That was a most interesting discussion. In contrast to so many intellectuals who seem to believe arcane jargon is essential to establishing their credentials, Lord Sumption uses plain English, and clear thinking, to great effect.
I was particularly struck by his prediction (or at least his sense) that we may live through a period of increasing totalitarian government in which the “accepted” opinion throughout society on key issues will be determined by politicians and the rest of us must accept that or, in some way, be branded as outcasts. Only when people tire of this form of ideological tyranny will they rebel and society return to a state more akin to classical liberalism. What really struck me was his proposed time frame for the eventual return to something approaching normality: at least a decade.
Like many others, I would like to see the end of left-wing ideological tyranny soon, and I don’t want it replaced with right-wing ideological tyranny. Sadly, we might all have to wait quite a long time for the reassertion of common sense.
It’s always been that way. The Puritanism of Cromwell was replaced by large feasts and general excesses. The strict conformity of the Victorian age eventually gave way to the hippies of the 60’s and 70’s. Communitarianism gave way to Thatcherite individualism, and in my opinion is now heading back the other way.
Democracy’s greatest strength isn’t in its elected politicians or leaders (who are largely useless) but in the way the public are able to prevent any system going to the extreme fringes
Agreed, but my main concern is how long the rebalancing will take. In my heart I suspect Mr. Sumption is correct. The woke religion is now so deeply embedded in our institutions I suspect it will take years to root it out.
Quite possibly, it’ll be the young children now who will rebel against it so realistically you’re looking at a couple of decades minimum before they’re in a position to have the power to alter it. Only thing you can do in the meantime is not go along with all the nonsense, just concentrate on yourself, friends and family
Remember the infamous’King and Country Debate’ on the 9 February 1933 at the Oxford Union!
The motion presented:- “This House will under NO circumstances fight for its King and country”!
It passed at 275 votes for the motion and 153 against it.
Just over six years later things were rather different.
Yes, very depressing indeed. Reference his comments on Israel-Palestine here – they are the same as mine, but they are not the same as Douglas Murray’s (who has lost my respect in the past couple of weeks).
Pandemic measures, gender ideology and critical social justice (and, to some extent, Net Zero) have led to an alliance between liberals and conservatives and a healthy scepticism about narratives and truth vs propaganda. Along comes this conflict (and it happened, to a lesser extent, with Ukraine), and that alliance has been torn asunder in an instant, revealing a suspension of critical thinking and an authoritarian streak on the right, matching that we are seeing on the left. A reversion to tribal thinking has taken place.
I can only hope that we reunite again in attempting to slow this slide into authoritarianism by resisting CBDCs and digital ID, though again, the Right here is susceptible to arguments about using digital ID as a tool against migrants.
Dismissed international humanitarian law, overgeneralised about the motivations of protestors, recommended arresting thousands and deporting those who can be deported, and fed it all into his narrative about the moral decline of the West.
I’m sure that is music to the ears of some, but not mine (nor is it legal for Lord Sumption).
I recommend you check out the source material rather than rely on a summary whose content bears no relation to anything I have read by Douglas Murray lately. At no point in his Spectator articles at any rate has he done/advocated any of the above.
I don’t think its a defence of any position, more a narrative. Plus i’m sure most people will agree that whilst Murray’s heart maybe in the right place he is not a rigorous thinker. He would do his cause more good to step back and leave the heavy lifting to those capable of doing it!
I think you continue to fall into the trap of liberalism, which is why we are in this mess in the first place, in thinking that within the protestors there aren’t a large body of people who do not wish this country well, indeed actively work to impose their non-Western cultural agenda, but are sly enough to know how far they can push the boundaries of free speech and not cross a line into criminality. Although not specific to the marches (as I have no idea if he attended or not) an example of such is Mohammed Hijab who, in a discussion with Jordan Petersen, when challenged about having incited violence immediately responded with a grin to please point out where on the film he said this. His confidence and obvious delight in knowing how far to push is obvious, but his real intent is clear, he just doesn’t say it on camera. And there are many, many like him. We have been too timid, too afraid of being called racists or Islamophobes, or just wanting to be too nice, too British and have allowed a religion and an ideology that is incompatible with Western society to flourish.
With regard Gaza, we have a narrative of innocent Gazan civilians being indiscriminately wiped out by an evil state, Israel. This seems to be all you hear and is what the many marches are purported to be about; little is said about the innocent Israelis butchered in a sub-human way by the Hamas terrorists on 7th Oct. “Hamas does not represent the Gazan people, they are innocent.” Yet 75% of them do support Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PIJ, one of the many radical groups operating there, whose stated aim is the destruction of the Jewish people and of Israel. So their hands are not quite so clean as it first appears but no one mentions this. The PIJ, incientally, being the group who fired the ill-fated rocket that is believed to be responsible for the hospital disaster.
As Mosab Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas says, having been educated to be a jihadist but later turned away from a life of terror: ““Islam is not a religion of peace, it is a religion of war,” ….. “If people don’t see the truth we will keep spinning an empty cycle of violence. The problem, according to Yousef, is that most Muslims are not educated enough about their religion. “Out of 1.6 billion Muslims, perhaps only 300 million actually understand the language of the Koran,” he said. This is because for most Muslims, Islam is far more than a religion – “it is an identity and culture, it is everything they know.” He further posited that a full understanding of the text of Mohammed’s life necessarily leads Muslims towards extremism and terrorism. According to Yousef, anyone who studies the life and the behavior of the prophet will arrive at the conclusion that Islam is a religion of war. “It is time to expose the life of Muhammed.”
The simple fact is that as Karl Popper said: ““if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them” and Douglas Murray is making exactly that point – we have been too tolerant for far to long. As an example, how have we allowed a senior member of Hamas to come to the UK, gain British citizenship and a council house, which he has now bought at a £112,000 discount. When you read that you think it must be false….. but its not, its all true. Unless we are prepared to face reality rather than keep pretending it isn’t true, eg every time another innocent is slaughtered by someone shouting Allahu Akbar, it is by someone mentally ill not someone acting on their belief in jihad and the afterlife, then we are doomed. If you find that distasteful you might find what unfolds if we don’t challenge it even more so.
I would agree that we’ve invited and courted Islam in the UK and that time & time again we’ve seen 2nd & even 3rd generation Islamic young men proving that they don’t have warm fuzzy feelings about the UK, or anywhere in the West.
Older Islamic scholars & leaders don’t appear to be particularly effective at teaching their youth much about supposedly ‘peaceful’ Islam. But can we not at the same time acknowledge the decades-long illegal blockading of Palestinians in Gaza & elsewhere in the territory as well as the absolute horror of the recent wanton violence by Hamas?
Each driven by their absolute conviction that they alone have religious and historical claims to the territory, neither side can disconnect from their sense of god-given rights. So it’s hard to see how they could ever resolve their differences. And if they’re both going to target civilians in a t*t-for-tat orgy of revenge attacks, it’s almost impossible rationally to support either side. Even if you’ve studied the history of the region and are broadly non-partisan, you’ve only to say anything sympathetic to the Israeli cause to be branded an Islamophobe & by the same token anything suggesting Palestinians have rights too and you’re antiSemitic.
Was there ever a more perfect storm of a conflict?
The underlying problem, Jane, is that the conflict is not about land. Hamas, the PIJ, and by inference from support for them amongst three quarters of the Gazan population as I mentioned above, have a stated intention to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Concessions on what land they occupy will not alter this. Beyond Gaza, in London last weekend we had a march by, incredibly, Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation banned in many Muslim countries ( https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/hizb-ut-tahrir ). In 2002, Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflets found in Denmark urged Muslims to kill Jews “wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have been [sic] turned you out. The Jews are a people of slander…a treacherous people.. So you see it is a wider problem of fundamentalist Islam and a hatredof and determination to wipe Jewish people out. Israel nor any Jewish leaders that I am aware of have ever expressed such intentions against Muslims, only the specific terrorist organisation like Hamas. There is a fundamental diiference in motive between the two sides which, until Islam reforms, which is contrary to the teaching of Mohammed, will never be resolved, only contained.
Including dredging the same depths of horror that they quite rightly condemn, as should all right-minded people, in Hamas? Does Israel really think that illegally targeting Palestinian civilians will bring on a sudden change of heart in the vicious little minds & hearts of Hamas? Firebombing the population will never root out Hamas’ ideology. They will double down.
