>> so many people toned pigeon hole now daze, are you on the right or left. and this is just silly. life is much more complicated than that. most people are neither right or left, they're just ordinary folk who are getting on with living their life and who see the world as it is, and what i've done for the last quarter century is, as a journalist, tell is also i see it to be. which means other journalists --

i was trained to look at the facts, look at the evidence, arrive at a conclusion, tell people my conclusion and the facts, and quite a number of people today who kind of start with the conclusion and they say, let's make the facts fit the conclusion. and some of my work as a -- from my work as a journalist i know there's a lot of people in the kind of sensible center, as i look to think of them. that are completely plunked into reality, and they can't make sense of it. i'm dealing with the world as it is,' people tend to put that into pigeon hole. you're left or right. i'm neither. i'm telling it as it is and connecting with people that live life. >> host: your last two books you used the tomorrow "follow the

evidence. ." >> guest: yes, that's right. indeed, sometimes the evidence takes us into places which are uncomfortable. it tells us things which are going on which we don't mike to know about because they frighten us, they perplex us or whatever, but you start with the evidence, and you dent pretend that things are not as they are and you don't try and make the evidence -- don't try to remake reality into what you hope it should be. you start with what is there, and then you tell the truth about it, and you reach a conclusion about it. and that's what i always tried to do. >> host: where do you start on the political spectrum? >> guest: well, i started my professional life as a local journalist. i came from a very modestly -- very modest kind of background, where my whole family were pool

who would be considered to be on the left of the spectrum they were people who had a particular view of the world, the world was divided into the best class and the -- and that's how i was brought up, and then i had a fairly conventional student experience. this is the 1970s. you may not find this easy to believe but i had very long, wild hair at the time, and i adopted a kind of attitude. >> host: this is at oxford? >> guest: yes. and i read english literature and i hung out with people lick that. i never thought of myself is a left wing ever. i thought of myself as what we called in britain liberal, which is kind of middle of the road, sensible, tolerant, decent-wanting the best of my fellow human beings, wanting to make a wet are world to stand up for the vulnerable and so on,

and i'm still like that. i went to work for the guardian newspaper, which is -- it's the very heart of left wing media in britain. and i worked for guardian newspapers for 20 years. and what happened while i was at -- working at the guardian, was that -- and possibly because i was working at the guardian, my political views did change. i still believed in standing up for the vulnerable, in society, in making a better world in trying to improve the lot of my fellow human beings. but when i came to realize while i was working there was that people who i assumed are on my side in this great endeavor, were actually on the other side and they were not concerned with bettering the lot of their fellow human beings.

they were concerned with bettering themselves and concerned only with their own reputation and only sense of themself as being nobel -- nobel and virtues and wise and grate. and when i realized on the other side had very ill liberal views, very intolerant ruiz, despite what they said, and didn't actually care about the people at the bottom of the heap. the little people. that's when i realized he were on different sides. and so like i say, i still think that i believe in all the things i did believe in. what changed for me, a dramatic, seismic change, was that i came to believe that the people who were on my side were not, and that the reasons why the world was as it was was rather different than what i onlily thought it to be. >> host: back to garp --

guardian angels, just published today. >> guest: that's correct. >> host: i had not realized the left's aggression towards any disscent or challenge is essentially defensive. they're either guilty about what they're doing because the know it's wrong or else at some level at least they know their intellectual position is built on sand. >> guest: one of the hallmarks of the political discourse on the left of politics, certainly in britain -- i'm not sure whether it's quite the same in the united states -- is the extreme aggression with which they conduct political discussion. they don't have an argument. they don't say to me, your argument is wrong and this is i would it's wrong and here are the following facts that show you're wrong. they don't have that discussion at all. they simply use abuse. virtuous, and the purpose of the

abuse is to shut down the argument to bully the person they're disagreeing with, and more important than that, is to tell other people, this person, don't go there don't even listen to what she is saying, she's really dangerous. she's really horrible. she's really of in account at all. so you can't actually have a discussion on the left. and so i thought about this for quite a long time, and it seems to me the reason why people want to shut down a debate before it enstarts, is because they're frightened of having it. if they were confident, then they would have an argument, and we would be having a civilized collegiate argument. i would say something, you would disagree, we would agree to disagree, might even get quite heated but actually have an exchange of views. these people i'm talking about, they're too frightened even to have the exchange. what they're frightened of is

that they will lose the argument. in other words they don't actually have the confidence of their own convictions, the confidence they can win an argument, and i find that very curious and very strange, and it means that i look at them quite differently as a result because i can see that they are -- it's all defenses. they shut down the argument in case they lose it, from which i conclude their argument is built on sand. >> host: and melanie phillips, in your 20 book "the world turned upside-down --" 2011 -- the global battle over god, truth, and power, you write: the issues of global warming, the war in iraq, and israel, and science tim got in common? not a lot but they all involve the promotion of beliefs that purport to be unchallengeable truth but in are in fact insidologies in which evidence is manipulated, twisted, and

distorted to support and prove the governing idea. >> guest: i believe that we're living in an era in which the idea of throughout, objective truth, has been to a very large extent replaced by ideology, and there wasn't a great movement of thought that we're in a post modern age and what that meant was there was no such thing as objective truth. if you think there is such thing, you're basically pretty stupid. you're not properly educated, because we're very clever. but it is a matter of opinion. you say this is the case. i say, that's your opinion. well, if there's so thing as truth, then there's no such things as lies and consequently we're living in an area where people are suggestible to lies s and propaganda and can no longer

distinguish between truth and lies, and that has preoccupied me a great deal. now, because there's no such thing as truth, what has come in is kind of power. no such thing as truth. my opinion is the same as your opinion. everything is relative. so what then happens is that i'm going to show that my view of the world is going to win over you view of the world. so it becomes a contest of power groups, if you like. and all these ideologies are power groupings, all these "isms," the believe there is nothing in the world, the universe, that can't be explained by actually empirical, demonstrable and facts and evidence. nothing beyond yourselves. nothing beyond the material world. and yao you till tearannism, the

belief that -- the utilitarianism, and that only matters what -- there's no intrinsic value in human life. the only thing that matters is whether people genuinely or happy, and there's a whole variety of isms which i think wrench evidence to fit, to be more of today's cop throw verse sis. environmentalism -- world is going to hell on a hand cart because of mappedmade global warming. and they're a bunch of evidence that says, actually, that's not necessarily true. but people who believe with these isms, start with the, and say the evidence has to be wrenched to fit, and there are

