Michael Gove: No more room for denial

ConservativeHome spoke to Michael Gove MP earlier today about yesterday's foiled terror plot.  The author of Celsius 7/7 - 'How the West's policy of appeasement has provoked yet more fundamentalist terror' - believes that yesterday's events leave no room for Britons to continue to deny the reality of the war on terror.  In our conversation he outlined three key issues that we all need to face up to and I've enlarged on each below...

No denying that we face serious threats: There are still some conspiracy crazies who think that yesterday and other incidents are all get-ups by the authorities.  Mr Eugenides exposed some of those 'moonbats' on his blog [worryingly Guido shows signs of joining the crazies this morning] but the war is all too real and the stakes are high.  Mr Eugenides links to Carpsio who clearly understands what we are faced with:

"This isn't a parlour game. The Islamofascists don't really care if you watch Rory Bremner or smirk every time John Reid opens his mouth. This isn't fiction. We are not in some Chomskonian fantasy where the bad guys work in a government office. This is a war. A war between a medievalist, fascist death cult whose values include the hanging of homosexuals, the murder of adulterers and the forced subjugation of women. If you think Blair is bad, then picture what Ahmadinejad will do to your student bedsit. Or your organic allotment. All your gay friends? Forget them. That funny T-shirt with the swearing on? Burnt...."

As I posted yesterday: the world has always been populated with evil men - the reality today is the access they have to devastating and portable weapons technologies.

No denying that there is a serious internal threat: Who was arrested yesterday?  24 British Muslims.  We have a major internal problem with many of our fellow citizens hating their own country enough to become suicide bombers against it.  Today is not the time to discuss the many things that need to be done to start addressing this problem but top of the list must be a radical reappraisal of how Government relates to Britain's Muslims (most of whom are law-abiding and as outraged by yesterday as the rest of the country).  As Martin Bright and Michael Gove have written: Labour is talking to the more extreme representatives of Britain's Muslims - ignoring moderate voices like the Sufi Muslim Council.  Gove:

"In the struggle against extremism the British State has failed to tackle the underlying ideological currents that favour Islamism. Organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), whose members have shown sympathy for extremist positions, are rarely challenged, and certainly not publicly by the Government or its agencies.  For moderate Muslims the picture is dispiriting. They see the most religiously conservative and politically provocative groupings enjoy the lion’s share of attention and they wonder how serious the British State is about countering extremism. How can they convince young men within their community that the path of moderation brings respect and a voice in the nation’s deliberations when the most influential voices are seen to belong to those with radical agendas?"

Tony Blair is in danger of repeating exactly the same mistakes that he made with Sinn Fein and the SDLP.  The Northern Ireland peace/ appeasement process empowered Sinn Fein by constant Government pandering to Gerry Adams.

No denying that the threat pre-dated the Iraq campaign: A case can be made, of course, for saying that the mishandling of the invasion of Iraq has exacerbated Muslim anger.  What cannot be argued, however, is that the Iraq campaign began the radicalisation.  Gerard Baker has another go at squashing this idea in The Times:

"It is repetitive but necessary to point out that we didn’t start this war when we invaded Iraq. The attacks on 9/11 were planned not only before we invaded, but during a time when the US was expending extraordinary effort to try to forge a lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.  And if our actions have radicalised the jihadists we should remember that they are animated at least as much by our ridding Afghanistan of their spiritual brethren, the Taleban, as they are by whatever crimes the US may have committed in Baghdad."

Comments

[Chad]

Just out of interest, what is the current terror alert status in Switzerland?

[JB]

Will the advocates of racial profiling from yesterday's post apologise the Muslim community now that details about the accused 10/8 plotters are starting to emerge. Some of the accused plotters would not have fitted a profile (unless we intend to search the sons of Tory Party workers) and so profiling would have been futile.

Equally, according to Fox, the initial tip off came from a Muslim preacher and the final plot was closed down after help from Muslims in Pakistan. Do the small number of Islamophobic poster from yesterday still see all Muslims as terrorists?

[Editor]

You have made your point JB and I do not understand your point Chad - let's now focus on the topics in the thread...

[Chad]

I was questioning Tim how much safer the foreign policy strategy of the UK has made us in comparison to non-interventionist European neighbours.

We couldn't at a high risk of attack, so it seems reasonable to compare that to our European neighbours who do not have such an elevated risk status in a bid to see what is happening.

[Chris]

Personally the events of the last 24 hours have proved a tad frightening, though not for the traditional reasons. What I really want to know is why discussions of this impending attacks occured with Bush over the weekend but it took until Thursday for any action to be taken.