Israell is not targetting civilians… you have been sucked in by the pro-Palestinian propaganda. Israel is targetting Hamas…but as Hamas embeds itself amongst the people in residential areas this inevitably leads to collateral civilian deaths. Hamas is committing a war crime by hiding behind civilians and are totally responsible for the excess deaths. Do you really expect Israel to not attack Hamas after what they have done and given their objective is the destruction of the Jewish people? And so people die…
Totally agree. On the pandemic, gender ideology and critial social justice/race theory I felt I had something in common with the right with an abhorence of the authoritarian and somewhat childish left. Then along comes the current conflict and many on the right have lost all claim to critical thinking as the reveal an ugly authoritarianism in which we are supposed to swallow all propagana whole and have no concern for the conventions on the rules of war to limit civilian suffering. Douglas Murray being one of those who I too have lost any respect for.
Did we warn the citizens of Dresden to leave before we bombed it? Was the suffering of German civilians justified by the necessity to defeat Hitler? Seems to me that the Israelis are being much more circumspect than the Allies in WWII.
If Hamas laid down its arms tomorrow, no-one would die. If the IDF laid down its arms tomorrow, 9m Israelis would die. Once you’ve taken that in it’s easier to understand the Israeli point of view.
The only problem with your assumptions is that events on the ground over the last few years simply don’t back up your theory.
The much more moderate PA has been in charge of the West Bank, and their reward for following largely peaceful means is an ever further encroachment of settlements on that territory.
If the Palestinians feel that peaceful means will simply be taken advantage of, then you can’t really blame them for then resorting to violence
They do not follow peaceful means . There were almost daily terror attacks, stabbings, car attacks etc. You probably don’t know about this because the BBC only report these things if there is an Israeli response that they can criticise. The PA/PlO have a history and a present of terrorism.
Israeli border guards routinely shoot Palestinians who throw rocks at them.
The Israeli position that they are somehow entirely blameless is disingenuous at best.
And Hamas’ position that it is an any way acceptable to slaughter innocent Israeli civilians is grotesque & disgusting no matter which way you look at it.
But is the Israeli project of promoting Lebensraum in the East (building Jewish settlements in the occupied territories) not itself somewhat questionable .
Not everyone gets their news from the BBC. I find their coverage of everything facile & partisan. So I will simply say:
Zionist extremists bombed the King David Hotel in 1946, long before the PA, the PLO or Hamas. I’m sure they were just as able to justify their reasons as Hamas is able to justify their own grotesque violence. So this conflict is not about good guys on one side & bad guys on the other. It’s about two entrenched religious & territorial ideologies each of which believes that they have the greater historical claim to the land and each of which will resort to extreme means in order to exert it.
Religious dogma makes for eternal conflict.
The PA may indeed be more moderate than Hamas but it is not moderate. There are many examples but here are just a few: “pay to slay”; it is illegal to sell any land under their control to a Jew – punishable by execution; it is illegal to be homosexual- punishable by execution ( they have been known to throw such people off high buildings) etc.
Except that, long before the existence of Hamas, when Rabin tried to do just that, including withdrawing illegal settlers from the West Bank & the Gaza Strip, he was assassinated by one of his own.
So Douglas Murray’s defense of Israel and understanding of the radically violent nature of HAMAS have landed him in your doghouse, it seems. He should grab your poor dog and get to hell as far away from your anti-semitic enclave asap.
Whilst i agree broadly with your sense of what Lord Sumption describes in the discussion, there’s two aspects that might be questioned. The first, is that it’ll be politicians calling the shots. It seems to me that politicians are simply reactive to wider cultural trends, and that includes supranational interests. (LS’s views on the nation-state, as an interest defined by fighting wars is interesting in that societies have to do so to protect what they already have, from when agriculture first took hold, so which comes first? But i digress.)
Secondly, i’d distinguish between authoritarianism and your reference to totalitarianism. The two are different, even if the end result might be the same. The first is the acquiescence of populations to authority (as with lockdowns); the latter is an absolute takeover of state control with no possibility of dissent. I doubt the West would go that far, following the model of statism that world wars were fought to prevent.
I’d distinguish between authoritarian government, which LJS refers to, and totalitarianism, which brooks no dissent. It’s also open to question whether it’d be politicians in charge or those cultural and supranational forces we so frequently discuss within these and other online pages.
Left-wing ideological tyranny? Joe Biden? The Tories?
Mark Osiel
6 months ago
In an otherwise wise commentary, Sumption completely misunderstands the international law on “proportionality,” a body of law I’ve taught for thirty years. It is never a question of comparing casualties on one side of a conflict to those on the other. The question is whether the incidental loss of enemy civilians through a particular war or military operation is greater than the anticipated gain from it in securing military objectives, principally national self-defense. A correct understanding of “proportionality” could easily lead to conclusions very different than Sumption’s about Israel’s use of force
John Riordan
6 months ago
Extremely interesting talk, which it being Sunday morning I had the time to watch in full, as opposed to reading the transcript which is what I usually do. On my big TV as well, which puts something approaching a life-size Lord Sumption in my living room.
His final point on Brexit answers a question I had when I read his piece on the ECHR last month – clearly he has not changed his mind about Brexit, which I speculated he might have done.
His main point about it here is that Brexit stops the continuation of 5 centuries of intelligent foreign policy aimed at preventing the emergence of a united European polity. I agree with the historical analysis but do not agree that Brexit becomes a bad idea on this basis, and I refer to Philip Cunliffe’s crucial insight about the real nature of EU integration, namely that the transfer of power to the supranational institutions of the EU does not happen in the face of opposition by the democratically-elected governments of the bloc’s member-states, but with their direct cooperation and willing assent.
If Philip Cunliffe is right (I personally think so) then it follows that the five centuries of intelligent British foreign policy described by Lord Sumption here did not stop with Brexit, but actually ceased some time prior to Brexit, and as a direct consequence of the conditions of continued EU membership. (I’ll speculate that this would have been in 1991 with the deposing of Margaret Thatcher, but that’s a tangential issue).
It is even possible to extrapolate from this that Britain is in a stronger position to affect European affairs simply because it is no longer directly controlled by EU law: all strategic cooperation between Britain and Europe must now be on the basis of deals, and deals are things that must be in the interest of both parties, unlike the increasingly burdensome obligations of EU member-states, which are borne irrespective of national self-interest.
Even if I am mistaken about that however, I do wholly reject the implied argument that Britain as an EU member still possessed the significant degree of control over European affairs required to satisfy Lord Sumption’s analysis, and certainly did not possess the ability to control the EU’s primary objective of becoming the single European polity in question. That objective must and will happen, and it would have happened whether Britain was an EU member or not. I know Lord Sumption is much cleverer than I am, but on this point, I submit that he is mistaken.
I would postulate that those “five centuries of intelligent foreign policy” ended well before Brexit, in fact in August 1914, when of our own volition we committed ourselves to that catastrophe known as The Great War.
I agree, and that’s a real blind spot for him. What we must beware with all “guru” type contributors to the national discourse is to assume that because they’ve had a really good think about a particular issue that they’re bound to reach the right conclusion. Having said that, his opinion does add to the debate in an intelligent way, which is far superior to the blatant name-calling of many who still wish we’d stayed in the EU.
I suspect he’s right that as time goes on, we’ll find ourselves becoming more attached to the EU without ever being in a position to rejoin (hopefully). That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing – provided the EU remains attached to itself, of course!
My guess on the future trajectory is that the UK will probably join the EU “associate” status that, finally, euro-federalists such as Emmanuel Macron now realise is an inevitable compromise the EU itself will be forced to make for the sake of its own survival. If and when the UK does join such a thing, I’d guess it will also already include the Visegrad nations and may even contain some smaller nations presently in the Eurozone which would have left it by then. (The Eurozone is about to have another one of its regular existential crises, but that’s another story, I guess.)
Britain’s Europhiles are stuck in a pre-2016 past that no longer exists and can never now be re-established. Not just with reference to the EU, but also the Blairite consensus the UK could afford in the late 1990s and 2000s but which it now cannot, and which is now just as dead as Thatcherism has become.
When he is NOT in Châteaux Sumption, his brooding fortress, set high above the valley of the Dordogne, he is an inhabitant of Greenwich, the South London satellite of Quislington, therefore some allowance must be made, if you get my drift?