numerous examples of this actually happening to the extent that the exercise becomes literally fraudulent. intellectually fraudulent, where so-called reputable academics have basically told people lies about what the evidence is. in order to fit the conclusion. and this is a terrible thing because it causes such confusion in our society. most people have no idea they're being lied to, that what they're reading, being told, isn't actually following the evidence where it leads, it's starting with a conclusion and then selecting certain facts to build up the idea that this is actually true. but it's not true. and so it's mind-blowing, and to a certain extent this is the kind of fairly lonely furrow i have been plowing in the media. i say lonely, it's lonely in the

media. but out there, where ordinary people live lives that correspond to reality, you know what? they know. they kind of have an instinct. they know what something isn't right. they know when they're being sold a pup, and i found thatle when i write these thing is get del luged by people saying, thank goodness somebody in the public sphere is saying what i've always thought to be the case, and i thought i was going crazy. but now i find i'm not the crazy one after all. and i thank you for saying that. and at it an extraordinary thing we're living in a society where so many, i think, millions of people are sitting there thinking, have i gone crazy or has the world gone crazy, and the answer is, you haven't gone crazy. it's my part of the world, the media, the public sphere, which is slightly lost track of reality. >> host: well, in your

autobiography, guardian angel, you detail your stint at the guardian and your leaving the guardian how much lonely did it get at the end? you had a stint as news editor. >> i was in charge of the newsroom of reporters for three years. is was uncomfortable when i was there, the guardian -- certainly when i was there -- it operated as kind of a family. everyone feels they belong to this wonderful organization, and it's very collegiate, and i had a lot of friends. and i'm afraid i caused them some perplexity when i started to say things or to write things, which they couldn't tolerate because there can be no deviation from the line. you cannot think independently. you have to toe the line, and it may strike people as a little strange that it took me so long to kind of separate myself from

all that, but i was very attached to it, and it did take me a long time to work out that it wasn't just a few issues that we were having this problem with. it was a whole way of looking at the world, and other human beings, and our place in the world, and in the very fundamental divergence between us. and so eventually i came to the conclusion that i simply couldn't carry on, and i left. it wasn't very comfortable, but i did have a lot of good friends there, and i learned a lot. the guardian is what made me -- the guardian is what made me what i am today, really. they may not like to think that is the part they played in my development, but they were indeed very important to me. >> host: where can you column be read now. >> guest: i write now a tiger opinion kole plumb for the daily

mail, which is arguably britain's most influential newspaper. why? because it almost uncan anily has a sense of what the center ground is thinking, and it plugs into that and represent -- it's the voice of what we call middle britain, and it represents very robustly a view of the world which is grounded in reality and grounded in the real aspirations and hopes hopes and concerns ofl people, and as a result it's kind of in a way -- it's the sort of human -- the guardian and the mail are the opposite -- the polar opposites of the british media. they're both these great warrior papers on either side of a division about how we view the world. one considered to be on the

left, one considered to be on the right. and they both have this tremendous capacity for reflecting their -- the values of their core con sit soon si. so the guardian reflects the value0s well in electric to all, entill generals ya, the chattering classes, the political elites. and the daily mail represents little britain, reality, ordinary people. >> host: in the world turned upside-down, the global bat over god, truth, and power, the forward is by directly and play writhe david enemyet and he writes the new religion is secular humanism, which although it lacks logically con constituent precepts has immunum sanctions and taboos0. of the hattest the most observed

is loud and clear. do not tell the truth. >> guest: right. >> host: what does he mean? what i've been sort of alluding to, and david mamet has fought the same fight i've been involved in, although he came it to more recently, and had himself been somewhat victimized by this, and what he has come to realize is that, as i was saying, people, particularly on the left of the political divide, are gripped bay variety of ideologies, which mean they state things are true which are -- which actually reflect the world as they would like it to be, but they're not true. and they don't believe there's such thing as truth. and that is what he is finding all the time himself over a variety of issues, and it has

changed the way he looks at the world. it's changed what is in his -- >> host: back to the world upside-down you spend time on israel, iraq, and islam, and one of the is ms you talk about, the real reason the islamist have declared war on the west, it embody the free only of the individual and the -- in a globalized world this freedom is viewed as a contagion that threatens islam everywhere. >> guest: yes. well, this is something which preoccupied me for several years and preoccupied more of us more and more. and i think, that said, there's a problem here with the islamic world, and with the religion at the root of the islamic world, and it's very, very important to understand, i think in all this, that when one talks about these

concerns, one is not talking about all muslims. on the contrary, just speaking from the point of view of britain there are very many muslims who are immigrants precise lie because they wanted to sign up to british and western values. they wanted to live in freedom to prosper, have good jobs, but wanted to live in freedom because freedom is very important. the women wanted to be treated as equals. they wanted all the thing west all want. freedom, peace, security, prosperity. and they're not hung up on these religious precepts that are causing us in the "wall street journal" world very much trouble. the problem is in the islamic world the precepts have been interpreted in a way which comes out of religion and which is now dominant, and that is to say, that the view of the world which says the world has to be remade according to islamic precepts.

that muslims are enjoying western-type freedom, that must be culled pack and they must be made to conform to a very, very narrow, authorize tearan, view of islam and that view is dominant and the view that the west must be brought to heel for this interpretation of islam, is also dominant. and that is what i call islamism. people say, what is this word, islamism? it's nonsense. what you mean is islam. and i understand what they -- ism is a madeup word but i use it for a particular reason. it's in order to allow for the fact that there are muslims who are not extreme, who do want to sign up for western values, and he bust acknowledge that, and there are muslims who don't. so those who don't i call islamists because they're trying to impose their islamic

doctrines on people who are not -- and impose the most antifreedom interpretation of religion at its most narrow on muslims. and so i call those people islamists. they're the threat to us. they say the whole time what their intention is to recreate the old islamic state, the old muslim empire to go beyond that and to conquer britain to conquer america. they're very explicit. and to impose sharia, the rule of islamic law, upon anywhere that muslims live. those are islamist, and some of them are violent, some of them equip themselves with equipment of war and terrorism, some believe they can conquer the west through a kind of cultural creep, a kind of cultural takeover. we should also be extremely wise

by then. they're all islamist, some are violent, some not violent. earned there are a lot of muslims who are nonislamists. there's a disbetween those who interpret the religion in a way that threatens us and those who belong and subscribe to lahm who are themselves threatened by these islamists, and we must keep those two things, i think, in our minds at the same time, and that's what i try to do. and when i wrote my book, that was about what i perceived to be the case, which was the way in which, to my great horror and fear, the british ruling class was giving in to islamism, to this attempt to take over to this attempt to undermine britain and the encroachment of islamic values in britain and

