The decision by Her Majesty’s Government to ban Michael Savage from entering the United Kingdom was always a little odd — not least because Mr. Savage had not expressed the slightest interest in entering the United Kingdom in the first place.
As John O’Sullivan’s column in the New York Post makes brutally clear, the whole business was just another self-inflicted disaster by New Labour kindergarten Machiavellians spinning themselves into ecstasy at the sheer ingeniousness of their scheming. The leaked departmental e-mails read like the spinmeisters’ equivalent of a group auto-erotic asphyxiation session.
In essence, Michael Savage was added to the banned list as a beneficiary of non-affirmative action. The “Britain’s Least Wanted” hit parade was felt to be a bit heavy on chaps called Mohammed and Ahmed and whatnot, and the Home Office geniuses decided that it would upset the, ah, “extremists” if there were too many “extremists” on the list. Persona non grata-wise, they felt it was important to celebrate diversity:
’We will want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists.’
Michael Savage is certainly not Islamic, but is he extreme? The civil service felt it was a bit wobbly, but you could make a case:
’The fact that he is homophobic does help.’
Excellent. As John notes, Savage isn’t too “homophobic” for San Francisco, from where he does his show.
I’d also add that the point of the Home Office banning him was to look even-handed to “moderate Muslims” — such as Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, who on the BBC a while back expressed the view that homosexuality was “immoral,” “not acceptable,” “spreads disease,” and “damaged the very foundations of society.” But that’s not homophobic, just vibrantly multicultural.
The whole racket has now fallen apart, and Michael Savage’s court case against the since departed Home Secretary, the statist buffoon Jacqui Smith, should be a riot. Beyond that, the abuse of the immigration system by party hacks for cheap propagandistic purposes is a disgrace.