Saturday, 28 February 2015

"Well, it seems to be a bit of a contradiction there."



Here's James Naughtie on this morning's Today (at 13:50), sounding off about today's Pegida UK protest in Newcastle. He refers back to the comments of a female Pegida supporter featured in the piece's introduction, asking his BBC colleague:
Well, two question really. One, why is it being held there? And the other one is...We heard what she said there - "We're not not racists. We're not fascists. We're not far-right. It's an awareness campaign to raise people's awareness of the fact that Islam is a big problem." Well, it seems to be a bit of a contradiction there. And they're bound to attract....even if they say they don't attract the far-right, they're bound to attract some people from that neck of the woods, aren't they?
"Well, it seems to be a bit of a contradiction there"? That would be news to the likes of Nick Cohen, Nawaz Maajid, David Aaronovitch, Ed Husain, the folk at Harry's Place, Douglas Murray, Rod Liddle, et al, all of whom worry about the "big problem" of Islam in the UK and none of whom are "racists, fascists or far-right".