the british ruling class is basically saying, let's go along with this. in londonisstan i was extremely careful to acknowledge that there are many, many muslims who fine this equally frighten and worrying and have nothing to do with it. >> host: melly phillips were you grandded a racist after londonist tan came out? that is a particularly ignorant thing to say because islam is not a race, it's a religion. so i fine it hard to see, if i want to, append the negative epithet, racist is not the one to use. but people found other ways of being rude when i had written -- there's no shortage of the creative imagination when it comes to the dispensing of insult in this territory. >> host: in the book you talked

about multi culturallism quite a bit. what's been its effect on british society and british politician? >> guest: multiculturalisms one of the most mr. noofd isms and one of to the most pernicious. most misunderstood because people assume it it's a good thing because it's about being toll rapt and nice to people of other cultures, isn't it? well, no. if that's all it was i would be the first support it, because that's in any kind of tolerant democratic free society, we should be reflectful of differences and tolerant of people's'lls and do people's religions and cultures. but the dock trip of multiculturalism says that all cultures are equal, therefore, no culture cannot hold its values as preferable to any other. now, what that means for the west is that we in the west

cannot, if we are multicultural, truly multicall curlist, we cannot uphold our core values of freedom, of tolerance, of equality for women, and so on, over those cultures which don't uphold freedom, tolerance, equator women, and all the rest of it. that is what multiculturalism means, and britain went down this road. britain said, we can't talk about female genital mutilation because that's their culture. we had cases in britain in which there was one state in particular where a black child was abused over many, many years, and finally died, in the most appalling circumstances. at the hands of her mother and her mother's lover. and the social worker could not bring themselves to intervene,

to stop this child's torture and murder, because they said, this is their culture. now, to me, that is racist. that is racist to say a black child is not entitled to the same expectation office life and liberty as the rest of us because that's her culture? that's obscene to me. obscene. a kind of inverse racism, but that is what multiculturalism did. we as white liberals can't stand up and say it's wrong to torture a child, wrong to neglect a child, wrong to cause a child's death because that's their culture. that's what multiculturalism does and that's the simple triof multiculturism, and it lends to paralysis so when you get islamist violence, you get a fort hood, when you get a boston massacre, you get the

recruitment of young men, young muslim men, born in britain, the recruitment of those young men to islamic radicalism, multicultural society stands back and says, we can't say anything about this because it would be racist, prejudiced because we're multiculturallists. this is western society's saying we cannot uphold freedom, peace, equality, decency. are we really saying that? of course not. so it's a terrible muddle, and seems like these other difficulties we're in. so much of this has to do with what i consider this to be the hijacking of language. terrible divisions of left and right. most of us hopefully believe in

things like, freedom, and being tolerant and being respectful of others. this is not corralled into one political perspective or another. they're all basically thinking the same thing. but the language has been kind of hijacked. so, notions such as, you know, justice, and tolerance, and compassion, these words have been kind of twisted to a kind of ideological framework, and very often meaning the exact opposite, and consequently one can't use these words without terrible confusion. so, i would like to see us reclaim the language from the hijackers so we can all basically speak to each other in terms that we can all understand, and which actually do reflect what we're all trying to convey. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span2.

our monthly in depth program, where we invite one author to talk about his or her books. the first sunday of the month and it's a live call-in. melanie phillips is our guest, columnist with the daily mail and the author of nine books, and here they are, dipping with "the divided house" in 19 0. "doctor's dilemma. medical effects in contemporary science in 1985. all must have prizes, 1998. the sex change society, femmized britain the neuter head came out he next year. american social resolution in 2009, the assent of women, the history of the suffragette movement, and how brian that created a terror state within, came out in 2006, and the world turned upside-down, the global battle over god, truth, and power in 20 1, and finally can just today, guardian angel came

out. it is her autobiography. if you'd like to participate in our conversation with melanie phillips -- >> host: guardian angel, who published it? talk about that a little bit. >> guest: this is certainly surprising for me. i published it. that is to say, it is one of five titles that i have published this weekend, because i turned myself into a publisher of electronic books. and this is going to be a

platform, not just for me, but for authors who think like me, that is to say they connect with reality, too. to publish books in an electronic format, and the reason for this is that publishing is changing, and so many more people now have ereader, download books on kindle and ipad and the capacity to reach so many more people is enormous. so, i have formed my own imprint called mbooks. there are five books being published this weekend, of which my memoir, you have been kind enough to refer to is but one. and i hope that they will bring my view of the world, which is shared by so many, to a very large audience who want to find out more. my aim is to expand public debate. my aim is to put into the public domain a whole load of

information or opinion, which is not easily found because it's not generally published, or to correct -- to provide another way of looking at things where i think information is out there that needs to be correct, and also something which i've never been able to do, so very exciting to me as a journalist -- i spent my entire career being a commentator, telling people this is how the world is, but basically, don't like it? well, tough. nothing i can do about it. i'm just telling you how it is and now you have to get on with it. and people have said to me over the years, so glad you're writing what you're writing, but i feel so powerless. and classically they say i have teenage kids, and my goodness, me, everything -- talking bet the impact of social media and the capacity to be bull yesterday on facebook or turned

into a bully on facebook, and sex, drug and rock 'n' roll. what can i do? and i say to them, look, as a journalist, i can't help you. all i can do is tell you what i think is the situation. i'm sorry you feel bad about this and so do i. i'm also a parent but nothing i can do. now i have this new digital platform and books where i can put into the public domain stuff that can pep home. for example, one of the books i'm publishing today is a book by a head mistress who was -- of an independent school, head mistress of the year a year or so ago. she runs -- she is head mistress of a very expensive school. people pay a lot of money to have their girls educate in her school and benefit from her wisdom over a period of time as a head mistress, her wisdom about what you do with teenage girls and how you approach them.

now i have bottled that and put into it the become. >> host: the 21st century daughter? >> guest: how to decode your 21st century daughter, a guide for anxious parents of teenage girls. and how wonderful that i'm able to do that suddenly. and i never thought i would be able to do that. so one of my many aims is to, where possible, say to people, you don't have to feel quite so hopeless. it's not just that i and people like me are telling you this is how the world is, but we're also telling you how good things are happening in the world and also telling you, here is how you can have a bit of a handle on the things that worry and you perplex you and can make life a bit better. >> host: it's emb books.com? yes. >> host: where does the e.m.