The intellignce may have said that attacks would occur between a set of dates, but surely in the terror alert should have been elevated and these safety measures introduced the moment we knew attacks were being planned. Just because we know about one group of fundamentalists with this type of weaponry doesn't mean we know about all terror cells, after all, we know from 7/7 they operate completely independently from a central organisation.

[Editor]

The Swiss didn't do much to stop Hitler either.

[Jon Gale]

JB,

The son of Tory worker had shaved his head, grown a beard and changed his name to Abdul. If I worked at passport control I'd certainly stop him for being suspicious!

What I object to is the politically correct idea that every Danish backpacker, little old lady, green-welly brigade matriarch and average family of four with unruly children should be stopped and searched just so muslims dont feel picked on.

In fact my favoured approach is that every Muslim household in the country should be given £5000 and free plane tickets to a country of their choice, and a year to leave the country. No more terrorism and it relieves the housing shortage. Still, I expect it will take a few more atrocities before people agree with me.

But back to the topic...

No denying that we face serious threats: Agreed.
No denying that there is a serious internal threat: Agreed (obviously after what i've just said).
No denying that the threat pre-dated the Iraq campaign: Agreed.

In fact the only thing I disagree with is the idea that invading Iraq has somehow helped. How has it made Britain safer? How was it a setback for terrorists? What has it achieved? (other than increasing popular support among muslims for extremists).

[Jonathan Sheppard]

Jon I hope you dont stand by some of your comments above!

[Mark Fulford]

Chad, Britain doesn't share your ability to change direction at will. Switzerland's "neutral" status has been fostered over generations. Britain could spend 100 years acquiring such a reputation, but we'd have to be prepared to ignore the odd Hitler in the next door valley.

[Mr Eugenides]

"Moonbats" is a deliberately pejorative term, and I suppose I have been out and about provoking them to a large extent; but the extent of denial and sheer tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theories out there is unbelievable.

Nor is it necessarily just a tiny lunatic fringe - I think there genuinely are a lot of people out there whose [entirely understandable] cynicism has morphed into something rather more disturbing.

This, as much as anything, is the problem - the tendency of some to assure us, as Gerard Baker pointed out, that the threat is just an invention of Bush'n'Blair, right up till the moment when the terrorists strike; at which point they move seamlessly to tell us that we brought it on ourselves.

[Chad]

"Chad, Britain doesn't share your ability to change direction at will."

Cameron does though, clearly!

[Chris]

In fact my favoured approach is that every Muslim household in the country should be given £5000 and free plane tickets to a country of their choice, and a year to leave the country. No more terrorism and it relieves the housing shortage. Still, I expect it will take a few more atrocities before people agree with me.
Reminds me of how Somethingawful.com once calculated that the money spent on the Iraq war could have been spent buying every Iraqui a first class plane ticket to the US, and handing them enoughcash to start their lives anew.

In fact the only thing I disagree with is the idea that invading Iraq has somehow helped. How has it made Britain safer? How was it a setback for terrorists? What has it achieved? (other than increasing popular support among muslims for extremists).
I think most people now agree that the Iraq war was a mistake. Its cost a huge amount of money and lives, only to anger Islam extemists. I personally opposed the war not for these reasons but because I believed we were unlawfully intervening in another countries internal affairs.

[Mark Fulford]

In fact my favoured approach is that every Muslim household in the country should be given £5000 and free plane tickets to a country of their choice, and a year to leave the country.

I want to completely disassociate myself from your vile comments. Not even the BNP would advocate exile according to religious belief.

[Jon Gale]

Mark,

Were you ever associated? I hearby formally disassociate my comments from you.

No, the BNP advocate expulsion for all non-whites regardless of the threat they pose(those Buddhist and Confucian terrorists are a menace).

[HF]

Things are getting better.

This act of terrorism has been undone by muslims working with the authoriies in UK and Pakistan.

We need to strengthen those links and publicly thank them.

They are our best protection.

[Denis Cooper]

It's too late for that now. In general it was a mistake to invite large numbers of foreigners with different religions to come here in the first place, and in particular the biggest mistake of all was to invite large numbers of Muslims. That was said at the time, I believe, especially by those with first hand experience of countries with Muslim populations, and it has been said repeatedly over the intervening half century, but those saying it have been ignored and in some cases victimised. But it's far too late to reverse that mistake, and it would be inhumane to even try.

[Cllr Francis Lankester]

Unfortunately no reasoned arguments have any effect on someone who believes the Jews rule the world and that Israel is a dagger aimed at the heart of Islam.