Charles Stanhope
6 months ago
By far and away the finest discussion I have read on UnHerd for many a year, and a perfect panacea to compensate for a simply catastrophic sporting weekend for England.
Thank you.
“And on the face of it, it looks as if an invasion of Gaza would have some of the indiscriminate qualities that people quite rightly objected to when practised by Hamas.”
Did Hamas warn the kids at the festival? No.
Do the IDF operate as a religiously motivated force that advocates rape, torture and murder of men women and children whose only ‘crime’ is to be a member of a different human group?
Do Israelis perennially lie about and inflate their own casualty figures?
Apart from a vague reference to medieval barbarism on the part of Hamas in bringing about an Israeli retaliation this is almost an attack on Israel’s right to exist.
Has he any solution, or does he think like so many people that Israel should just suck it up and pipe down?
I didn’t interpret it like that.
To use an old expression, LJS expects the Israeli’s to “play the white man” during its forthcoming assault on Gaza, and NOT replicate the barbarism of Hamas.
If you really feel like that then perhaps you should start building a new Auschwitz and commence immediate production of Zyclon B, and get rid of the blighters once and for all.
Or what about a rerun of Oradour-sur-Glane? That worked well didn’t it?
Ms Durnford are you, despite your nomen, in fact a Jewish woman or Jewess as we used to say?
I only ask because I find it almost impossible to believe that an Englishwoman would make such a remark as you have! What you have said in effect is that old Biblical expletive “AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH”.* Surely as a representative of the ‘brightest people on earth’ you don’t really mean/believe that?
(* Is it in fact part of Jewish Law does anyone know?)
Your ignorance of Jewish law is apparent. An eye for any eye is a limitation on the level of punishment. Don’t take a life for an eye. Such a prescription existed for hundred of years before English law which still executed people for relatively minor crimes. I hope when the Islamists come for Britain it will be able to act as humanely Israel and not descend to its own historic primitive instincts.
So because medieval England had some barbaric punishments, it’s fine for Israel to do it today? Most civilised societies did away with this thinking many generations ago mind you.
We also burned witches for a while, maybe Israel can have a go at that if they feel like they missed out?
I didn’t say I had the slightest clue about Jewish Law, hence my question at the end, or did you miss that?
However thanks to your facetious reply, and thus I must ask why ‘you’ crucified Christ? That was hardly an ‘eye for an eye’ or have I missed something?
The ‘Islamists’ as you so politely call them, are already HERE. 4 million at the last count, thus we shall be watching you lot very carefully as to how to handle them in Gaza.
If I may be so bold you’ve got off to a rather poor start, but I dare say things will improve.
But if Israel doesn’t hold itself to a higher standard than Hamas they’re no better than the terrorists are they? You can’t label one group animals for using women as human shields if you’re happy to murder those human shields in order to hit your original target
If Israel wishes the respect and support of the ‘West’ it will have to behave accordingly. So far it hasn’t done too badly, but as always there is room for improvement .
I would have thought reoccupation of GAZA was the answer, expensive as that will obviously turn out to be in both ‘blood and treasure’.
ps: Slimy is rather an odd adjective? Are you by chance an American?
I completely agree with you, along with the fact that because Israel has a modern army, it should be more circumspect, under international law, than Hamas.
I always fail to understand why great luminaries such as Jonathan Sumption have such a blind spot when it comes to Israel.
The immutable fact in all of this is that Hamas wants the total destruction of Israel and the Jews.
Why on earth should Israel just lie down and accept this?
He doesn’t have any solutions only aloof misguided analysis that ignores the very real difference between the Islamic death cult that Hamas is part of and the modern democratic state. He seems sanguine about use of medieval morality amongst 21st century Islamists. Would he be so indifferent if and when Britain is a battle ground.
Added to which, the death of one of the greatest footballers these islands have produced.
Our rugby team performed admirably; as for our cricketers – bring ’em home now.
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Daniel Lee
6 months ago
Wonderful interview. “I think that the proportion of people who think lockdowns were a good idea has diminished, but a majority still think that.” I don’t know about Britain, but in America the conservative areas realized the illness, while serious, was being melodramatically overstated as an weapon to, at first, attack Trump, and then to expand government power by – surprise – the very same people who always attacked Trump and always sought to expand government power. It was the same song the Left and the media and its pet experts were always singing, just a new verse.
“I think that the proportion of people who think lockdowns were a good idea has diminished, but a majority still think that.”
What a terrifying yet apposite conclusion. For those who think ‘Adolph’ couldn’t happen here, think again. Say 7 million unemployed, destruction of middle class savings, depravity of all kinds been daily practiced, and it would very soon be a case of “TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME”.
ps. Describing Former President Trump as “monstrous “ was both unnecessary and OTT.
Many Trump supporters especially blue collar workers couldn’t afford to be ‘locked down’. I was even able to get an aluminum trough from a farm supply company shipped to me from the Midwest in no time, whereas obtaining groceries locally was an exercise in perseverance. These people need to work everyday for survival unlike city workers who went home, donned their sweats and have yet to fully show up for work in many places. There’s a reason why Trump supporters were and are more sensible and pragmatic about the so-called lockdown. These are the two Americas.
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Charles Stanhope
6 months ago
“WAR IS THE FATHER OF ALL AND KING OF ALL.”*
Who ever doubted it?
(* Heraclitus.)
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Katharine Eyre
6 months ago
Can’t listen to this right now (kitchen tiles to scrub, laundry to hang up…) but many thanks to Unherd for getting Jonathan Sumption in to talk, I always hugely enjoy his contributions and I shall be returning to the video later.
But now…to the tiles!
I wish! Cannot cope with more than one bevvie these days and spent last night watching old episodes of the X Files. The only tiles I’m on these days really are the kitchen and the shower tiles…with a brush and lots of elbow grease. Rock’n’roll.
Last edited 6 months ago by Katharine Eyre
Charles Stanhope
6 months ago
“It was not felt that the duty of the state extended to relieving poverty or to promoting human happiness.”
Had LJS been a Classicist he would NOT have made that statement, because he would have known that that is precisely what Ancient Rome did.
Just look at Pompeii, a medium sized town of no great importance yet it provided its citizens with a numerous Public Baths, an Amphitheatre, a large Palaestra, a Theatre, an Odeon, clean running water etc etc. If it followed the example of Rome herself it will have provided a ‘food and wine’ dole! The only delight Pompeii seems to be missing is a Circus for Chariot Racing.
As one Roman wag* put it so beautifully the whole purpose of the Pax Romana was :- “Venari, Lavari, Ludere, Ridere, Occ est vivere”!_
‘To hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh, that is TOO live!
What a puerile response Pigache! Surely you can do better?
Andrew Holmes
6 months ago
Fascinating, brilliant discussion. Though I have no pretentions of any comparison with Lord Sumption’s knowledge and analytical acumen, I have one disagreement.
The US Constitution is supposed to be the rules. However, for decades, the judiciary applied the notion of a “living Constitution.” Effectively large numbers of US citizens had and have the same objections to the course of the Supreme Court prior to the present conservative majority that Lord Sumption expressed respecting the ECHR. Since Obama, the progressive believers have broadened their campaign of bypassing the legislative process with Executive Branch decisions. It is the same problem that Lord Sumption identified with Roe v. Wade – moral decisions imposed without input.
The hope I see in this situation is that the majority of citizens say that they are Independents, not acolytes of either major party. The authoritarian proposals from right and left may soon be marginalized.
P N
6 months ago
Disappointed FS didn’t push JS on the chants of, “From the River to the Sea.” JS fudged his answer with ludicrous accusations against the Home Secretary who has rightfully stated that support for Hamas is support for a terrorist organisation and is illegal. She has not said supporting Palestine is illegal. JS has created a straw man.
Israel has not blockaded Gaza. People living in Gaza have been able to work in Israel but even so, Israel has not shut the border with Egypt. That is Egypt. Closing the border is not the same as blockading; Israel is no more blockading Gaza that Egypt is.
If Roe v Wade was bad law it follows that the decision to overturn Roe v Wade was the correct one.
Charles Stanhope
6 months ago
Hurry up chaps!
Liam will be out of bed soon!
El Uro
6 months ago
The biggest problem of those discussing here and especially the author of this post is that they extend the basic norms of their society to those who stand on the side of Gaza.
