The New Statesman magazine apologises to Sir Roger Scruton
I was interested to read the following agreed statement between the New Statesman magazine and Sir Roger Scruton.
In the circumstances I think the safest and most appropriate way to report this is to record the statement in full, including the links at the bottom, without amendment or comment. It reads as follows:
"SIR ROGER SCRUTON
The New Statesman interview with Sir Roger Scruton (“Cameron's resignation was the death knell of the Conservative Party”, 10 April) generated substantial media comment and will be readily recalled by most readers. We have now met with Sir Roger and we have agreed jointly to publish this statement.
In the interview, Sir Roger said of China: “They’re creating robots of their own people … each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing”. We would like to clarify that Sir Roger’s criticism was not of the Chinese people but of the restrictive regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
Sir Roger is quoted accurately in the article: “Anybody who doesn’t think there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts”.
However, the article did not include the rest of Sir Roger’s statement that “it’s not necessarily an empire of Jews; that’s such nonsense”. We would like to clarify that elsewhere in the interview Sir Roger recognised the existence of anti-Semitism in Hungarian society.
After its publication online, links to the article were tweeted out together with partial quotations from the interview – including a truncated version of the quotation regarding China above. We acknowledge that the views of Professor Scruton were not accurately represented in the tweets to his disadvantage. We apologise for this, and regret any distress that this has caused Sir Roger.
By way of rectification we provide here a link to a transcript of the interview and the original article so that readers can learn for themselves what Professor Scruton actually said in full
In the circumstances I think the safest and most appropriate way to report this is to record the statement in full, including the links at the bottom, without amendment or comment. It reads as follows:
"SIR ROGER SCRUTON
The New Statesman interview with Sir Roger Scruton (“Cameron's resignation was the death knell of the Conservative Party”, 10 April) generated substantial media comment and will be readily recalled by most readers. We have now met with Sir Roger and we have agreed jointly to publish this statement.
In the interview, Sir Roger said of China: “They’re creating robots of their own people … each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing”. We would like to clarify that Sir Roger’s criticism was not of the Chinese people but of the restrictive regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
Sir Roger is quoted accurately in the article: “Anybody who doesn’t think there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts”.
However, the article did not include the rest of Sir Roger’s statement that “it’s not necessarily an empire of Jews; that’s such nonsense”. We would like to clarify that elsewhere in the interview Sir Roger recognised the existence of anti-Semitism in Hungarian society.
After its publication online, links to the article were tweeted out together with partial quotations from the interview – including a truncated version of the quotation regarding China above. We acknowledge that the views of Professor Scruton were not accurately represented in the tweets to his disadvantage. We apologise for this, and regret any distress that this has caused Sir Roger.
By way of rectification we provide here a link to a transcript of the interview and the original article so that readers can learn for themselves what Professor Scruton actually said in full
Comments
The DCLG Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, has indeed apologised publicly to Sir Roger for sacking him.
In a letter of apology which was published in the Spectator magazine, Mr Brokenshire said he regretted the decision to remove Sir Roger from his role.
"I am sorry - especially as it was based on a clearly partial report of your thoughts", he added.
The minister said he would like to invite Sir Roger to discuss the next stage of the commission's work, "and what part you might be prepared to play in advancing this important agenda."
A Downing Street spokeswoman said Mr Brokenshire had "expressed regret over the circumstances of his dismissal."
"I believe that they are meeting in the coming days to have a discussion," she said.
Source: BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49004425
I sincerely hope people have learned from this unfortunate episode.