Notorious holocaust denier, historian and academic cause celebre, David Irving, hosted a press conference today after being released from prison in Austria having served 13 months for holocaust denial. Both Sky News and BBC News24 showed less than 2 minutes of it and then returned to the studio for a quick rant from a token Jewish guest.

Now I share no views in common with Mr Irving, at least I think I don’t which is my main argument. I know nothing about the man. I know the central tenet of his thinking but nothing more. No fine detail, no background, no analysis, nothing. For me you have the images of the holocaust, the stories of survivors and the buildings themselves, now this is quite a lot of very tangible evidence to deny, yet Irving does and due to the ’sham’ of free speech in this country I have no idea what spurious or otherwise facts or ‘evidence’ he supplies to back up his arguments.

I don’t particularly want to put money in his pocket by buying any of his books but I am assuming that the guy has some form of historical pedigree, however discredited these days, and that at some point he must have had some involvement with academia. I want to know how firm his beliefs are, how he justifies the soundbites we get to hear on the news. But it seems I am denied this and Mr Irving never has to face confrontation. I can’t believe that anyone has anything to fear from a two sided debate, even if that debate descends into little more than a pratfall for Irving and his ilk. Or maybe he has a point, either way I’d like to know.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 pm While Dave was in Dispatches. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.