Therefore, freedom of speech has different meanings for you and for your opponents. If for you this is an opportunity to express your point of view, then for them, including the left, it is the freedom to lie without restrictions.
I don’t really understand how you expect to find a common language or any kind of mutual understanding with them, being on such different platforms. Good luck though!
Simon Lait
6 months ago
Thoughtful articulacy founded on deep learning. Rare indeed. We’ll done UnHerd. My subscription repaid one hundred fold by this item alone.
Shrunken Genepool
6 months ago
He’s rejoined the establishment. And like them, he can’t spot the Rubicon even when he’s up to his neck and swimming. There is such a thing as a tipping point Israel has reached a tipping point . European countries are approaching it. The conservative party in the UK will recognize it only after the next election. There will be a Brexit moment within the Tory party. And in the words of this American Israeli, that can be no de-escalation. https://youtu.be/7Or1zT4I-Q0?si=U98wYuNtwuaKi8-X
Steve Hall
6 months ago
Military action in the Late Middle Ages wasn’t ‘disorganised’. Before the advent of gunpowder, militarism was focused on fortification and defence, which demanded large civil engineering, agricultural and weapons-manufacturing projects. Sumption is a lightweight pop historian with a simplistic evolutionary view of history, relevant in some aspects but less than useful in others. His view of the fixity of human sensibilities over time is culturally and psychologically illiterate. He needs to read Norbert Elias’s ‘Civilizing Process’. Public intellectual? Hmm… at the moment I’m hanging onto Unherd by a thread.
That sounds a bit ‘Chippy’.
He was a King’s Scholar at Eton, got a First from Magdalen, and a subsequent Fellowship.
Can you do better Hall old chap? If so PROVE it.
Significantly better. I’m averse to showing off, but you forced my hand. Here’s but one example. Read it and you would have to agree. And by the way, to my friends I’m Steve, but to you I’m Professor Hall. “A remarkable intellectual achievement” Prof Robert Reiner, LSE https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theorizing-Crime-Deviance-Steve-Hall/dp/1848606729
In the 1970s Steve worked as a professional musician and general labourer, and in the 1980s he worked in the field of rehabilitation and youth offending.
After graduating from university in 1991 with first class honours in sociology, he worked as a lecturer at Teesside from 1993, a member of the team that established the country’s first single-honours criminology degree. After spells as a senior research fellow at the University of Durham and a researcher and teacher at Northumbria University, he re-joined Teesside in 2010.
Emeritus Professor of Criminology at some red brick Northern University! Precisely what is wrong with our universities, dishing out degrees for such ephemeral rubbish, and you have the confounded cheek to castigate a renowned Oxford Scholar. God help us!
You say you are “hanging onto UnHerd by a thread”, then be off you, with you old bluffer.
ps. I would tend to agree with you that Tom Holland Esq and Simon Sebag Montefiore Esq are POP historians but not LJS.
Charles Stanhope, that’s just a username, isn’t it? You’re not that 120th Duke of Earl or whatever, are you, the one who ponces off inherited property in London?
Anyway, read the book! You’ll get a big shock. It’s in the Oxford, Cambridge and most other RG libraries, regarded as a ‘major intervention’. Are you suggesting that an individual from a working-class background can’t be clever? ‘Northern’? I love the North East, it’s my home. Charles, you can’t be one of these stupid peri-senile snobs, can you? You’re better than that!
No, I find your criticism of LJS to be ill informed, petty and somewhat coarse.
I challenged you and what do I find but a very conceited ‘sociologist’, who seems to have never heard of the adage ‘self praise is NO recommendation’,
The fact that you are both working class and come from the North East bothers me not one iota. What does bother me is that you have wasted your life on such drivel as Norbet Elias & Co churned out.I surprised you didn’t chuck in Harold Laski.
Incidentally “militarism before the advent of gunpowder was fairly chaotic by comparison with Ancient Rome or even Ancient Greece, as I’m sure you will agree.
Yes I am a SNOB about people such you good self who entered this conversation in such a vulgar manner. You only have yourself to blame if you find my response has been ever so slightly acerbic.
May I wish all the best on you return to Twitter or whatever it is now called.
Ah, so you’re a fake upper-class twit, not a real one. Anyway, you demanded that I ‘prove’ myself, so I simply complied. The vulgarity is yours. I criticised pop historian Sumption’s comment about militarism in the MA being ‘disorganised’ – it wasn’t, and you don’t know enough to come back at me. Elias was a celebrated German-Jewish intellectual with a sophisticated grasp of history and a foundation in his name http://norbert-elias.com/. His friends were killed by Friekorps in the early 1920s, so he’s also see more of life than you’ll ever see. You’ve never read his work, and should you choose to do so you would need someone to walk you through it. He was a very bright chap. This comment section is just a bit of a giggle for me, but it seems to be a significant part of your life. I’m off – I have intellectual matters to attend to, and you’ve just lost Unherd a customer, you vacuous old blowhard….
You’re flouncing off because Unherd interviewed someone you don’t like and he said something you disagree with? I don’t think Unherd is for anyway. Better to just stick to the Guardian and your staff room echo chamber.
I must say rise perfectly to the ‘bait’! Thank you.
You are also a very good example of what an absolute disaster John Majors’s policy of turning Polytechnics into Universities was.
It quite unjustifiably allowed people such as you good self to “rise above their station” as we used say. Let’s face it you would have been far happier as a panel beater in South Shields, as a Communist shop steward, and NOT posing as an academic.
I am sorry, but as your EGO so obviously far exceeds your INTELLECT further discourse is pointless. However a word of advice “manners maketh man”.
“ Charles Stanhope, that’s just a username, isn’t it? You’re not that 120th Duke of Earl or whatever, are you, the one who ponces off inherited property in London?”
The mask slips with that ad hominem. For someone with such academic pretensions, your abandoning of logic and your descending to slurs undermines your credibility.
This is an obscure comment section on a fringe journal. Nobody comes here to gain ‘credibility’ and there’s no one here with the authority to give it out. People no longer give a damn what the English middle class think – you lost credibility 40 years ago, and that’s not a bad thing.
This is a very odd comment. You’re trashing the very comments section you’re writing in. Even in a private conversation with a single person, I still aspire to credibility. In a public forum where I’ve identified exactly who I am and even posted a link to a pamphlet I once wrote, I really wouldn’t want to sabotage my reputation.
“ People no longer give a damn what the English middle class think – you lost credibility 40 years ago, and that’s not a bad thing.”
What on earth are you on about? Who is “you”? You have no idea who I am? Is this some dig at Thatcher or the end of the Cold War or something? Very bizarre.
My respect for academia at obscure universities and former polytechnics has never plummeted to new depths. I sincerely hope you’re no longer in a position of influence over the nation’s young.
Martin Butler
6 months ago
What an intelligent thoughtful guy. And a remainer of course!
I joined Unherd drawn to it be frustration with the authoritarian left calling those who disagree with them fascitist and have found the authoritarian right calling anyone who has a difference of opinion anti-semetic. You too sound like you don’t value free speech and discussion! So dont worry, I have cancelled my subscription!
That was a most interesting discussion. In contrast to so many intellectuals who seem to believe arcane jargon is essential to establishing their credentials, Lord Sumption uses plain English, and clear thinking, to great effect.
I was particularly struck by his prediction (or at least his sense) that we may live through a period of increasing totalitarian government in which the “accepted” opinion throughout society on key issues will be determined by politicians and the rest of us must accept that or, in some way, be branded as outcasts. Only when people tire of this form of ideological tyranny will they rebel and society return to a state more akin to classical liberalism. What really struck me was his proposed time frame for the eventual return to something approaching normality: at least a decade.
Like many others, I would like to see the end of left-wing ideological tyranny soon, and I don’t want it replaced with right-wing ideological tyranny. Sadly, we might all have to wait quite a long time for the reassertion of common sense.
It’s always been that way. The Puritanism of Cromwell was replaced by large feasts and general excesses. The strict conformity of the Victorian age eventually gave way to the hippies of the 60’s and 70’s. Communitarianism gave way to Thatcherite individualism, and in my opinion is now heading back the other way.
