I don’t endorse megaphone-powered pronouncements in public places, but it seems odd that the English would arrest an Englishman running for office for the crime of reading Churchill aloud in Winchester. Paul Weston, chairman of the party Liberty GB and candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, was arrested for reading this passage from The River War, Churchill’s 1899 account of the reconquest of “the Soudan” during the Mahdist War:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.
(Hat tip to Mangan.)