Melanie Phillips

I have been watching on TV the drama unfold in Israel and Gaza as the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released after five years in Hamas captivity in exchange for the release from Israeli prisons of more than 1000 Arab terrorists.

Published in: Daily Mail

While the Westminster village is preoccupied with scandals and reshuffles, the real scandal concerns the minister who remains so far unshuffled and is thus still promoting policies that threaten to cripple the British economy through eye-wateringly absurd deep green zealotry.

Published in: Daily Mail

The dramatic news this evening that Israel and the Hamas have agreed a deal which will see the return to Israel of its kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, will be provoke the most bitterly mixed reactions amongst Israelis and all who care about peace and justice.

Published in: Daily Mail

Today’s Times highlighted the barbarism with which the Iranian regime deals with political dissent. One story (£) reported that an Iranian actress, Marzieh Vafamehr who appears in the Australian film My Tehran for Sale which is critical of the regime, has been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for her starring role in this film.

Published in: Daily Mail

Professor Raymond Tallis is a distinguished emeritus professor of geriatric medicine, philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic. He is also a patron of the pressure group Dignity in Dying, previously known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

Published in: Daily Mail

In Israel and the West Bank, there has been a wave of attacks by extremists on mosques, synagogues and Christian sites, including swastikas spray-painted on Joseph’s tomb near Nablus. Two Jewish suspects have now been arrested in connection with an arson attack at a mosque in the Arab village of Tuba Zanghariya.

Published in: Daily Mail

Just heard Boris at the Tory party conference in Manchester display what appears to be wholly absent from anyone else on the platform at this so far lacklustre event – the wow factor.

Published in: Daily Mail

The brutal regime in Iran continues to inflict appalling levels of barbarity upon its own citizens.

Published in: Daily Mail

Back in 2008, when the terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus by a car bomb, I referred in my blog to speculation that he had been involved with al Qaeda and may even have been involved with 9/11.

Published in: Daily Mail

The papers today are fawning over yesterday’s instant sensation at the Labour party conference -- an articulate 16 year-old schoolboy, Rory Weal, who became the conference darling when he ripped into the ‘vicious, right-wing Tory-led government’.

Published in: Daily Mail

Some 1941 years ago, the Romans conquered the ancient Jewish kingdom of Judea by force and attempted to expunge all memory of the Jews’ claim to the land by renaming the area Palestine. Two days ago, Mahmoud Abbas attempted to do the same thing by diplomatic force at the UN.

Published in: Daily Mail

Chris Huhne, the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has indulged in some more LibDem juvenile name-calling by likening the Tories to the US Tea Party (they should be so lucky) in order to brand his Coalition partners as wacky hard-right extremists (this is what in LibDem circles passes for the doctrine of collective Cabinet responsibility).

Published in: Daily Mail

In the Times (£) today, Danny Finkelstein has reviewed the new edition of The Unfinished Revolution, the book first published in 1998 by the influential New Labour pollster and strategic guru Philip Gould about Tony Blair’s rise to power.

Published in: Daily Mail

The impending UN General Assembly vote on the declaration of a Palestinian state has little to do with the establishment of anything that bears any relation to reality. Such a state will be a Potemkin polity with no political coherence, fixed shape or legal legitimacy.

Published in: Daily Mail

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has been marked by a fresh outbreak in Britain of the political equivalent of auto-immune disease: treating the mortal enemies of the west as the victims of the west, while treating the west’s defenders as its mortal enemies.

Published in: Daily Mail

Riots, revolution, wars and other global catastrophes permitting, this blog is now going to put its feet up for what remains of the summer.

Published in: Melanie's Blog

The following apology appears in the print edition of today’s Toronto Star: 'A column by Heather Mallick on July 28 contained a number of inaccurate statements about the well-known British journalist and author Melanie Phillips. Ms. Phillips has expressed her horror at the slaughter at Utoya, Norway in a clear and unambiguous way, writing “there can be no excuse, justification or rationale whatsoever for the atrocity perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik.” The column made reference to Ms. Phillips’ writings in an entirely misleading and inappropriate manner.' The defamatory article has been removed from our website. The Star and Ms. Mallick regret the errors and apologize to Ms. Phillips.'

Published in: Melanie's blog

Tensions were said this morning to be running high in Birmingham, where three public-spirited Muslim men in Winson Green who had been guarding their area against thugs during the riots were appallingly run down and killed by a rioters’ car containing a number of black men. The police are conducting a murder investigation, and one suspect has been arrested.

Published in: Melanie's blog

An illuminating report on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme (0810) this morning said it all about the British riots. Some teenage thugs who were hooding up to go looting were asked why they were doing it.

Published in: Melanie's Blog

Glad to see others also realising that organised agitation as well as opportunistic anarchy has been fuelling the British riots, which have now spread from London to other cities.

Published in: Melanie's blog