In what is generally a reasonable piece on freedom of speech and the hypocrisy of those who want it for themselves but denied to their opponents, Khalid Diab accuses Boris Johnson of just such offence:
In the UK, Boris Johnson has also suggested that Islam’s holy book needs censorship.
This caused me to stop in my tracks. Nowhere have I ever heard or read of Boris wanting to engage in censorship. So, thinks I, I’d better check this out.
If you read the linked passage it says thus:
They wrote that during the reading of the religious hatred bill, Mr Johnson said: “If this bill makes any sense at all it must mean banning the reading in public or in private of a great many passages of the Qur’an itself.”
So, he wasn’t calling for censorship at all, was he? What he was doing, was using a rhetorical example to highlight the absurdity of the Religious Hatred Bill. It’s a simple enough concept; understandable, surely, even to a half-wit.
So, is Khalid Diab stupid or disingenuous?
A common mistake in the phrasing of questions.
He can be and undoubtably is both.
As Dave says, both, or possibly worse, the man is engaging in Doublethink. Good research.
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He has responded.
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Indeed. So, it’s both, then…
He was wrong, he was called on it and rather than acknowledge that he was wrong, he tried to wriggle out of it by claiming “interpretation”. MiskatonicUniversity makes the point a bit further down: