'Free Thinking' lives up to its name again

Philip Dodd

I praised Radio 3's Free Thinking before and am about to do so again. You'd never find anything like Wednesday night's edition anywhere else on the BBC, and certainly not on Radio 4. It was a 45-minute conversation about 'the intellectual dark web' hosted by the excellent Philip Dodd and featuring Douglas Murray, Bari Weiss and Ed Husain. All three guests were sympathetic towards 'the intellectual dark web' and Philip Dodd got it spot-on by providing a sceptical counterweight to them without being overly intrusive. (Most other BBC interviewers would have failed on that front). Please listen for yourselves. 

Meanwhile, here's something Douglas Murray said on the programme:

I'm not answering for Bari but, if I can say so, I think we all know exactly what is going on it with these attacks. If you got a load of crap you get when you write about one thing, when you see something else that is a lie are you likely to identify it as such or are you likely to think I could do without that crap as well it? I know journalists all across our country - and many journalists from the BBC - who say things like, 'I'm not willing to take x on as a subject. I'm just not willing to'. I've had this discussion  with senior people in the BBC who have admitted to me they don't want to take stuff on because they know what's coming their way if they do. Now an individual may occasionally be willing to take on one big fight, but there's just the point where you go, you know...I said some years ago, 'I've already got some Islamist problems going for me. I've already been told not to appear in public by the police for some time. I could do without the transsexuals coming for me as well. I could just do with a break this week, OK!' We've all had that instinct. Sometimes that's fine, but a lot of the time it isn't, and it's people ducking questions because the price of speaking honestly has become too high for people to want to pay it.