Read C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, or Orwell’s 1984? Then you are a right wing extremist in the eyes of the British bureaucracy. By Douglas Murray.
The late Robert Conquest adumbrated three rules of politics. Perhaps the most famous (also known as O’Sullivan’s law) is that ‘Any organisation not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing’. I would like to add a fourth law: ‘Any programme set up by government will inevitably metastasise unless consciously cut back by observant officials.’
Anyone in search of a textbook example need look no further than the government’s Prevent programme, into which the government’s official review was finally published last week. …
According to RICU [Prevent’s ‘Research Information and Communications Unit’] there were warning signs if people absorbed information or opinions from ‘pro-Brexit and centre-right commentators’. These included Jacob Rees-Mogg, Melanie Phillips, Rod Liddle and yours truly. So everybody reading this column is at as much risk of being ‘radicalised’ as some young Muslim settling down with a tape recording of Ayman al-Zawahiri or Osama bin Laden …
Dangerous books:
In one RICU document a number of books are singled out, the possession or reading of which could point to severe wrongthink and therefore potential radicalisation. These include a book on the Rotherham rape gangs, books by Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and — once again — me. …
When I first saw these documents I felt a sort of white-hot anger. But then I read on and saw that these same taxpayer-funded fools provide lists of other books shared by people who have sympathies with the ‘far-right and Brexit’.
Key signs that people have fallen into this abyss include watching the Kenneth Clark TV series Civilisation, The Thick of It and Great British Railway Journeys. I need to stress again that I am not making this up. This has all been done on your dime and mine in order to stop ‘extremism’ in these islands. …
Elsewhere RICU warns that radicalisation could occur from books by authors including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Aldous Huxley and Joseph Conrad. I kid you not, though it seems that all satire is dead, but the list of suspect books also includes 1984 by George Orwell. …
Radical right wing propaganda. Time to cancel Frodo?
Prevent was meant to protect people. It evolved, in time, into something committed to going against almost everything about our country, including its people. People may be angry about this. But anger is not enough. I want accountability. I want names, Home Secretary. And then I want to hear of sackings by the score.
Modern Britain increasingly feels like Sauron won and rules the Shire. Land of hope and glory indeed.
A government that feels threatened by these books is a government that deserves to be overthrown.