Democracy’s greatest strength isn’t in its elected politicians or leaders (who are largely useless) but in the way the public are able to prevent any system going to the extreme fringes
Agreed, but my main concern is how long the rebalancing will take. In my heart I suspect Mr. Sumption is correct. The woke religion is now so deeply embedded in our institutions I suspect it will take years to root it out.
Quite possibly, it’ll be the young children now who will rebel against it so realistically you’re looking at a couple of decades minimum before they’re in a position to have the power to alter it. Only thing you can do in the meantime is not go along with all the nonsense, just concentrate on yourself, friends and family
Decades, I fear.
Why Mr Sumption here, yet Lord Sumption in your previous post, 7 hours ago pray?
Remember the infamous’King and Country Debate’ on the 9 February 1933 at the Oxford Union!
The motion presented:- “This House will under NO circumstances fight for its King and country”!
It passed at 275 votes for the motion and 153 against it.
Just over six years later things were rather different.
Lord Sumption.
But are we, the public, censored and censured at every turn, still able to put the brakes on our systems?
Yes, very depressing indeed. Reference his comments on Israel-Palestine here – they are the same as mine, but they are not the same as Douglas Murray’s (who has lost my respect in the past couple of weeks).
Pandemic measures, gender ideology and critical social justice (and, to some extent, Net Zero) have led to an alliance between liberals and conservatives and a healthy scepticism about narratives and truth vs propaganda. Along comes this conflict (and it happened, to a lesser extent, with Ukraine), and that alliance has been torn asunder in an instant, revealing a suspension of critical thinking and an authoritarian streak on the right, matching that we are seeing on the left. A reversion to tribal thinking has taken place.
I can only hope that we reunite again in attempting to slow this slide into authoritarianism by resisting CBDCs and digital ID, though again, the Right here is susceptible to arguments about using digital ID as a tool against migrants.
I have been too IDLE to monitor Douglas Murray of late, may I ask what has he been saying?
Dismissed international humanitarian law, overgeneralised about the motivations of protestors, recommended arresting thousands and deporting those who can be deported, and fed it all into his narrative about the moral decline of the West.
I’m sure that is music to the ears of some, but not mine (nor is it legal for Lord Sumption).
Thank you.
“Moderation in ALL things”.*
(*Hesiod and later Plautus.)
Tell it to HAMAS.
Cleobulus, too.
Including moderation… 😉
I recommend you check out the source material rather than rely on a summary whose content bears no relation to anything I have read by Douglas Murray lately. At no point in his Spectator articles at any rate has he done/advocated any of the above.
The down buttons are intersting – this is a mere statement of fact – what Douglas Murray said.
Your defense of your anti-Murray position has all the moral gravitas of pie-throwing.
I don’t think its a defence of any position, more a narrative. Plus i’m sure most people will agree that whilst Murray’s heart maybe in the right place he is not a rigorous thinker. He would do his cause more good to step back and leave the heavy lifting to those capable of doing it!
I think you continue to fall into the trap of liberalism, which is why we are in this mess in the first place, in thinking that within the protestors there aren’t a large body of people who do not wish this country well, indeed actively work to impose their non-Western cultural agenda, but are sly enough to know how far they can push the boundaries of free speech and not cross a line into criminality. Although not specific to the marches (as I have no idea if he attended or not) an example of such is Mohammed Hijab who, in a discussion with Jordan Petersen, when challenged about having incited violence immediately responded with a grin to please point out where on the film he said this. His confidence and obvious delight in knowing how far to push is obvious, but his real intent is clear, he just doesn’t say it on camera. And there are many, many like him. We have been too timid, too afraid of being called racists or Islamophobes, or just wanting to be too nice, too British and have allowed a religion and an ideology that is incompatible with Western society to flourish.
With regard Gaza, we have a narrative of innocent Gazan civilians being indiscriminately wiped out by an evil state, Israel. This seems to be all you hear and is what the many marches are purported to be about; little is said about the innocent Israelis butchered in a sub-human way by the Hamas terrorists on 7th Oct. “Hamas does not represent the Gazan people, they are innocent.” Yet 75% of them do support Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PIJ, one of the many radical groups operating there, whose stated aim is the destruction of the Jewish people and of Israel. So their hands are not quite so clean as it first appears but no one mentions this. The PIJ, incientally, being the group who fired the ill-fated rocket that is believed to be responsible for the hospital disaster.
As Mosab Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas says, having been educated to be a jihadist but later turned away from a life of terror: ““Islam is not a religion of peace, it is a religion of war,” ….. “If people don’t see the truth we will keep spinning an empty cycle of violence. The problem, according to Yousef, is that most Muslims are not educated enough about their religion. “Out of 1.6 billion Muslims, perhaps only 300 million actually understand the language of the Koran,” he said. This is because for most Muslims, Islam is far more than a religion – “it is an identity and culture, it is everything they know.” He further posited that a full understanding of the text of Mohammed’s life necessarily leads Muslims towards extremism and terrorism. According to Yousef, anyone who studies the life and the behavior of the prophet will arrive at the conclusion that Islam is a religion of war. “It is time to expose the life of Muhammed.”
The simple fact is that as Karl Popper said: ““if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them” and Douglas Murray is making exactly that point – we have been too tolerant for far to long. As an example, how have we allowed a senior member of Hamas to come to the UK, gain British citizenship and a council house, which he has now bought at a £112,000 discount. When you read that you think it must be false….. but its not, its all true. Unless we are prepared to face reality rather than keep pretending it isn’t true, eg every time another innocent is slaughtered by someone shouting Allahu Akbar, it is by someone mentally ill not someone acting on their belief in jihad and the afterlife, then we are doomed. If you find that distasteful you might find what unfolds if we don’t challenge it even more so.
I would agree that we’ve invited and courted Islam in the UK and that time & time again we’ve seen 2nd & even 3rd generation Islamic young men proving that they don’t have warm fuzzy feelings about the UK, or anywhere in the West.
Older Islamic scholars & leaders don’t appear to be particularly effective at teaching their youth much about supposedly ‘peaceful’ Islam. But can we not at the same time acknowledge the decades-long illegal blockading of Palestinians in Gaza & elsewhere in the territory as well as the absolute horror of the recent wanton violence by Hamas?
Each driven by their absolute conviction that they alone have religious and historical claims to the territory, neither side can disconnect from their sense of god-given rights. So it’s hard to see how they could ever resolve their differences. And if they’re both going to target civilians in a t*t-for-tat orgy of revenge attacks, it’s almost impossible rationally to support either side. Even if you’ve studied the history of the region and are broadly non-partisan, you’ve only to say anything sympathetic to the Israeli cause to be branded an Islamophobe & by the same token anything suggesting Palestinians have rights too and you’re antiSemitic.
Was there ever a more perfect storm of a conflict?
The underlying problem, Jane, is that the conflict is not about land. Hamas, the PIJ, and by inference from support for them amongst three quarters of the Gazan population as I mentioned above, have a stated intention to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Concessions on what land they occupy will not alter this. Beyond Gaza, in London last weekend we had a march by, incredibly, Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation banned in many Muslim countries ( https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/hizb-ut-tahrir ). In 2002, Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflets found in Denmark urged Muslims to kill Jews “wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have been [sic] turned you out. The Jews are a people of slander…a treacherous people.. So you see it is a wider problem of fundamentalist Islam and a hatredof and determination to wipe Jewish people out. Israel nor any Jewish leaders that I am aware of have ever expressed such intentions against Muslims, only the specific terrorist organisation like Hamas. There is a fundamental diiference in motive between the two sides which, until Islam reforms, which is contrary to the teaching of Mohammed, will never be resolved, only contained.
Douglas Murray remains a formidable writer and thinker, even though you might not agree with his views of the current situation in Israel.
https://x.com/habibi_uk/status/1716150074579796299?s=20
Naughty Douglas defended the right of Israel to extirpate HAMAS in any way it can.
Including dredging the same depths of horror that they quite rightly condemn, as should all right-minded people, in Hamas? Does Israel really think that illegally targeting Palestinian civilians will bring on a sudden change of heart in the vicious little minds & hearts of Hamas? Firebombing the population will never root out Hamas’ ideology. They will double down.