come from? >> guest: first of all, it's m, em is how you sound out the first all right of my name, my name is melanie, starts with a capital m so mem sounds like m for melanie, and my company is electric meet ya, it's not anywhere you can download m books but you can download embooks from the web site and you can also on my webs get a lot more of me, a lot more of em , because there's video presentations by me about the books, about the company, and in a few days' time i'll be putting up a video conversation i had which i found really, really fascinating. it is with a playwright called richmond bean. people in america may know

richard bean from the slap stick broadway comedy that came over here not that long ago, called "one man two governors." a smash hit in london and then came to broadway. now, the very interesting thing is, richard bean is a man of the left. but he has written plays in the past which have tackled topics such as global warming, immigration, and in a very open-minded, clear-eyed way, and he himself became the target of -- he and i have had a very interesting conversation which i'm going to put up on my web site fairly soon, in which we discuss this phenomenon that it's so difficult now to have a civilized conversation, as he and i are having, between people who don't necessarily agree on everything at all but we can both agree on a number of things we can have a civilized discussion, and how difficult it is now in our polarized

political environment, for that to happen. the extent to which abuse has replaced discussion and civilized argument, and what a terrible thing that is because it's like a closing of the mind that is going on in the west. that's what find so frightening, the kind of repudiation of reason. it's a -- we're supposed to be living in the most rational age, and the most rational society, the west, and the most rational age known to man, and yet the mind is closing on and both richard and i think that is frightening and one of the things i had in my mind in 'em books i'm going try to hope it inmore, open a public debate, and hopefully help create with the aid of the people who are going to be reading and watching, help create a civilized space where we can all come together, and we can disagree but do so in a

civilized way that expands public knowledge, information, consciousness, and brings us together instead of driving us apart. >> host: one more issue before we go to calls and tweets and e-mails, et cetera. 1998, all must have prizes came out. child centered education entails the destruction of childhood. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: what do you mean? >> guest: well. sounds very paradoxical. but it's straightforward. child edcaution which originated in -- originated with jean jacques clue clue sew who was an -- his theory was originated in this country with an educationist called john geary, who was faxly influential, not just over education in america but came over the pond to britain as well and what it was,

his whole philosophy, was that when a child brings to the classroom experience is infinitely more important than anything the adult world can give to the child. the child is like a plant. you have to water it gently and then the plant grows. anything the adult world gives to the child is a constriction on that growth. so when a child comes to the classroom, the child brings the ability to learn by himself, and what the adult world in the form of the teacher, has to do is take a back seat and gently water it, but not actually feed it. not actually give that child information or knowledge, because that constrains the child and will cripple him forever. and that philosophy broadly is what the charles education which has not only ruined, i think,

american education, but certainly from my perspective, what i know most about british education. how? it basically said the child is -- i will use the jargon but it's important -- the child is an autonomous meaning maker. now, what does that mean? it means that the child makes himself or herself of the world around, and it's as if you're saying, go into the jungle, no maps, and you're going to find your own way. that's what we have done for children in the classroom, and what that means, if you look what a teacher should be dog, which is guiding the child into the world, giving the child the mental map by which the child can make sense of the world, but teachers is not doing that anymore. teaching has taken a back seat. so the teacher is basically saying to the child, you're not

an adult. adults make their own way. we don't have to teach adults. we don't have to guide adults by the hand. adults are not pupils. so it disdestroys child. and beyond that, beyond teaching, -- this didn't come from nowhere, this is all part and parcel of an adult world which says, we are all now responsible for ourselves. we'll make it up as we go along, and not only are we not going grandfather the child the intellectual map to guide him or her through the world in termed of knowledge, education, in the transition of knowledge, but you're not going to give them anymore on that side. we're not going to say to the child, very bad idea to do drugs, it's illegal, don't do

it. bad idea to have sex. before you're 18, before you're married. bad idea. we're going to say to the child, aged 14, aged 12, aged 10, and in britain now, age seven or eight, here's the information about drugs. here's the information about sex. hear are all the positions in sex you can use. here are all the drugs you might come across. here's information about them. here are the risks. you decide now. now, that to me is not teaching a a child as a child. that teaching a child as a premature adult, and in my view, if the adult world treats children not as children but premature adults, that's a kind of abandonment of children, an abandonment of the idea of what being an adult in recommendation

to a child is. the abandonment of the idea of teaching, the idea of proper parenting, which i all about being responsible for that child, for that child's welfare and guiding that child in the world until the child is old enough to mange disease decisions about sex and drugs and to know what is going on in the world and make sense of it by him or herself. isn't that what being a parent or teacher is all about? and i think in britain, and america, to a greater or lesser extent-the-adult world has an -- an -- abdicated that, and generation office children who have been abandoned, and as a result of that, they've grown up into adults who don't know how to be adult. they don't know how to parent their own children properly because they've never been parented properly, and the teachers, i can tell you in britain, we have this problem to

a large extent. you have teachers who don't know what it is they don't know. so they can't teach mathematics. they can't teach english, grammar. they've never been taught it, but they don't know what they don't know so we have this kind of terrible inherited cycle of poor education and poor parenting, creating a problem down for the generations. this is very frightening, because it will come to the point eventually where people forget completely, society forgets complete lie what they should be passing on. so that is kind of why i wrote "all must have prizes" because i woke up to this while i was at the guardian. i could see what was going on in education. i had young children. i couldn't find a school for my very young children that wasn't consisting of letting them run wild and fling mud at the wall.

i had this very old fashioned view they should be taught something. couldn't find a school that would do it, and so i started to look. i went where the evidence led, and i looked at what the teachers were teaching and why they were teaching in that way, what they were being taught in teacher training institutions, and i came across this madness. the autonomous maker, teaching a child not to read. you couldn't believe the madness. the new literacy, the new literacy, which was to abolish literacy on the basis that, and i kit now not -- i read is in tract after tract in these training institutions, this is what training teachers were tag -- society is unequal. the working class is opressed. people are taught to read, therefore that fact that they can read is part of their

pressure so in order they show no longer about opressed we don't teach them to read. it sounds absolutely barking mad. it was barking mad. but that is the kind of ideology that helped lead generations of teachers to stop teaching children to read, and to say, they will teach themselves to read. we're just literally taking the book and then they'll teach themselves to read. they'll look at the print on the page, we'll read them the story. they will memorize the words, or they'll guess the word, and then we can tell them they're reading. and so you had generations of children who grew up to be in the -- they had been told that they were literate. this is wicked stuff. and when i came across all this when i was at the guardian, i

