Douglas Murray (author)

Douglas Kear Murray (born 17 July 1979) is a British writer, journalist and commentator. He was the founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion and is currently the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society and associate editor of The Spectator.
Murray appears regularly in the British broadcast media, commenting on issues from a neoconservative standpoint, and he is often critical of Islam. He writes for a number of publications, including Standpoint, The Wall Street Journal and The Spectator. He is the author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2005) and Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry (2011).

Education

Murray was educated at West Bridgford School, St Benedict's School and Eton College before going on to study English at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Publications

While in his second year at Oxford he wrote, aged 19, a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas that was described by Christopher Hitchens as "masterly". After leaving Oxford, Murray wrote a play, Nightfall, about the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. In 2005 he published a defence of neoconservatism—Neoconservatism: Why We Need It—and undertook a related promotional tour of the United States.

In 2007 he assisted in the writing of Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership by Gen. Dr. Klaus Naumann, Gen. John Shalikashvili, Field Marshal The Lord Inge, Adm. Jacques Lanxade, and Gen. Henk van den Breemen. Upon publication, The Guardian reported its recommendations. His book Bloody Sunday was (jointly) awarded the 2011-12 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize for advancing peace and understanding. In June 2013 his book Islamophilia: a Very Metropolitan Malady was published.

Media appearances and journalism

Murray has appeared on a number of British current affairs programmes, including the BBC's Question Time, This Week, HardTalk, the Today programme, The Big Questions, and The Daily Politics, in which he presented a piece arguing that multiculturalism is neither multiracialism, nor is it pluralism. Murray has written for The Guardian and Standpoint, and in 2012 he was appointed a contributing editor of The Spectator.

Under the headline "Anyone know any Irishman jokes?" Murray wrote a column querying a council having "to pay thousands of pounds in compensation" to a union official who had been told an Irish joke by a Conservative councillor, writing "you can reflect on the ramifications for the taxpayer of a society that decides it needs officials to arbitrate on jokes". The Federation of Irish Societies (an organisation that represents Irish clubs and societies in Britain) lodged a formal complaint about the blog to the Press Complaints Commission. Murray wrote about the incident in an article for The Spectator.

In 2016, through The Spectator, he organised a competition for offensive poems about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with £1,000 as top prize. This was in reaction to the Böhmermann affair, in which German satirist Jan Böhmermann was prosecuted within his own country for such a poem. The winner was Boris Johnson, Conservative MP and former Mayor of London, who is one-eighth Turkish.

Views on Islam

Murray is a frequent critic of Islam and Muslims, and has identified what he sees as, "a creed of Islamic fascism—a malignant fundamentalism, woken from the dark ages to assault us here and now". He views cultural relativism as exacerbating the issue. Murray has labelled "Islamophobia" a "nonsense term", as "there are a considerable number of reasons to be fearful of some—though certainly not all—aspects and versions of Islam".

In February 2006, Murray expressed his views on Islam and Muslims in Europe, in his talk delivered to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in the Hague, Netherlands:

"Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs. If some Muslims don’t have a mosque to go to, then they’ll just have to realise that they aren’t owed one."

His comments about Islamic extremism in the Netherlands mean that he has to have a police guard when travelling there.

In March 2009, Murray wrote to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith warning that he was planning to instruct his lawyers to issue an international arrest warrant against Ibrahim Mousawi if he entered Britain; the Home Office eventually refused Mousawi a visa. In 2009, Murray was prevented from chairing a debate at the London School of Economics between Alan Sked and Hamza Tzortzis. The move drew strong criticism from conservative press such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator.

In 2009, Murray was told by police not to attend a debate scheduled between him and Islamist Anjem Choudary for fear that he might be attacked. It emerged that the security hired to protect the event were actually members of Choudary's group al-Muhajiroun.

In 2010, Murray argued against the motion in an Intelligence Squared debate titled "Is Islam a Religion of Peace?". He won alongside Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and opposite Zeba Khan and Maajid Nawaz.

In December 2015, Murray announced that he could no longer give his readers advance notice of his speaking engagements, citing "security reasons".

Personal life

Murray is an atheist, having previously been an Anglican, but has described himself variously as a cultural Christian, and a Christian atheist. He is openly gay.

Works

• Murray, Douglas (2000). Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. ISBN 0-340-76771-5. 
• Murray, Douglas (2005). Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. ISBN 1-904863-05-1. 
• Murray, Douglas (2011). Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry. London: Dialogue. p. 320. ISBN 978-1-84954-149-7. 
• Murray, Douglas (2013). Islamophilia: a very metropolitan malady. emBooks. p. 57. ISBN 9781627770507. 

As co-author:

• Murray, Douglas (2007). "Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership" (PDF). 
• Murray, Douglas; Verwey, Johan Pieter (2008). "Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech within Europe's Muslim Communities". 

International affiliations

Murray is on the international advisory board of NGO Monitor.