Christopher Hitchens beats Tony Blair to a pulp (in polite debate)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Donegal on November 27, 2010 at 5:47am

I can't wait to watch the full debate!

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on November 27, 2010 at 12:37pm

Those who can have just got to hear or see this.

Blair v Hitchens on the BBC

BBC World Service radio will air the Blair-Hitchens debate on 4 December, followed by Radio 4 on 11 December

It can be viewed on BBC World News and the News Channel on 1 January 2011

Permalink Reply by Marc Draco on November 27, 2010 at 12:42pm

Nice find! I missed that. This presumably means that our comrades outside of the British Isles will be able to receive and enjoy the audio via the BBC website. I'm not sure if then can get the video feed due to IP blocking.

Typical of the BBC to leave the last words to Blair...

Permalink Reply by Darren Greer on November 28, 2010 at 10:35am

I'm not surprised that Hitchens beat him. He is a formidable debater, and of course he has logic and reason and even genuine passion on his side. Tony Blair has politics, which doesn't provide much of an opportunity for genuine intellectual debate at the best of times. I'm so very sorry to see Hitchens look as he does, and even more sorry to see the hatred and spiteful glee spewed forth by Christians all over the world that somehow think he will either recant like Galileo before the inquisition or burn in hell for all eternity should he choose not to. I haven't always agreed with Hitchens, especially on some matters of U.S. and British foreign policy, but he thinks for himself and ignores popular modalities. The world will be a poorer place without him.

Permalink Reply by John Cameron on December 2, 2010 at 8:43am

I had to stop watching this at about the midway point because I got so tired of the apologetics of Blair. He must have said "at least you have to give religion blah blah blah" about 10 times from what I watched. His amorphous definition of faith/religion is typical of those with intellect who defend religion. They try to reduce religion to so little that there is nothing left to argue against, but this description does not reflect the reality of the beliefs or actions of most religious people. In my opinion, this was not much of a debate, as Hitchens was on a completely different plane than Blair and Hitchens was too much of a gentleman to utterly destroy Blairs weak positions directly as he could have.