couldn't believe it. i couldn't believe that a society could have taken leave like this. you look at this and think, this is beyond belief. unfortunately, it was true. and i did a lot of research for "all must have prize" and it took me into beyond the teaching of unreading. it took me into all kinds of avenues which were equally bizarre, and so i wrote the book, and i was one -- the entire education establishment denounced this book, which is kind of what i was saying in the book, that this thing had taken over the entire education establishment, and lo andbe hold they proved it by denouncing the book but it got written to and contacted by endless numbered of

parent whose said, now i understand. now i understand. what i couldn't understand about any child's education. and i got written to by a lot of teacher and educational psychologists who said what you said is not only true, it's worse, and furthermore i can't say it as a teach ore educational psychologist because i will lose my job. that's when i realized that beyond these issues there was something worse that is happening, the shutting down of thought itself. >> host: melly phillips, very quickly, your web site if people want to see your publish books today. >> guest: go to embooks.com. where they can find my memoir, and the other books i'm publishing. >> host: and melanie phillips.com is your web site. >> guest: that's my webs where my personal -- my personal web site where my blog is housed,

and that's what they get there. but the journalism i've written so far is archived on melanie phillips.com. >> host: tim, milwaukee, you're on. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm a big fan of yours and i will say for this reason. you hit it on the head when you say that we are so prone to toe the line-that it shuts down discussion, shuts down debate, and what i find -- i'm a little bit of a left wing centrist. i call them themselves an eisenhower democrat. people think i'm a nut case. i talk about certain issues with conservatives and liberals, and i find out the more we have a discussion, the more we listen to each other, the more we find we're not that far apart. >> guest: yes. >> caller: is which just amazing. and i wanted to give you a

quick -- i want be long but i want to fifth you a quick scenario. we had a superintendent, -- and education is big for me because i tutor young university kids. we have a scenario here where the best public school system? milwaukee, which i feel doesn't work anymore, we had a superintendent that wanted to breck up the school system, make it into smaller school system, and they were pushed aside by both sides of the political aisle, and he was run out of town. i have one quick question for you. i agree with you and i read your books and i love your thoughts on opening people to open themselves to each other. but on religion i want to ask you a quick question. didoo -- you say that we have turned to ideology in this country. do you feel that if we go back to sort of a religious sort of country and that people go to church more, or have more faith,

are we going to limit that debate again? >> host: all right, tim, we got the point. thank you for calling in. >> guest: well, i think that religion is the heart of all this, and i think it is a problem because i think people have -- a lot of people increasingly have a problem in belief. and i'm not sure that i have the answer quite to that -- part of this -- to that particular part of the issue. i think the march of ideology is very, very associate evidence with the march of secularism and the reerosion of organized formal religion, specifically jew judeo-christianity, the jewish precepts, the clip faith that is at the bedrock faith of the west. and this is particularly true, i

think, as in more true in britain than america, by -- in comparison to britain, america is really a rather religious country. still has a -- center ground in america is pretty faithful. whereas in britain, it is really lost its faith. and i believe that these great values that we all prize so much, such as a belief in the innate dignity and integrity of every human being, this is the thing that animates or western belief in dem express freedom, to the very center and that's a biblical precept. it is -- we respect each other because we believe fundamentally that we are all made in the image of god, and if you take god out of the equation completely, then we don't have

equality. it's as simple as that. so i think it's a big problem. and i think that i have a problem myself with some of the more extreme parts of all religions. but i do believe that we can't really think our way out of this particular box. get ourselves out of this particular predicament, unless we have some kind of re-assertion of those fundamental precepts which are biblical precepts. >> host: melanie phillips, arnold posts in the u.s. all the characteristics you ascribe to the west in terms of cutting off the allergy. with attacks, manipulating the facts to support a predetermined opinion, and cherry picking data could be attributed to the right. he speaks of such people as anne ann cowler to, glen beck. >> guest: i'm not familiar with the individuals to a large extent but i do think that there are people on all sides of the

political spectrum who distort, who exaggerate, who play fast and loose with the facts. all of us are prone to -- whatever side of the divide we may be on, there are people on all sides who are prone to this behavior. the point i was trying to make in our conversation earlier, was a bit different from that. that people on the left do start from a position, as i said before, where there's a conclusion. they have a conclusion to which they wish to wrench the facts to fit. now, i don't think that is a position that is held by people not on the left. and i hesitate to say the right because there are many people who are not on the left and not on the right either.

i don't think it's the kind of institutionalized characteristic of people not on the left to, as it were, almost by default, start from a prearranged -- pre ordained conclusion, that's why they're on the left. they don't have a conclusion. start with an ideal. there is no ideology. the lift is subscribes to a particular set of ideas. people not on the left have all kinds of ideas that they -- and they may hold those ideas very, very, very strongly, but nevertheless, it's not a characteristic of paul people who are not on the left, to see everything through the prism of their ideas. there are certain individuals who take extreme positions who are not on the left and those

people may well wrench evidence to fit. i dent -- i don't know. i've not looked in detail what they do. but die know the people who kind of control the heart of our culture, our universities this main stream media, in britain, the political class, including the controversitive -- conservative party, there's a kind of default position now which accepts as unchallengeable truth a whole set of assumptions which are, in my view, left-wing ideological assumptions, such as there's no such thing as truth. from check a number of positions follow. and i may be wrong but i don't see that kind of default mechanism of ideology operating among people as a group of people who are not on the left,

because they are not a group. >> host: and in all must have prizes" the conservative government under margaret thatcher and john major institutionalized through its political program the no-blame-no-shame-no-pain society, and in the process helped the disintegration of british culture. >> guest: people are shocked when they hear my criticize mrs. thatcher, because as a person who has taken on the left, i'm supposed to be signed up behind her banner. folks, life is more complicated. i have a great deal of respect for the late baroness thatcher. she was a political titan which we will not see again which is to our disadvantage because she had great leadership and above all for me, what she did for britain, was invaluable at the time, was that she said, you

know what? the story that we in britain have told ourselves, we lost an empire, never found a role, we have to manage decline, basically subside giantly beneath waves of the north sea, that's over. aim going to make britain great again, give britain a sense of its value and place in the world, and i thought that was fantastic. that's what leadership is. you find the best in your country and you make the most of it. so, i have a great deal of respect for her. had a great deal of respect, and i thought it was truly dreadful that when she died there were so many on the left who gloated. they literally gloated over her dead body. it was disgusting. it was wrong. she was a political titan. however, i did have at the time, as i still have, considerable reservations about what she did.

she took on the trade unions in britain they were not allowing governments to govern so that was entirely correct. and as i say she tried to give britain a sense of its own sense destiny in the world. great. ...

