Peter Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and Boris Johnson on BBC's Question Time

as tonight tournament Nulty Home Office Minister Boris Johnson conservative Higher Education spokesman Shirley Williams for the Liberal Democrats from the United States the author and critic Christopher Hitchens and his brother the broadcaster and columnist for The Mail on Sunday Peter Hitchens [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so welcome welcome to the program the panel of course don't know what's going to be put to them by the audience here but just our first question is from Robin Horsley please Robin Horsley is Salman Rushdie's nightshirt an insult some Muslims worldwide Shirley Williams I think it was a mistake I think that if it was a as it said to be a reward for lifelong literary endeavor then all I can say was that I think the timing was very odd indeed I thought want to say very clearly that I don't believe the Prime Minister had anything whatsoever to do with it I think it came up from a departmental proposal it's just what usually happens when knighthood and a lot of the political sort of firestorm that started has been started quite incorrectly nevertheless I think the Department of Culture them and the media which I think put his name forward we're not very wise to do it in that way this is a man who's deeply offended Muslims in a very powerful way and who's been protected by the British police against threats of suicide for years and years at great expense to the taxpayer and frankly I think that it was not wise and not really clever to give him a knighthood just Richie's I think that's a contemptible statement and I think everyone who applauded it should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves do you think really that it's a waste of time and money defending free expression from suicide murderers if you do can you think of a better cause the money should go on the when you when I hear idle talk about how this country this culture could or should punch above its weight as we say I think well what do we have that's better than our language and isn't it extraordinary that we have an author who has helped to spark a renaissance of writing in the subcontinent that's produced a whole new branch of English literature they're written in our language who knows it better than I may say some of our politicians appear to do tariq ramadhan who you may may have heard of who's become something of a self-appointed spokesman for Islam in western Georgia had the following to say the other day I am and everything I've often disagreed he said it is entirely up to the British who they nominate for an award I hope you'll at least agree with that oh you don't all right he went on to say something perhaps you don't know so the protests against it in Pakistan are purely a matter of violent vicious internal politics they're it's part of a jostling position people who claim to be offended can can by all means do so it takes a lot to make me cry but people who say I'm so offended I'm going to start suicide bombing in my country have to be told no that's non pardonable interference in our internal affairs and it shouldn't have been our High Commissioner who was called in by the Pakistani government to be lectured we should have hauled him the Envoy of Pakistan here and said stop that right now or do without all the aid we give you I can do without the protection and alliance that you've prospered from out of our kindness and generosity here we won't have talked of murder for the writing of novels and I see that whatever I say there's a sort of sullen resentful boring atmosphere in this room you have to stop in order to get the applause I'm just interrupted by storms Pete Asians aren't we getting this a little bit out of proportion is is the an award of a knighthood by the British state a particularly major event and are these demonstrations I don't think it's very likely I'm gonna get one Boris I'd say it doesn't seem to me to be and I have to say the the the the whole array of honors available from various states seems to me to be almost wholly devalued and the only ones which we issue which I still take seriously are those which are awarded for gallantry and courage all right let's come to the is the night herb is an insult it's not an insult and knighthood is not an insult and of course of course it is it is outrageous that anyone suggest that anyone should be killed for holding an opinion or offending or there's another thing we have out of proportion here if the cameras were Shirley Williams forgot to say you distorted almost everything I said and I never suggested and would never believe that people should be committed to keep being killed because of something they say what they're a time you said but you think but you do think that it was wronged well from that I think I said very precisely they thought the timing was unfortunate because it was a thing to be recognized as a lifelong contribution to literature and I think frankly the christopher's completely twisted what I said and I resent that very much I've mentioned who didn't say I mean important fact I object to this knighthood on purely literary graph are you've got through one of Salman Rushdie's works but there are there are more less impenetrable and I think I can think of plenty of great English authors that John the Cary Martin Amos why not two very great normally the in the nineteen eighties call money fantastic book Dick Francis has he got a knighthood yet he's got a far better grasp of pace character plot in my view than Russia and he hasn't gotten I do I think I'd let you on the tree grunts but I defend completely the decision of the honors committee obviously fairly batty but they it's their right to to do it and I defend it defend the honor completely against the charge of insensitivity it's a completely a matter obviously they're they're very excited people they they gave an award to some pants merchants who who send it back in protest it should not be it should not be a matter we should not have our distribution of honors controlled by and affected by considerations of how it will go down amongst the mullahs in in Tehran that is complete man in the center there at the back I have read Midnight's Children and it's a first-rate novel in fact and the Booker Prize judges agree with me so I think he deserves a night through to anyone I'm sorry on this if this the last point is precisely where we should be arguing about this I agree with Boris but one by the other it's judgment on literary whether they whether panel gone or knit relieved grounds whether the panel got it right or not i profoundly disagree with surely this is not an insult to Muslims it is not a mistake and it is up she's right to various honors committees to do it not it doesn't come from the cabinet or the prime minister so if there's a debate to be had let's have it on the relative merits of his literature and not on whether a defense I find that as facile a debate as the life Brian's Jerry Springer and all these other elements that go to yes may be offending people to be perfectly frank anything every time I watch television I may well be offended by things but I don't run out with a bomb strapped to mean I don't run out to burn a book or go to burn the studio we must get this in proportion why did Margaret Beckett sort of apologize for to say she hoped it hadn't upset people what she did the weasel think of saying I'm sorry if anyone is offended which is a bit weaselly she's apologizing for the notion that something the honors committee instead was quite deliberate on the children national did not just win the Booker and someone did not display to win the Booker of Booker's Midnight's Children won the main literary award in Iran people tend to forget when the fatwa was issued against him by a senile theocratic dictator had run his own country into beggary and bankruptcy and misery every Arab and Muslim writer worth the name from Najib makuu's the Egyptian Nobel Prize winners who adonis the dead parrot of the Palestinians all signed and wrote in the book for for Salman saying we identify our cause with you and with your struggle for free expression in our culture if you say that Muslims are being offended by this and you'd lump them all together you immediately grant that they are in fact represented by the most extreme homicidal fanatical illiterate intolerant people who not only haven't read this book but couldn't read it okay that's an insult to Islam [Applause]

Channel: Tom Stephens

Views: 118,111

Rating: 4.8831911 out of 5

Keywords: Peter Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens, Boris Johnson, Debate, Salman Rushdie, Lib Dems

Id: Yl-c9eKeu4g

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019