Provocative ‘coincidence’ post – done and published.

Next please…my email’s in-tray emits ‘ping’ and I find this has arrived from historian and analytical commentator Daniel Pipes: Banned in the British Library!

In concluding the previous post about Maria Miller’s purported misdemeanours I closed with reference to threats to the freedom of the press. Dan Hodges’ article concludes, with my emphasis:

‘Yet it is still untenable for Maria Miller to continue in her role as Culture Secretary. For the very simple reason that she had legitimate questions to answer about her conduct, and tried to stop those questions being asked. More specifically, she tried to prevent questions being asked by evoking the spectre of the Leveson Report at precisely the moment she had ministerial responsibility for crafting the legislation arising from it. In other words, at the same time as she was exercising her duties as Culture Secretary, she was simultaneously using her ministerial position to try to deflect a legitimate newspaper investigation into her own personal affairs. It’s hard to think of a more blatant conflict of interest. Which is why she has to go…

‘When the Leveson Report was published, its supporters challenged the press to point to any legitimate news story that would be threatened by implementation of its recommendations. Maria Miller, unwittingly, has provided the answer.’

So it’s rather peculiar to say the least that the very next item to catch my attention is on a related subject – censorship: the suppression of free information in Britain and in that revered depository of literary and historical knowledge, The British Library.

Readers will be familiar with my quoting articles by Daniel Pipes because he is a sound analyst and widely recognised authority on the history of the Middle East. His well-balance reports on the Middle East may be discovered by any person of a reasonable mind and intellect upon perusing his Middle East Forum.

Evidently, the British Library believes he is dangerous!!

Read about this suppression of freedom of the Press in his National Review Online article, Banned in the British Library.

UPDATED 10 APR > Ban has been lifted

Further Reading:

• Leveson Inquiry – a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the Press in Britain, with Report published in November 2012