>> this man is taking over the teaching profession and she never realized in she never begin to grasp it until very late but then only partially and she thought the remedy for everything was the free-market and as a result she took institutions which rely on the intangibles such as trust and a shared sense of inherited values and she basically dismiss them far too lightly and indeed she thought anything inherited

was a conspiracy against the consumer anything inherited could be guests of distrusted so professionalism based on a body of people who share the same kind of unspoken functions about the way they operated, said to her was a recipe to defraud the consumer. they open these professions to the market of course, and then it destroy the blind and trust and losing the of a person's honesty and attachment to the intangibles rooted in tradition in other words, she was not a conservative but a true radical and i thought as a result quite a good vantage and i saw at the time and a still don't

think i was wrong to think this that there was a terrible symmetry on the left and right that the left said with the social sphere family, education combination, all those the bonds that linked us to each other had to be thrown up in the air and robberies say about ourselves mattered. all external authority. if i decide that living with my three lovers is right for me then if it is raped and no one else has the authority to tell me. or radical privatisation of morality. i as an individual determine what is right for me and you have no right to tell me.

for the last it was a radical individualism in the social sphere which i thought was just trying to the traditional family family, education, morality in general but on the right it was in the economic sphere. satirists of basically said we don't hold within the traditions or the idea of the civil service the official class of britain was down by a traditional understanding of duty. the individual consumer is the only thing to keep us honest. that was individualism in the economic sphere.

there were both high for individual in the society which i thought and still think would be driven apart and fragmented by individualism and we needed to get away from that with the bonds that keep us together in of sure it -- shared tradition, a tradition, history and as society and that individualism was a fragmenting in this. after all that has happened is the journey i have been nine, i still think that is not wrong. >> host: san antonio, texas, you are on booktv. >> caller: they give for taking my call. i must admit i have never heard from you before. i a agree with most of what

you are saying but i want to challenge something. you talk about the pejorative truce out -- truth out to put the conclusion first but i thank you may have done the same thing when you talk about multiculturalism meaning that all are equal but i don't know what text says that. so my question is what text says that? i don't know if there is the universal truth about humanity but i do know people have the right to express all cultural understanding of humanity and if that holds up to scrutiny of what we call a universal truth then it holds worthy of consideration of other groups but what people do as you have done thoth talk

about multiculturalism they operate on the fringe in talk about something silly way out there like someone beating a black tile then they say that is a social worker that is basically abuse. i would like you to reconsider and what is your definition of multiculturalism. >> guest: we are very much on the same page but the question of language i think that you ask what text? there has been that not that i am basing this on a text but what multiculturalism was and go back to those whose said we cannot say any culture is better than any other. i have heard this over the

last quarter century over and over again. i heard it is me, the lovers, i have seen and heard it with so whole range of events that have happened and it seems to me from the evidence that is the conclusion that i have come to. i quite agree different people have different understandings of what multiculturalism is and that is the whole conversation. of so other people are talking about it to mean something quite different. when ever i have this conversation and i tried to point* out there what my definition is so we know what we are talking about. when it comes to other people's truce -- truce, yes

of course, in my view a properly tolerance society accepts that different people believe different things and you have respect for that nevertheless in my view, if you want to uphold a liberal democratic society that describes values such as tolerance of other people's beliefs, the ability of people to have no religion without persecution , we can add the core values we believe are called -- core values to uphold those you cannot be multi-cultural. but actually my culture stands up for these is preferable to another therefore i will act on that basis. quite frankly i think we're on the same page fact this conversation is the devil by

the way the terms aren't used differently. >> coming from cambria you're on the air. >> caller: i plan to start reading your books as soon as possible. i have one comment i work for large urban california school district and i discussed of the things that you are discussing. i don't write about this problem i am and artist. but i did feel in the practical day-to-day operation with the difficulties of the larger urban school districts and as they come through this

system to be trained in the newer methods it is very hard to impose any point* of view under the current effect of the legal system. i note it in britain it is different we had an english teacher with the ph.d. she was the grammarian but she was told it is reid -- racist to teach grammar. one of the things the adults experience is it if you do but the system or go against the grain is facing serious legal challenge. is that a problem in britain? can you recommend contemporary british writers

you are interested? i will make a trip very soon >> guest: the legal challenge in britain i am not sure it is quite the same but the real problem that in the past from the '90s, or the '80s. >> host: 1988. >> guest: sorry. i have my dates mixed up. i put into the book the experiences that teachers and psychologists have had

that where they were terrorized the education in officials and i recall one teacher writing to me said there is a conventional way with the structured reading scheme and when the inspector was to come around she hid the books and rearrange all the chairs with the chaos to get through the inspection. i don't think that is the case now but there was a conformism which means if you don't teach in the approved way like you talk

about you don't get on or promoted it is that sort of thing. it is of legal challenge necessarily. i was not creche your if that was about education. >> host: who are you reading? >>. >> guest: factual? >> host: like the caller said recommend british authors beside yourself. >> guest: it depends what you are looking for. i read stuff about foreign policy that is enough for everyone's taste.

>> host: in just a little while we will show the books that influenced you and maybe you could take a look at that list and go from there for that caller. here is a tweak finally a woman after my own heart and mind it too bad her web site only shows about 1/8 of the content. >> guest: which web site? >> host: i am not sure i have been on nominee phil lipstick, the whole flock is there. >> guest: there is a problem on my personal web site with the archives have been subjected to a technical glitch in there is great difficulty to access it which i do apologize but of "the daily mail" columns are there. they can access the recent columns of got a problem but i think that is probably

what this person is referring to. several years back there is a problem to access the archived material. >> host: how much of the electronic book will be published? >> guest: there are bits of books but it is different templates for different books. i don't want to do about those aside -- excitements but so is the creative use of digital to do that with the publish books but you download the books but there

is a certain amount of material already there that is a new way to give people a taste of the books that is available. >> host: melanie phillips folks are being a joel published today. california thank you for holding you are on booktv on c-span2. >> caller: good morning. first of all, have you read anything about the extreme christian right in america that once the theocracy or the radical to allow shi'ah lot to dominate i don't know if you have written about the promise makers but do you have ideas how to store rational discourse?

