The usual cowardice and illiberalism in the face of Islamist threats after Rushdie gets a knighthood. Norm Geras gets it right:
Two days ago I argued that the left should cleave to the epithet ‘liberal’, on account of the importance of the values liberalism has stood for historically. I did not then enter the reservation that I will enter now: which is that if the word is sometimes held in low esteem, part of the reason for this is the kind of ‘liberalism’ that will lose sight of the need to defend some crucial liberal value in the light of obfuscating considerations. You may be opposed to the honours system, or you may think that Rushdie wasn’t worth a knighthood for literary or personal reasons; but ambiguity about how much respect is owed to the outrage over the award there should not be. None is.
The Dish 