Israell is not targetting civilians… you have been sucked in by the pro-Palestinian propaganda. Israel is targetting Hamas…but as Hamas embeds itself amongst the people in residential areas this inevitably leads to collateral civilian deaths. Hamas is committing a war crime by hiding behind civilians and are totally responsible for the excess deaths. Do you really expect Israel to not attack Hamas after what they have done and given their objective is the destruction of the Jewish people? And so people die…
Totally agree. On the pandemic, gender ideology and critial social justice/race theory I felt I had something in common with the right with an abhorence of the authoritarian and somewhat childish left. Then along comes the current conflict and many on the right have lost all claim to critical thinking as the reveal an ugly authoritarianism in which we are supposed to swallow all propagana whole and have no concern for the conventions on the rules of war to limit civilian suffering. Douglas Murray being one of those who I too have lost any respect for.
Did we warn the citizens of Dresden to leave before we bombed it? Was the suffering of German civilians justified by the necessity to defeat Hitler? Seems to me that the Israelis are being much more circumspect than the Allies in WWII.
If Hamas laid down its arms tomorrow, no-one would die. If the IDF laid down its arms tomorrow, 9m Israelis would die. Once you’ve taken that in it’s easier to understand the Israeli point of view.
The only problem with your assumptions is that events on the ground over the last few years simply don’t back up your theory.
The much more moderate PA has been in charge of the West Bank, and their reward for following largely peaceful means is an ever further encroachment of settlements on that territory.
If the Palestinians feel that peaceful means will simply be taken advantage of, then you can’t really blame them for then resorting to violence
They do not follow peaceful means . There were almost daily terror attacks, stabbings, car attacks etc. You probably don’t know about this because the BBC only report these things if there is an Israeli response that they can criticise. The PA/PlO have a history and a present of terrorism.
There are also daily attacks by the settlers on the Arabs, forcing them from their homes often under the gaze of the IDF.
Israeli border guards routinely shoot Palestinians who throw rocks at them.
The Israeli position that they are somehow entirely blameless is disingenuous at best.
And Hamas’ position that it is an any way acceptable to slaughter innocent Israeli civilians is grotesque & disgusting no matter which way you look at it.
But is the Israeli project of promoting Lebensraum in the East (building Jewish settlements in the occupied territories) not itself somewhat questionable .
Not everyone gets their news from the BBC. I find their coverage of everything facile & partisan. So I will simply say:
Zionist extremists bombed the King David Hotel in 1946, long before the PA, the PLO or Hamas. I’m sure they were just as able to justify their reasons as Hamas is able to justify their own grotesque violence. So this conflict is not about good guys on one side & bad guys on the other. It’s about two entrenched religious & territorial ideologies each of which believes that they have the greater historical claim to the land and each of which will resort to extreme means in order to exert it.
Religious dogma makes for eternal conflict.
The PA may indeed be more moderate than Hamas but it is not moderate. There are many examples but here are just a few: “pay to slay”; it is illegal to sell any land under their control to a Jew – punishable by execution; it is illegal to be homosexual- punishable by execution ( they have been known to throw such people off high buildings) etc.
Except that, long before the existence of Hamas, when Rabin tried to do just that, including withdrawing illegal settlers from the West Bank & the Gaza Strip, he was assassinated by one of his own.
So Douglas Murray’s defense of Israel and understanding of the radically violent nature of HAMAS have landed him in your doghouse, it seems. He should grab your poor dog and get to hell as far away from your anti-semitic enclave asap.
And don’t be depressed, Nik. Cheer up, come to Israel, and help HAMAS.
Whilst i agree broadly with your sense of what Lord Sumption describes in the discussion, there’s two aspects that might be questioned. The first, is that it’ll be politicians calling the shots. It seems to me that politicians are simply reactive to wider cultural trends, and that includes supranational interests. (LS’s views on the nation-state, as an interest defined by fighting wars is interesting in that societies have to do so to protect what they already have, from when agriculture first took hold, so which comes first? But i digress.)
Secondly, i’d distinguish between authoritarianism and your reference to totalitarianism. The two are different, even if the end result might be the same. The first is the acquiescence of populations to authority (as with lockdowns); the latter is an absolute takeover of state control with no possibility of dissent. I doubt the West would go that far, following the model of statism that world wars were fought to prevent.
This has just appeared after being in moderation, hence my later, abbreviated comment. Can’t be edit-deleted now either. Poor, Unherd
I’d distinguish between authoritarian government, which LJS refers to, and totalitarianism, which brooks no dissent. It’s also open to question whether it’d be politicians in charge or those cultural and supranational forces we so frequently discuss within these and other online pages.
I could not help but feel that he was relishing the role of spoiler. HE WAS !
Left-wing ideological tyranny? Joe Biden? The Tories?
In an otherwise wise commentary, Sumption completely misunderstands the international law on “proportionality,” a body of law I’ve taught for thirty years. It is never a question of comparing casualties on one side of a conflict to those on the other. The question is whether the incidental loss of enemy civilians through a particular war or military operation is greater than the anticipated gain from it in securing military objectives, principally national self-defense. A correct understanding of “proportionality” could easily lead to conclusions very different than Sumption’s about Israel’s use of force
Extremely interesting talk, which it being Sunday morning I had the time to watch in full, as opposed to reading the transcript which is what I usually do. On my big TV as well, which puts something approaching a life-size Lord Sumption in my living room.
His final point on Brexit answers a question I had when I read his piece on the ECHR last month – clearly he has not changed his mind about Brexit, which I speculated he might have done.
His main point about it here is that Brexit stops the continuation of 5 centuries of intelligent foreign policy aimed at preventing the emergence of a united European polity. I agree with the historical analysis but do not agree that Brexit becomes a bad idea on this basis, and I refer to Philip Cunliffe’s crucial insight about the real nature of EU integration, namely that the transfer of power to the supranational institutions of the EU does not happen in the face of opposition by the democratically-elected governments of the bloc’s member-states, but with their direct cooperation and willing assent.
If Philip Cunliffe is right (I personally think so) then it follows that the five centuries of intelligent British foreign policy described by Lord Sumption here did not stop with Brexit, but actually ceased some time prior to Brexit, and as a direct consequence of the conditions of continued EU membership. (I’ll speculate that this would have been in 1991 with the deposing of Margaret Thatcher, but that’s a tangential issue).
It is even possible to extrapolate from this that Britain is in a stronger position to affect European affairs simply because it is no longer directly controlled by EU law: all strategic cooperation between Britain and Europe must now be on the basis of deals, and deals are things that must be in the interest of both parties, unlike the increasingly burdensome obligations of EU member-states, which are borne irrespective of national self-interest.
Even if I am mistaken about that however, I do wholly reject the implied argument that Britain as an EU member still possessed the significant degree of control over European affairs required to satisfy Lord Sumption’s analysis, and certainly did not possess the ability to control the EU’s primary objective of becoming the single European polity in question. That objective must and will happen, and it would have happened whether Britain was an EU member or not. I know Lord Sumption is much cleverer than I am, but on this point, I submit that he is mistaken.
I would postulate that those “five centuries of intelligent foreign policy” ended well before Brexit, in fact in August 1914, when of our own volition we committed ourselves to that catastrophe known as The Great War.
Stanhope makes a very good and valid point
I agree, and that’s a real blind spot for him. What we must beware with all “guru” type contributors to the national discourse is to assume that because they’ve had a really good think about a particular issue that they’re bound to reach the right conclusion. Having said that, his opinion does add to the debate in an intelligent way, which is far superior to the blatant name-calling of many who still wish we’d stayed in the EU.
I suspect he’s right that as time goes on, we’ll find ourselves becoming more attached to the EU without ever being in a position to rejoin (hopefully). That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing – provided the EU remains attached to itself, of course!
My guess on the future trajectory is that the UK will probably join the EU “associate” status that, finally, euro-federalists such as Emmanuel Macron now realise is an inevitable compromise the EU itself will be forced to make for the sake of its own survival. If and when the UK does join such a thing, I’d guess it will also already include the Visegrad nations and may even contain some smaller nations presently in the Eurozone which would have left it by then. (The Eurozone is about to have another one of its regular existential crises, but that’s another story, I guess.)
Britain’s Europhiles are stuck in a pre-2016 past that no longer exists and can never now be re-established. Not just with reference to the EU, but also the Blairite consensus the UK could afford in the late 1990s and 2000s but which it now cannot, and which is now just as dead as Thatcherism has become.
Thank you. I felt somewhat taken aback by Lord Sumption’s assertions on this topic, and you have articulated a worthy response.