>> that is a humdinger of a question that i spend a lot of my time but all i can do is in gender those that right in the same type of fame and with this conversation that we find it very difficult to get the debate going in and hopefully this is the only one to operate. how did you shift a culture that has gone wrong? and has gone wrong and all these wa wrong and all these ways to house do shifted back again? this is beyond one personal we can do for the like-minded is make our

voices heard it is a strange chemistry that i think happens that all of us are saying these things and everything looks selfless man to and the kaleidoscope has been shaken and then sent -- suddenly somebody says something different. where did that come from? so with those lovell's to have subterranean levels but on the surface you have a conversation laude ending free that people don't seem to listen to each other at all. but is that seeping down

internees' people are listening to process and think and start shifting their view then that suddenly pops up. making just say this thing is of what they are a and of rational discourse to hope that eventually it comes with a default mechanism. to right to about the extreme christian right diana afraid i have now looked at them on the web over such individuals but i am basically in my journalism with my journalistic career was involved to write about british domestic issues. with the cultural development across the pond the things that i was

talking about with a breakdown of education. the american chris ginned right that is particular to america and a yet haven't got my head around it but i am sure it is a delight. >> host: in texas. good afternoon. >> caller: i am in educators here in texas as a lot as special education and i have a comment and to come up with a concept to develop into black history month he wrote a book called education of the negro and he actually speaks about how much the church is in organized religion to educate the negro in america.

so with the ignorance or they don't learn how to be adults how you say if that is affecting education? white transatlantic slave trade as a descendant of slaves how is that affecting education? >> guest: i can only speak from the british perspective that on this particular matter is very different from the american perspective. from britain the diaspora has had much of an effect at all. that kind of changes i have been talking about are the

worst, about almost exclusively as a result of liberals in britain. as a reporter of the guardian i think i wrote this i remember and also of the norris landed renner maybe afro caribbean and to be chilled in the '80s a representative of this community how horrified they were that the labor left wing education authority has the independent school of

state funding and control. in to teach them about the world as it was as if they were not entitled to the best education and. but there was no need for it and what is best for black children and that is what i come from in britain with the role played by black people is very different from the history of black people in america and in britain with the history of

slavery. >> caller: i have never heard of you nor have i heard you speak the listening to you speaker i am optimistic that there are people in the world like yourself to are speaking about moderation and prudence. as a member of the silent majority, i feel incredibly repressed by the left and the right with the things that are thrown out to me and the people that i've loved. they have to try to sort it out and disseminate.

do you have suggestions on the social level? what is the suggestion for family gatherings? as simple to have a dinner party to set the ground rules for discourse or discussion without throwing things at each other to act in that manner? any suggestions? it seems it before the technology age takeover people used to sit down and have civil discourse. >> host: thank you for calling. >> guest: of course, there are family gatherings where members of the same family family, and include but a couple of other points that i think is regrettable as it is in america of the the dining table is going at a

fashion people don't buy dining tables anymore because they don't sit around the table anymore they graze or sit in front of the tv or their computer screens or plugged into the iphone and they are grazing from the refrigerator. you are right to. meals are a fantastic vehicle and gathering around the table is the premiere way in which families talked to each other and everybody can talk to each other now how you restore the social goal meal in a society where we're all doing our thing to

the extent we are is a difficult challenge but it would be very nice if parents would make a feature of this to insist their children once a week, once a day gathered around a table and i think rituals are important from this purpose. religious rituals that thanksgiving dinner, i am jewish and the friday night meal. these other places where people friends and families literally get together to put aside the bits of technology and letha television saying get their head up to the desk and looked at each other and talk to each other anabatic is essential for our own

families and friends. >> host: one of the books of the sex change society. you write the mail brad winning is neither arbitrary or anachronistic it is important to have the masculine identity and civilize male characteristics. [laughter] >> guest: how unfashionable is that? did i really right that? i think i was right. it is very unfashionable i read that book the part of it is long winded that if we are the unisex society real men are in change. i has been a working mother of their lives. of the last person to say

women should not worked but i do think there is a need to recognize for women, no matter how important it is that i could not work ever. i could not imagine that but i and a stand of the role it plays it is essential i think to their identity but for women work is often very important, a paid and employed work it was not important for me but millions of women. but you don't feel less of a woman if you don't work that men feel less of a man if they don't work. this is unfashionable to say that i believe it is true and unemployment for a man

consequently is absolutely devastating whereas for a woman it is painful, and knowing, estate she does not want to be in but there is another point* to their breadwinner. the diversion of the breadwinner function is which came first? basically in my view what has driven in families apart is the traditional family life one of the key factors and the key driver is the fact that by and large women have changed the calibration

of for the best interest why is. in the past women thought of themselves maybe they wanted to work by the thought of themselves to have children and they needed to have the father on board to support them while the children are growing up there for they've looked for a mate and they married him. along came a bunch of social changes cahow and women decided they could do it on their own be mother and father and have the child without the father on board at all, visit the local sperm bank, they could do without a father completely. if they were married girl lived with the father, i didn't like him, ultimately we can go alone now. also that men were

marginalized on the pushout made to feel they were spare parts and only needed to provide this firm then i think i called them sperm so that was the end of their usefulness and they became demoralized in every sense of they would not have one woman making it herself uniquely available then why stop? so they started to fall other cereal children and because there wasn't a commitment to bring up a child will whole thing became less vital and it is the chicken and egg give that man has a child to support he will work and work longer hours and if he

doesn't comet it is less of a push. these are much more complicated with many other factors but i will not reduce adjust to this but it is an important change that has happened. of change for the worse. we throw the baby with the bath water to mix my metaphors. women should be able to working and mentioned have the obligation to take an active role in the nurturing of their children. but to have a sense of proportion that there are some of differences between the sexes and it is not ignorant to say that it is true and unless we acknowledge we cannot ship the fashion house sold to accommodate reality. once again we tried to

refashion reality to accommodate the idea of what should be the case. >> host: you are watching booktv on c-span2 our guest author and columnist melanie phillips. we have low over an hour left in our program and here's a look at her influences and favorite books.

