Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 347

It must be true. The BBC's own boss says it's biased

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

For about 20 years, I and a few others have been pointing out that the BBC is biased to the Left, morally, culturally and politically. I have made this case patiently, with evidence, not crudely.

And I have been met with unending scornful denial. This vital truth, that the most important cultural and media organisation in Britain, which shapes the views of millions on every subject, is tilted against the conservative cause in every field of...

Dr Kelly would never have lied for Blair – is THAT the reason he killed himself?

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

The real mystery about the death of Dr David Kelly is this: What and who drove him to kill himself?

These important questions are being buried by what I think is silly speculation. Who on earth would have wanted to murder him, and why on earth would they have wanted to do so?

There's no sensible answer to that. The only person who wanted David Kelly to be dead that awful day was poor David Kelly himself, God rest his soul.

Something had been...

Goodbye, 'Harry Rose'. And 'Tiberius Dole', 'Pulchritudinous', 'Daniel2' and the rest of them. And Good Riddance

I have read carefully the contribution by Mr 'Rose' posted overnight. I should note that Mr 'Gibson' another haunter of the 'Peter Hitchens Must Die' site, says there that I frequently say that I will take action for defamation and then do not fulfil my words. In this, he is as inaccurate and/or ill-informed as Mr Rose is in his attack upon me. I have made one such actual threat, many years ago, against a person who baselessly accused me of racial bigotry - and that person swiftly provided...

Goodbye, 'Harry Rose'. And 'Tiberius Dole', Pulchritudinous', 'Daniel2' and the rest of them. And Good Riddance

I have read carefully the contribution by Mr 'Rose' posted overnight. I should note that Mr 'Gibson' another haunter of the 'Peter Hitchens Must Die' site, says there that I frequently say that I will take action for defamation and then do not fulfil my words. In this, he is as inaccurate and/or ill-informed as Mr Rose is in his attack upon me. I have made one such actual threat, many years ago, against a person who baselessly accused me of racial bigotry - and that person swiftly provided...

A Summing Up of the 'Harry Rose' Affair, and a Warning

Since I asked for contributors' comments on the best way of dealing with 'Harry Rose', this person has altered his behaviour on this blog, responding with unaccustomed civility to his critics, parading various characteristics which might possibly be signs of genuine tolerance of opposing views and a willingness to reason. Mr 'Gibson' (I have no idea of these people's names are genuine. If I did what they did, I wouldn't dare do it under my own name, but I was brought up in a very different...

The David Kelly Conundrum

[image error]

Although Norman Baker MP seems to think, in his book on the subject, that I am among those who doubt that David Kelly committed suicide, I never have doubted that Dr Kelly killed himself.  I still don't. Back in July 2003, I wrote an article for the Mail on Sunday, under the headline " Who were the 'dark actors' threatening David Kelly? And will Lord Hutton ever be able to identify them? "

I began :"We know of no good reason why Dr David Kelly should have killed himself. This is the most...

Bile Rides Out...

...is,  I think, an anagram of 'Tiberius Dole'.  Is Mr 'Dole'  - a person whose postings have a startling similarity to those of 'Harry Rose' - in any way connected to Mr 'Rose', who has already been detected posting here simultaneously under two different pseudonyms and - on being detected - announced that he would no longer post here?

Is Mr 'Rose' in any way connected to the Mr 'Rose' who is a prominent contributor to the famed 'Peter Hitchens Must Die' site on Facebook? I ask these...

These beggars are not helpless casualties – as my black eye proves

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

Few things are more wicked than the sort of begging we see so much of today – men who are fit to work, raising money for drugs. They are not helpless casualties. One of them once rose from his grubby blankets, abandoned his miserable dog and violently assaulted me, after I suggested that he was abusing the charity of others.

Once my black eye had gone down, I tended to think he had proved my point. These deceivers are taking advantage of...

Top of the Class, Liberal Intervention and Other Matters

There's nothing quite like the subject of class, at least among English people. I don't think it's anything like so important in Scotland, Wales or Ireland - and I have for long believed that the English class system is a lingering result of the Norman Conquest. The three classes more or less correspond to Haughty Conqueror, Proud but Dispossessed Saxon and the 'collaborators' or 'realists' in between the two.

Of course it is no longer anything like as simple as that, especially since Henry...

Mr Cameron may need sharp elbows but the real middle classes never did

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

I once worked out that I was lower-upper-middle-class. I was of course using an old-fashioned pre-metric scale, a fine old mechanism of brass and polished wood which could spot a dropped 'aitch' at a thousand yards, and which vibrated angrily whenever anyone put the milk in the teacup first.

These days I suspect all you need to do is check the colour of your credit card and the size of your car. Probably there's an application on one of...