mankind Compressed, yes, but not impenetrable. It is the neatest formulation of the doctrine of the Atonement.
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