Matt T

MMR and Melanie Phillips

She's still bangin' on.

Oh sorry, I forgot you're meant to say something like this with respect to Melanie Phillips and her range of conspiracy theories:

...while I sometimes think she goes a little far, isn't she brave.

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 2/15/2009 07:31:00 PM Comments: 0

Melanie Phillips is still with the Spectator

She is travelling. Thanks to one of my commenters, btw, for showing us this article earlier this year in the Jewish Chronicle. Read it all, but the paragraph linked to:

For the overwhelmingly Democrat-supporting American Jews, voting for a Republican is as unthinkable as eating a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur. Indeed, a number of them would rather eat a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur, because their conviction that religion is bunk and has nothing to do with being Jewish comes second only to their conviction that Republicans are the acme of evil.

is particularly astounding. She is talking hear about 77% of American Jews, who apparently are 'fools' and aren't particularly 'in tune with authentic Jewish ethics such as truth, justice and the difference between right and wrong').

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 11/10/2008 04:04:00 PM Comments: 1

Has Melanie Phillips been sacked?

Two hours and 20 minutes to go. If Melanie Phillips doesn't make a blog post in this time then that's the first time in two months that she has gone two whole week days without blogging for the Spectator. Is this the start of that magazine's fightback?

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 11/07/2008 09:40:00 PM Comments: 2

Can anyone make any sense of this?

Those who have for the past eight years worked to bring down the America that defends and protects life and liberty are today ecstatic. They have stormed the very citadel on Pennsylvania Avenue itself.

Melanie Phillips, obviously. Presumably she is accusing Obama of treason, and believes he should be arrested. I don't know whether she has just realised that no-one is listening to her, and so is assured that nothing she says has consequences, or is simply no longer able to understand what she is saying herself. Her friends, of whom I believe one occasionally reads these pages, really need to say something and quickly.

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 11/05/2008 04:06:00 PM Comments: 4

The Spectator

At first I thought Clive Davis was playing a game with someone in which the objective was to see what was the maddest conspiracy theory they could get Melanie Phillips to print. But now I think in fact he's doing it as a last gasp stand on behalf of the reputation of the Spectator, in that by publicly stating how absurd it is he is warning Melanie Phillips off repeating it. I think he might be too late.

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 11/01/2008 09:22:00 AM Comments: 4

Melanie Phillips again

Aside from the even loopier conspiracy theories about the US and the Middle East that she is advocating today, this gem is worth reading her column for alone:

REASON FIGHTS BACK...reason appears to have got its boots on at last. First the Pope denounces the man-made-global-warming ‘prophets of doom’ for ‘scare-mongering’ on the basis of dogma rather than science.

What has happened to her? I know even her hitherto supporters are now drifting away.

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 12/14/2007 10:28:00 AM Comments: 1

More Melanie Phillips conspiracy theories

You must go and read this post.

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 12/06/2007 09:16:00 PM Comments: 8

Melanie Phillips takes to the offensive

To the People of Australia, she thunders:

Whatever now happens, the fact that he ran on a platform of pulling troops out of Iraq and endorsing the ludicrous scam of man-made global warming are enough in themselves to tell the jihadis that Australia has now lost its (one-man) nerve. Australia just made itself (and the rest of us) a whole lot less safe.

That isn't the loopiest thing she says today, however. That surely must be this piece, in which she declares:

Whatever actually happens at Annapolis, what is blindingly obvious right now is the extent of America’s betrayal of the Jewish people and, in the process, of its own supposed core doctrine post 9/11...Annapolis is America’s Munich — and Israel is the new Czechoslovakia

It is hard to know where to begin.

Update: Andrew in the comments points out that in the Daily Mail (mine were in Spectator - links added now) she is wibbling on about creationism and all that. It is indeed strange that she is so keen on that (and on the Measles vaccination scare long after it was sensible) and yet talks about rationality, much like she goes on about conspiracy theorists and yet believes such huge ones herself, such as the Bush Administration one above. By the way, Melanie, as Nick points out here it wasn't Blair's religious views that looked nutterish, it was his nutterish behaviour (presuming the account is accurate, which given its in the Daily Mail, her own paper, I assume it must be).

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 11/26/2007 07:58:00 AM Comments: 7

The people of Australia have let Melahie Phillips down

Another light goes off.

Labels: Australia, Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 11/24/2007 09:50:00 AM Comments: 7

Melanie Phillips on Intelligent Design

She's not quite openly advocating it, but she is getting close. Melanie wants "Intelligent Design" to be taken seriously, and not to do so is the West "turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts".

Labels: Melanie Phillips, Science

posted by Matthew @ 8/06/2007 12:38:00 PM Comments: 2

Melanie Phillips

Encouragingly, there are signs that Bush may have now accepted what has long been apparent – that he has been ill-served by his top brass in Iraq.

It's come to this, the embattled C-in-C, who can't even trust his own generals. If only they had shown more backbone, more will. Remarkably it's a post she managed to get through without her favourite word, and in fact the Melanie Philliips Nazi-o-meter is standing only at Four.

The big argument is whether or not to begin a new World War (her words) in the Middle East, apparently, and 'On the outcome of that argument the course of this war — and the fate of the free world — now depends.'* Last week it was President Bush, 'on this lonely and frail figure the fate of the free world now depends.'

* Actually that can't be right - the argument over whether to start a new world war (or she would say, continue to fight the current one) can't be the argument that the course of this war depends. I'm afraid though I can't work out what the argument is she is referring to.

Labels: Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 1/06/2007 04:12:00 PM Comments: 0

Christmas Frenzy of War

You can always rely on Melanie Philips to trump everyone. Her hysterical reply to the Baker report on Iraq declares that the issue for G W Bush "who, until now, has operated through consensus" is now:

In the dying fall of his presidency, does he have the wherewithal to go for broke? On this lonely and frail figure the fate of the free world now depends.

I'm not sure about you but I get nervous when people start advising world leaders, particularly ones who are C-in-Cs of large armed forces to 'go for broke'. I think 'going for broke' is always a bad idea if being broke is a disaster, and as we are talking about the 'fate of the free world' here, I think it would be. Basically she wants him to declare war ('confronted and defeated') on Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Labels: Decent Left, defence, Iraq, Melanie Phillips

posted by Matthew @ 12/11/2006 01:22:00 PM Comments: 1