Just as English people were brought up believing that the Empire showed we were superior (-how else could we have gained such a vast empire?)so some Muslims believe that they belong to a superior civilisation. Just as white people have had to confront racism, so Muslims must now do so. Anti-racist and equalities policies are for the protection of all our national community.

Too many people talk glibly about our multi-cultural society but do not follow the logic of living in one. The idea that we are going to adopt any religion's system of law is out of the question. Equality means just that-learning from one another, but no-one's values are superior. We look for the things that unite us and leave the divisive things at home.

[Michael Veitch]

I think Chad makes a serious point. Of course terrorism of this sort preceded Iraq but I fail to understand how anybody could credibly argue that our involvement in Iraq hasn't made the UK a much, much more dangerous place to live. Though there may have been a moral case for taking out Saddam per se, the discredited WMD argument made by Blair simply created a perception (rightly or wrongly) that this was an unjust, dishonest war against a Muslim country - which in the sensitive post 9/11 climate was an act of mounumental folly and has therefore been a recruiting sergeant for milltant islam. I still find it deeply worrying that no-one in the UK or US administrations seems to have understood this!

[James Cleverly]

Denis,

Without the sacrifice that many Muslins, hindus and other "foreiners" the UK might have become part of a Europe wide Facist state.

[Mark Fulford]

Were you ever associated? I hearby formally disassociate my comments from you.

Yes, simply by being in the same space. Unless they're wholeheartedly rejected, repugnant views like yours taint the whole party.

[Denis Cooper]

James, I'm aware of that. Equally, in the absence of the British nucleus the Indian sub-continent would have fallen to the Japanese and the Indians could have been stuck with savage masters for a very long time - one reason why Indians were prepared to volunteer for fight for the British. But none of that has anything to do with inviting large numbers of foreigners, Muslims or otherwise, to come here.

[sjm]

We hear a great deal about the disadvantaged Muslim community in this country, and how alienated their youth feel, so of course some of them will turn to terrorism.

This unfortunately ignores several facts, which I note from living in a multi-ethnic community in East London.

1. A sizeable proportion of the Muslim community are very successful professionals and business entrepreneurs, so there is an excellent example set to their own youth of what it is possible to achieve in the UK.

2. There are large communities of Hindus, Sikhs, Caribbeans and Chinese in the UK, who have had to go through the same problems of immigration and integration as Muslims. Yet they have not responded with terror threats or actions.

All this leads me to believe the problem is not one of the host community failing to bend over backwards to meet the demands of a vociferous minority of just one immigrant tranche, but has more to do with the religious ideas promulgated by a couple of extremist Islamic factions.

[Jonathan Sheppard]

I think the key words in your post sjm are "extremist factions". Its no good some people suggesting the issue is with a whole religion, in my view - and I think the solution probably has to lie with the Muslim Community itself.

[william]

I'm afraid we have become part of a Europe wide Fascist state James. The pace of our capture has been slow, non-violent but 100% effective.

The number and type of immigrants has been decided without us being able to control it, and now we face huge cultural and security issues.

We have lost our system of democratic accountability, and we are unable to secure our own borders. Parliament is bypassed. We are being broken up into regions without any democratic mandate.

Conservative attempts to resist made in the Euro Parliament have been subdued by Hague's threats, and the selection method of MEP's is being changed to avoid a vote, which might permit Conservative eurosceptics to replace eurofascist MEP's.

We are now ruled by a corrupt elite without democratic accountability from Barroso at the top to Prescott the front end of the fascist programme to subjugate Britain.

Prescott's so powerful he can commit rape on a daily basis and he can't be touched.

Conservatives are compliant. The betrayal of the EPP promise and the deselection threat to the eurosceptic MEP's shows that we are the new Vichy Conservatives. The threat of terrorism exposes how insipid we have become inside the Eurofascist State.

[TomTom]

A sizeable proportion of the Muslim community are very successful professionals and business entrepreneurs, so there is an excellent example set to their own youth of what it is possible to achieve in the UK.

But a much larger proportion comes from Bangladesh and Kashmir around Mirpur. These are peasants selected on the basis of illiteracy and low wages. The industries that employed them have migrated to India, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Turkey and China. Your Jermyn Street tayloring and Chester Barrie suitings don't come from Bradford and are not assembled in Leeds - they come from China; your NeXt suits come from Ukraine made with Turkish cloth.

The educational standards in places like Bradford are pitifully low because a) they are comprehensive and b) they have the children of the peasants............this creates a self-reinforcing failure which is irritating when they see the guy in the Ferrari or the Porsche only has to sell white powder to clubbing bankers and accountants to get on the money trail and respect.