>> host: if you cannot get through on the phone lines to talk with author and columnist melanie phillips you can contact her through social media. facebook and make a comment there and said dutch wheat to do twittered and finally e-mail booktv at c-span.organ melanie

phillips is the author of nine books the most recent has just come out today called guardian angel and she began writing in 1980 with the divided house all must have prices and the sex change society and feminize to britain in 1999 and america's social revolution can amount and the center of london. 2003, how britain has created a terrorist day within in 2006 and their world turned upside down. 2011. if you would like to see melanie phillips talk about that book more in depth you can go to booktv did or gui covered in the event with other and the guardian angel comes out that is said e.

book on her new imprint book and naomi klein -- melanie phillips who is alfred and mabel? >> they were my parents and i loved them very much. the formative influences in my life particularly my mother and very typical of the british news of that generation of the second world war just married after the second world war and they came from families which originally came from as immigrants from poland and russia around the turn of the 20th century so a typical pattern of immigration of jews into britain around that time. and they were typical of the

british jewish community. my father it instilled with me to do self discipline and looking after other people even the most vulnerable in society and it was the household that made me what i am today and also that i was an only child and as

such i had a close relationship to my mother in particular. >> host: reading guardian angel, was that a tough book to write? i don't know what word to use about your childhood. >> it was very tough to right. as a journalist i have always thought because you bring the world to other people. so i never would have written about myself but i wanted to write a book that explains what is so perplexing from this great journey to be the heart of the left-wing establishment from what people think of being on the rights although i am the champion of the center ground.

to explain that process and through the prism of the personal germany and that is what happened to britain with the english speaking world but to sketch this out i thought to myself i cannot actually does this without going one step further and explained in to become what i have come across. anyone can see to that. and so i found myself for the first time ever because it involves a separation of

those of love very much but i was also far too close, my mother in particular. i wrote the book to the two parallels' operations of two families from my real family which was extraordinarily painful and the separation from my political family which was also extremely painful and at various points in my history of the kind that said to each other is a kind saying that they've run in parallel and i say it was a painful thing to right because i was writing about myself and i founded a very uncomfortable experience indeed but there is no other way to do it. >> host: average guest

melanie phillips if you cannot get through the phone please try social media. also for our international viewers if you like to participate particularly those in great britain. we have a dedicated line for international viewers. the york, please go ahead. >> caller: melanie, i can you hear me? the problem i n hearing with your presentation i don't know the realities of england but in the united states we really don't have a left for kovach was the destroyed during the mccarthy period up but it to socialism and marxism has been demonized so not that people don't exist for you can talk to them because they could be complete the

irrational but it comes from the right. the left has no power. we have one senator in vermont to bernie sanders to calls himself an independent but he could be a socialist really. so if you were writing a book you may have a different take on who these people you cannot talk to our. in this country it is those that are called the tea party people and with the political spectrum has moved complete lead to the right to. we have a center which is the democrats than the extreme right to of what the republicans have become as a pressure of the tea party. >> host: where do you consider yourself martin? [laughter] >> i am one of those who would consider myself

myself, labels are a problem and i agree we should respect one another and listen but my concerns are as a consequence of the economic situation in the foreign policy situation. i am a critic and i don't have to be on the left because johnson who was a conservative economist was very critical of foreign policy and received boneblack. >> host: we have a lot on the table. thank you. >> guest: you are right. there are significant differences between britain and america and i hear what you say that there is no socialist party in america as there is in britain. that is true. but i am talking about something that goes beyond party affiliation and the

conventional understanding of socialism. purses communism which of course, is the soviet union or empire is a thing of the past. i.m. talking about the way to look at the world because the left adopted it which is from a secular rest perspective that i say early on everything is relative and therefore none of us can assert any way of life better than any other and as far as i can see, a lot of this is taking grip in america. you may be right about the extreme right in america and the wild fringes of

political debates on that side. that is something we don't have in britain which is a considerable difference but where i look across the pond from your democratic party party, i think they're different from the democratic party of four years ago because they seem to me to have embodied this world view of the left of gay lifestyle choice, a disdain for conventional values and those that subscribe to conventional values and a little bit ashamed of america that it stands for values that are great and wonderful that we should all try to espouse them. i thank you pick that up in

your president as well as to why would not say who is a pretty left-wing character and his belief that this date is a benevolent actor if you agree not is another matter but that is left wing thoughts that i would suggest so i am talking about something different the way to look at the world which has taken hold over the elites and in britain they think these attitudes have taken hold in our conservative party the equivalent of your republican party. you are right the situation here is different but there are some similarities you may not be ignored alleging. >> host: melanie phillips

writes it is now a country divided between the super individualist culture and individual license with anything goes and based on civic responsibility, of family values in sexual morality and holding behavior to account between these two cultures it raises in america as it does in britain from 2001 america's social revolution. we have a tweet to what extent do you think u.s. and support of britain of israel contributes to the feelings the muslim world has toward us? >> i think this puts the cart before though horse. i think the antipathy the muslim world is currently expressing the fact that the

muslim world has been largely taken over by a particular view which seeks to hold back and turn back the tide of maternity and wishes to prevent muslims to living said tenants of maturity of individual freedom and democracy. and to subject them to the tenets of islam because it embodies this disbelief and individual freedom is important because it is not islamic those the west because they are not islamic with the dictates of islam.

they hate israel it is subsequent to that. it is the expression of the american values. and to the middle east it is from that point* of view. it is so wide portrait of jews in did not have time to go into use the details but with the evidence of this effect so for large measure these other reasons why israel were it is a lightning rod for the hatred of the western world. it has been used by those

who keep them on population of subjection in the islamic world to be used as an alibi or a displacement exercise in which the dictators who ruled the islamic world pop-up the hatred of israel to disperse it away from themselves because they're keeping their own people in such poverty and to tyrannize them in political terms. >> and was interested to hear the question to talk about the support given to israel, america certainly supports israel because the vast majority of the people

the god-fearing christian american people understand well but it stands up for its own values that they identify with israel as a nation that are identical to the values america was founded on. with britain it has a more troubled history in which britain was the last colonial occupiers of the pre-israel state of palestine that the roles played to the returnees and jews with the jews returning to restore the ancient homeland in the land of israel of the british colonial administrators to side with those in the arab

world with the declared the will of the world to settle the issues to restore for the jewish homeland. so britain's history is troubled in this regard in the current attitude to put it this way, i think talking a lot of polls sides of your mouth. with one side burton says israel is our ally but the other side britain says it is our ally and anything it does to defend itself we think is wrong but i slightly exaggerated that is the position it has got itself into and a complicated relationship and it ties to israel through intelligence and military corporation and without that

and eyes and ears in the middle east there would be a far greater danger than they are now but nevertheless in the political sphere things are more complicated. >> host: in the world turned upside down, among the educated and high-minded classism particular, israel and spires the obsessional hatred of the type and scaled directed at no other country. a post on facebook. >> congratulations on your book i am so excited i can find more of you. i was wondering your view of the churches scott lind position on israel. >> guest. [laughter] i think we refers to is the church of scotland has taken off in recent-- said belligerent attitude to israel and talking about of

the boycott of sanctions movement which seeks to vilify israel as a target in the middle east so the true victim in the middle east is suze aggressor of the arab muslim world and they have left for this particular bandwagon and in written you see the established church is composed of england as well as scotland. scotland has a different church from england but they are theological broadly on the same page. . .