People Don't Cause Hatred, Books Cause Hatred

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the forces of Winston Churchill with some minor assistance from an evil empire; so naturally an obscure Scottish Labour MP has taken the opportunity to scrounge a headline or two from the festivities. Thomas Docherty, the expenses claimant for Dunfermline and West Fife, has discovered that some people think Mein Kampf ought to be banned, while some people think otherwise. Thomas Docherty claims not to be arguing either way, but seems to think all those other people aren't arguing enough; and he believes the culture secretary ought to do something about it. Docherty is charitable enough to endorse the rights of Rushdie's Satanic Verses and Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, both of which caused offence without explicitly inciting hatred; it is less clear what Docherty thinks of The Merchant of Venice or the numerous merrily genocidal parts of the Old Testament. In any case, it is doubtful that Sajid Javid has any particular wish to curtail Hitler's right to freedom of speech, especially as Mein Kampf is making healthy profits for Amazon.