An interesting discussion, though I think Sumption is a bit blasé about immigration.
When he is NOT in Châteaux Sumption, his brooding fortress, set high above the valley of the Dordogne, he is an inhabitant of Greenwich, the South London satellite of Quislington, therefore some allowance must be made, if you get my drift?
By far and away the finest discussion I have read on UnHerd for many a year, and a perfect panacea to compensate for a simply catastrophic sporting weekend for England.
Thank you.
Whilst I never expected us to win going into last night, I was gutted by the end.
Yes indeed, I now know how Australian must have felt in 2003!*
(* Not that that exculpates Mr John Howard’s appalling post- match behaviour.)
Moral of the story. Dont argue with the Ref and get marched ten yards closer to the sticks and thus give away three points.
“And on the face of it, it looks as if an invasion of Gaza would have some of the indiscriminate qualities that people quite rightly objected to when practised by Hamas.”
Did Hamas warn the kids at the festival? No.
Do the IDF operate as a religiously motivated force that advocates rape, torture and murder of men women and children whose only ‘crime’ is to be a member of a different human group?
Do Israelis perennially lie about and inflate their own casualty figures?
Apart from a vague reference to medieval barbarism on the part of Hamas in bringing about an Israeli retaliation this is almost an attack on Israel’s right to exist.
Has he any solution, or does he think like so many people that Israel should just suck it up and pipe down?
I didn’t interpret it like that.
To use an old expression, LJS expects the Israeli’s to “play the white man” during its forthcoming assault on Gaza, and NOT replicate the barbarism of Hamas.
Is that asking too much?
Yes, it is, considering Israel is in a fight for its existential survival.
If you really feel like that then perhaps you should start building a new Auschwitz and commence immediate production of Zyclon B, and get rid of the blighters once and for all.
Or what about a rerun of Oradour-sur-Glane? That worked well didn’t it?
Ms Durnford are you, despite your nomen, in fact a Jewish woman or Jewess as we used to say?
I only ask because I find it almost impossible to believe that an Englishwoman would make such a remark as you have! What you have said in effect is that old Biblical expletive “AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH”.* Surely as a representative of the ‘brightest people on earth’ you don’t really mean/believe that?
(* Is it in fact part of Jewish Law does anyone know?)
Your ignorance of Jewish law is apparent. An eye for any eye is a limitation on the level of punishment. Don’t take a life for an eye. Such a prescription existed for hundred of years before English law which still executed people for relatively minor crimes. I hope when the Islamists come for Britain it will be able to act as humanely Israel and not descend to its own historic primitive instincts.
So because medieval England had some barbaric punishments, it’s fine for Israel to do it today? Most civilised societies did away with this thinking many generations ago mind you.
We also burned witches for a while, maybe Israel can have a go at that if they feel like they missed out?
I didn’t say I had the slightest clue about Jewish Law, hence my question at the end, or did you miss that?
However thanks to your facetious reply, and thus I must ask why ‘you’ crucified Christ? That was hardly an ‘eye for an eye’ or have I missed something?
The ‘Islamists’ as you so politely call them, are already HERE. 4 million at the last count, thus we shall be watching you lot very carefully as to how to handle them in Gaza.
If I may be so bold you’ve got off to a rather poor start, but I dare say things will improve.
But if Israel doesn’t hold itself to a higher standard than Hamas they’re no better than the terrorists are they? You can’t label one group animals for using women as human shields if you’re happy to murder those human shields in order to hit your original target
Asking if it’s too much for Israelis from Persia, Morocco, Yemen, Turkey to play the white man is simply slimy racism.
Jews/Israelis aren’t all white.
That is a rather feeble excuse for barbarism!
If Israel wishes the respect and support of the ‘West’ it will have to behave accordingly. So far it hasn’t done too badly, but as always there is room for improvement .
I would have thought reoccupation of GAZA was the answer, expensive as that will obviously turn out to be in both ‘blood and treasure’.
ps: Slimy is rather an odd adjective? Are you by chance an American?
There is no risk of Israel descending to the barbarism of a death cult. It is beyond insulting to suggesting the possibility of any similarity.
I don’t know, the civilian death count is currently massively in their favour
I completely agree with you, along with the fact that because Israel has a modern army, it should be more circumspect, under international law, than Hamas.
I always fail to understand why great luminaries such as Jonathan Sumption have such a blind spot when it comes to Israel.
The immutable fact in all of this is that Hamas wants the total destruction of Israel and the Jews.
Why on earth should Israel just lie down and accept this?
Thank you Louise.
Hamas are openly anti-Semitic, unlike many of their friends who pretend to be impartial.
He doesn’t have any solutions only aloof misguided analysis that ignores the very real difference between the Islamic death cult that Hamas is part of and the modern democratic state. He seems sanguine about use of medieval morality amongst 21st century Islamists. Would he be so indifferent if and when Britain is a battle ground.
Added to which, the death of one of the greatest footballers these islands have produced.
Our rugby team performed admirably; as for our cricketers – bring ’em home now.
Wonderful interview. “I think that the proportion of people who think lockdowns were a good idea has diminished, but a majority still think that.” I don’t know about Britain, but in America the conservative areas realized the illness, while serious, was being melodramatically overstated as an weapon to, at first, attack Trump, and then to expand government power by – surprise – the very same people who always attacked Trump and always sought to expand government power. It was the same song the Left and the media and its pet experts were always singing, just a new verse.
“I think that the proportion of people who think lockdowns were a good idea has diminished, but a majority still think that.”
What a terrifying yet apposite conclusion. For those who think ‘Adolph’ couldn’t happen here, think again. Say 7 million unemployed, destruction of middle class savings, depravity of all kinds been daily practiced, and it would very soon be a case of “TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME”.
ps. Describing Former President Trump as “monstrous “ was both unnecessary and OTT.
Many Trump supporters especially blue collar workers couldn’t afford to be ‘locked down’. I was even able to get an aluminum trough from a farm supply company shipped to me from the Midwest in no time, whereas obtaining groceries locally was an exercise in perseverance. These people need to work everyday for survival unlike city workers who went home, donned their sweats and have yet to fully show up for work in many places. There’s a reason why Trump supporters were and are more sensible and pragmatic about the so-called lockdown. These are the two Americas.
“WAR IS THE FATHER OF ALL AND KING OF ALL.”*
Who ever doubted it?
(* Heraclitus.)
Can’t listen to this right now (kitchen tiles to scrub, laundry to hang up…) but many thanks to Unherd for getting Jonathan Sumption in to talk, I always hugely enjoy his contributions and I shall be returning to the video later.
But now…to the tiles!
Come on Katherine, you’ve had a night on the tiles, haven’t you, and need recovery time.
I wish! Cannot cope with more than one bevvie these days and spent last night watching old episodes of the X Files. The only tiles I’m on these days really are the kitchen and the shower tiles…with a brush and lots of elbow grease. Rock’n’roll.
“It was not felt that the duty of the state extended to relieving poverty or to promoting human happiness.”
Had LJS been a Classicist he would NOT have made that statement, because he would have known that that is precisely what Ancient Rome did.
Just look at Pompeii, a medium sized town of no great importance yet it provided its citizens with a numerous Public Baths, an Amphitheatre, a large Palaestra, a Theatre, an Odeon, clean running water etc etc. If it followed the example of Rome herself it will have provided a ‘food and wine’ dole! The only delight Pompeii seems to be missing is a Circus for Chariot Racing.
As one Roman wag* put it so beautifully the whole purpose of the Pax Romana was :- “Venari, Lavari, Ludere, Ridere, Occ est vivere”!_
‘To hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh, that is TOO live!
(* From TIMGAD, high in the Aurès Mts, Algeria.)
Oh and slaves. Happy in their poverty I suppose.
What a puerile response Pigache! Surely you can do better?
Fascinating, brilliant discussion. Though I have no pretentions of any comparison with Lord Sumption’s knowledge and analytical acumen, I have one disagreement.
The US Constitution is supposed to be the rules. However, for decades, the judiciary applied the notion of a “living Constitution.” Effectively large numbers of US citizens had and have the same objections to the course of the Supreme Court prior to the present conservative majority that Lord Sumption expressed respecting the ECHR. Since Obama, the progressive believers have broadened their campaign of bypassing the legislative process with Executive Branch decisions. It is the same problem that Lord Sumption identified with Roe v. Wade – moral decisions imposed without input.
