A Rod Liddle lament in favour of disenfranchising Muslims. 
His "Monkey MFC" online alter ego went in for rather stronger stuff than he puts his name too.
A version of this column that said "hold the election on a day when Jews are forbidden to vote" where Liddle writes "Muslims" and this version should be equally unacceptable as anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim prejudice. I can't see why either could be defended as 'banter'.
Rod Liddle says he "does not really think the election should be held on a day when Muslims can't vote": it was a ludicrous satirical joke.
(But jokes about holding elections so Muslims/Jews can't vote in them are rooted in prejudice, obviously)
(But jokes about holding elections so Muslims/Jews can't vote in them are rooted in prejudice, obviously)
I doubt Spectator, Telegraph New Statesman or Guardian would publish this 'joke' 'My own choice of election date would be a day when [orthodox] Jews are forbidden to do anything on pain of hell, or something. There must be at least one day like that in the Jewish calendar surely"
Good reasons to be concerned about anti-semitism today. The anti-semitic and anti-Muslim versions of this 'joke' should be similarly regarded as unacceptable prejudice. If they are not, suggests broader openness to casual anti-Muslim prejudice (a feature of attitudes data).
The Board of Deputies response to the column
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson acknowledges that the Rod Liddle column "should not have been published in the form that it was".
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/a-resp…
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/a-resp…
Breadth of consensus against Rod Liddle's persistent prejudices, masquerading as banter. (Though we await the left contrarian defence of Liddle at Spiked)
My mistake. Spiked had already published the world's most predictable boilerplate left "contrarian" take earlier this evening
Ludicrous invocation of Swift
Not "Swiftian" satire from Liddle. I trust some of those on the "banter" defence are unaware of how far he went on. (he told unconvincing fibs - "I may be a c-word but I am not a racist c-word" - about the most racist stuff before owning up months later)
Not very Swiftian
One of the oddest Rod Liddle arguments was that most "fairly right-wing people" thought the killers of Stephen Lawrence were not guilty, while liberals thought they did it. News to the Daily Mail! This was a contempt of court that risked the trial.
Good to see that the Conservative candidate in Canterbury @anna_firth very much disapproves of Rod Liddle's very personal attack on her Labour opponent Rosie Duffield, as well as his anti-Muslim prejudices.
Here is Rosie Duffield's own response
