Harry's Place

Ahmad Nofal on Al-Hiwar TV
Here’s another test for the government that failed to stop Raed Salah from entering the country, even though he has been banned.
This Saturday Salah will speak at Brent Town Hall. The “Prevent” policy review states:
Propagandists for terrorism and for ideologies taken up by terrorists should not be permitted to make [...]

This post consists of excerpts from an article by Johann Hari in the Guardian
It sounds much worse if you state it bluntly. But, OK, I’ll rip off the plaster here, now, at the start of the article: I slept with a neo-Nazi. And an Islamic fundamentalist. And, yes, technically, they both thought gay people should [...]

A few years ago, when George Galloway revealed his fondness for the “Sex and the City” TV series, he wrote: “Journalists sometimes ask which of [the women] would do it for me.”
I called on Galloway to identify those journalists– which, to my knowledge, he never did.
Now, responding to the brouhaha over his technique of treating [...]

Some HP readers have bracketed me with hedge fund managers and corporate lawyers, but in a sound of going-off the rails in the comments, Brighton Belle has topped that by accusing me of living a champagne life-style.
Possibly this poster was on pot at the time.
Now, let us pause to listen to someone who really knew [...]

Raed Salah is an obnoxious hate preacher who starts riots. The political party he runs mourned Osama Bin Laden, and called him a “Sheikh” and a “Martyr”. Those who killed him were said to be working for “Satan”.
Salah was rightly excluded by the Home Secretary from the United Kingdom last week.
However, unbelievably, the UK Border [...]

As a non-hack, I always thought journalism should be about uncovering the truth, or at least attempting to best describe the world as it is. Sadly I think I may be somewhat naive. The journalist, and former Harry’s Place blogger, Johann Hari has admitted that he takes quotes from old interviews and then presents them [...]

Andrew Gilligan in The Telegraph reports:
Lutfur Rahman, the controversial directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, took a coachload of people, including a number working for the council, to canvass for Labour at the Leicester South by–election. The visit took place during working hours on a weekday. Asked by The Daily Telegraph, the council refused repeatedly [...]

Jim D at Shiraz Socialist gets it right on the visit of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao to the UK.
You’d never guess that Wen Jiabao is the leader of a country that for years has consistently been in the bottom dozen or so states when it comes to human rights, as monitored by NGO’s and human [...]

The Guardian has a rather odd story:
President Bashar al-Assadmet two visiting westerners, British Conservative MP Brooks Newmark and US congressman Dennis Kucinich, the first such meetings since the uprising began.
It was unclear what Newmark’s motivation was. The MP for Braintree in Essex was elected to parliament in 2005, and is a senior government whip, having been [...]

Were I asked  to answer by way of agreement or disagreement to the statement “‘I am proud of how Britain treats gay people”, I’m afraid I would answer in the negative. I am certainly not proud of how the United Kingdom treats its gay citizens. I have several reservations and it is certainly the case [...]