The hope I see in this situation is that the majority of citizens say that they are Independents, not acolytes of either major party. The authoritarian proposals from right and left may soon be marginalized.
Disappointed FS didn’t push JS on the chants of, “From the River to the Sea.” JS fudged his answer with ludicrous accusations against the Home Secretary who has rightfully stated that support for Hamas is support for a terrorist organisation and is illegal. She has not said supporting Palestine is illegal. JS has created a straw man.
Israel has not blockaded Gaza. People living in Gaza have been able to work in Israel but even so, Israel has not shut the border with Egypt. That is Egypt. Closing the border is not the same as blockading; Israel is no more blockading Gaza that Egypt is.
If Roe v Wade was bad law it follows that the decision to overturn Roe v Wade was the correct one.
Hurry up chaps!
Liam will be out of bed soon!
The biggest problem of those discussing here and especially the author of this post is that they extend the basic norms of their society to those who stand on the side of Gaza.
Therefore, freedom of speech has different meanings for you and for your opponents. If for you this is an opportunity to express your point of view, then for them, including the left, it is the freedom to lie without restrictions.
I don’t really understand how you expect to find a common language or any kind of mutual understanding with them, being on such different platforms. Good luck though!
Thoughtful articulacy founded on deep learning. Rare indeed. We’ll done UnHerd. My subscription repaid one hundred fold by this item alone.
He’s rejoined the establishment. And like them, he can’t spot the Rubicon even when he’s up to his neck and swimming. There is such a thing as a tipping point Israel has reached a tipping point . European countries are approaching it. The conservative party in the UK will recognize it only after the next election. There will be a Brexit moment within the Tory party. And in the words of this American Israeli, that can be no de-escalation. https://youtu.be/7Or1zT4I-Q0?si=U98wYuNtwuaKi8-X
Military action in the Late Middle Ages wasn’t ‘disorganised’. Before the advent of gunpowder, militarism was focused on fortification and defence, which demanded large civil engineering, agricultural and weapons-manufacturing projects. Sumption is a lightweight pop historian with a simplistic evolutionary view of history, relevant in some aspects but less than useful in others. His view of the fixity of human sensibilities over time is culturally and psychologically illiterate. He needs to read Norbert Elias’s ‘Civilizing Process’. Public intellectual? Hmm… at the moment I’m hanging onto Unherd by a thread.
That sounds a bit ‘Chippy’.
He was a King’s Scholar at Eton, got a First from Magdalen, and a subsequent Fellowship.
Can you do better Hall old chap? If so PROVE it.
Significantly better. I’m averse to showing off, but you forced my hand. Here’s but one example. Read it and you would have to agree. And by the way, to my friends I’m Steve, but to you I’m Professor Hall. “A remarkable intellectual achievement” Prof Robert Reiner, LSE https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theorizing-Crime-Deviance-Steve-Hall/dp/1848606729
Oh Christ NOT this Steve Hall I trust?:-
In the 1970s Steve worked as a professional musician and general labourer, and in the 1980s he worked in the field of rehabilitation and youth offending.
After graduating from university in 1991 with first class honours in sociology, he worked as a lecturer at Teesside from 1993, a member of the team that established the country’s first single-honours criminology degree. After spells as a senior research fellow at the University of Durham and a researcher and teacher at Northumbria University, he re-joined Teesside in 2010.
Emeritus Professor of Criminology at some red brick Northern University! Precisely what is wrong with our universities, dishing out degrees for such ephemeral rubbish, and you have the confounded cheek to castigate a renowned Oxford Scholar. God help us!
You say you are “hanging onto UnHerd by a thread”, then be off you, with you old bluffer.
ps. I would tend to agree with you that Tom Holland Esq and Simon Sebag Montefiore Esq are POP historians but not LJS.
Charles Stanhope, that’s just a username, isn’t it? You’re not that 120th Duke of Earl or whatever, are you, the one who ponces off inherited property in London?
Anyway, read the book! You’ll get a big shock. It’s in the Oxford, Cambridge and most other RG libraries, regarded as a ‘major intervention’. Are you suggesting that an individual from a working-class background can’t be clever? ‘Northern’? I love the North East, it’s my home. Charles, you can’t be one of these stupid peri-senile snobs, can you? You’re better than that!
No, I find your criticism of LJS to be ill informed, petty and somewhat coarse.
I challenged you and what do I find but a very conceited ‘sociologist’, who seems to have never heard of the adage ‘self praise is NO recommendation’,
The fact that you are both working class and come from the North East bothers me not one iota. What does bother me is that you have wasted your life on such drivel as Norbet Elias & Co churned out.I surprised you didn’t chuck in Harold Laski.
Incidentally “militarism before the advent of gunpowder was fairly chaotic by comparison with Ancient Rome or even Ancient Greece, as I’m sure you will agree.
Yes I am a SNOB about people such you good self who entered this conversation in such a vulgar manner. You only have yourself to blame if you find my response has been ever so slightly acerbic.
May I wish all the best on you return to Twitter or whatever it is now called.
Ah, so you’re a fake upper-class twit, not a real one. Anyway, you demanded that I ‘prove’ myself, so I simply complied. The vulgarity is yours. I criticised pop historian Sumption’s comment about militarism in the MA being ‘disorganised’ – it wasn’t, and you don’t know enough to come back at me. Elias was a celebrated German-Jewish intellectual with a sophisticated grasp of history and a foundation in his name http://norbert-elias.com/. His friends were killed by Friekorps in the early 1920s, so he’s also see more of life than you’ll ever see. You’ve never read his work, and should you choose to do so you would need someone to walk you through it. He was a very bright chap. This comment section is just a bit of a giggle for me, but it seems to be a significant part of your life. I’m off – I have intellectual matters to attend to, and you’ve just lost Unherd a customer, you vacuous old blowhard….
You’re flouncing off because Unherd interviewed someone you don’t like and he said something you disagree with? I don’t think Unherd is for anyway. Better to just stick to the Guardian and your staff room echo chamber.
I must say rise perfectly to the ‘bait’! Thank you.
You are also a very good example of what an absolute disaster John Majors’s policy of turning Polytechnics into Universities was.
It quite unjustifiably allowed people such as you good self to “rise above their station” as we used say. Let’s face it you would have been far happier as a panel beater in South Shields, as a Communist shop steward, and NOT posing as an academic.
I am sorry, but as your EGO so obviously far exceeds your INTELLECT further discourse is pointless. However a word of advice “manners maketh man”.
“ Charles Stanhope, that’s just a username, isn’t it? You’re not that 120th Duke of Earl or whatever, are you, the one who ponces off inherited property in London?”
The mask slips with that ad hominem. For someone with such academic pretensions, your abandoning of logic and your descending to slurs undermines your credibility.
This is an obscure comment section on a fringe journal. Nobody comes here to gain ‘credibility’ and there’s no one here with the authority to give it out. People no longer give a damn what the English middle class think – you lost credibility 40 years ago, and that’s not a bad thing.
This is a very odd comment. You’re trashing the very comments section you’re writing in. Even in a private conversation with a single person, I still aspire to credibility. In a public forum where I’ve identified exactly who I am and even posted a link to a pamphlet I once wrote, I really wouldn’t want to sabotage my reputation.
“ People no longer give a damn what the English middle class think – you lost credibility 40 years ago, and that’s not a bad thing.”
What on earth are you on about? Who is “you”? You have no idea who I am? Is this some dig at Thatcher or the end of the Cold War or something? Very bizarre.
My respect for academia at obscure universities and former polytechnics has never plummeted to new depths. I sincerely hope you’re no longer in a position of influence over the nation’s young.
What an intelligent thoughtful guy. And a remainer of course!
Finally something worth reading on Unherd.
If you have a problem with this, have you considered reducing or eliminating your own contributions to the comment sections?
Isn’t it curious that a subscriber who claims there is nothing worth reading here won’t spare us his own opinions?
What a copy cat. Are you seriously pretending you are monitoring my contributions. Bless.
I joined Unherd drawn to it be frustration with the authoritarian left calling those who disagree with them fascitist and have found the authoritarian right calling anyone who has a difference of opinion anti-semetic. You too sound like you don’t value free speech and discussion! So dont worry, I have cancelled my subscription!