After failing in this the mosque gets them to see that the banker and the accountant being white have exploited them and their society based on porn, coke, cash, and hash is corrupt and their women are hookers. Thus absolved from guilt or responsibility they can do their civic duty by cleansing society of "filth". This is the whole basis of how the type of propaganda here -

http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/stills.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Jew

is now used by the nutcase Muslim fanatics to depict Jews and Christians to stir up similar hatreds.

It is not what you do but what you are.

[TomTom]

sorry "tailoring"

[Denis Cooper]

There is in fact no "Muslim Community", any more than there's a "black'n'asian community". Not only have Muslims and Hindus occasionally fought each other on our streets, so have Muslims of different origins and/or different sects.

[TomTom]

If you think the Middle East and Palestine is fun wait until you try Kashmir - a problem the British created by legislating in 1947 to create Pakistan on Indian territory.

Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

1. (1) As from the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan.

INDIAN INDEPENDENCE ACT, 1947

So if some people think we have a risk of terrorism because of Iraq, they should work out how to avoid terrorism when Kashmiris in Britain decide they want a different British foreign policy towards India.

Maybe Oliver Letwin has an answer ?

If it wasn't Iraq it would be Chechnya, if it wasn't Palestine it would be Kashmir.

[George Hinton]

As has been said we cannot tar a community as a result of the actions of a minority.
Clearly though the present imbroglio throws up the question as to how supposedly well educated muslims can enter into a conspiracy to commit mass murder. These particular individuals appear to have come from established middle class families yet they have taken the road of extremism.
The investigation needs to establish how they became radicalised and where. But, the real question is why? These people have not taken on-board the democratic principles of the West, is this a systemic issue that cannot be addressed unless we hand over our foreign policy to a small group of Islamofascists? If that is the case then perhaps we need to invite our guests to leave, as we cannot tolerate that level of intolerance in our country.
Perhaps in the mad rush towards multi-culturism and multi-ethnicity and handing out British passports we forgot to ensure that all were fully conversant with our principles and way of life. Clearly we need to look very long and hard at those in this country who do not hold with our values.
I am pleased to see that the Bank of England has issued instructions to freeze assets, cut off the money and terrorism becomes harder.

[Jon Gale]

Mark Fulford,

Only (!) about 1 in 5 Muslims hold extremist views (see UKpollingreport.com and the PEW research group). But 7/7 showed how even integrated, moderate parents can have extremist children. The state can't cant tell moderates from extremists until too late. Muslims simply pose too much of a threat to the rest of us to tolerate any longer.

I havent been rude or derogatory, my idea solves the problem 100% without draconian limits on everyone's liberties or harming anyone. What is so vile and repugnant about it?

[Michael McGowan]

I have little sympathy with the conspiracy theorists and the Lord Hoffmann tendency in the judiciary. However, there is one thing you can say in their favour: this Government has a very bad track record when it comes to playing fast and loose with intelligence for political ends and using actual or perceived external threats as an excuse for attacking fundamental civil liberties. I was glad to see Norman Baker MP probing into Dr David Kelly's death again. I found the official explanations very unconvincing and as for the Hutton Enquiry.....

[Simon Chapman]

Dennis at 1448 is right - the phrase "Muslim Community" isn't very helpful in this context. It reinforces stereotying and "them & us" perceptions - the latter for both muslims and non-muslims alike. It's a barrier to effective intergration.

[Peter Moore]

Jon Gale says, "In fact my favoured approach is that every Muslim household in the country should be given £5000 and free plane tickets to a country of their choice, and a year to leave the country."

This would be a grotesque injustice to many, many decent, law abiding and patriotic people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim origin, not to mention Ismailis, Sufis, etc.

Why not give every Muslim family a choice? Sign up for the British, Western, post-Enlightenment way of life - and stay with our goodwill and blessing. Or refuse - and leave.

[TomTom]

This is the kind of stunt that makes people despair of this country and its values.

For 2000 AD the Govt built a Dome for £1 bn. It decided this Dome should have nothing to do with Jesus Christ and so left him out.

The C of E attempted to create its own Christian Celebration of Christ's 2000th Birthday and put together a Centre - but to get funding turned it into a "Life Force Centre" dedicated to Multiculturalism and charged £5 entry. Noone wanted to visit so entry became free. Noone wanted to go.

The £2 million deficit bankrupted the Cathedral which could not go bust so their suppliers lived with a CVA instead.

Now Public Funds write of £1.6 million to sell it to a group which needs a £1.5 million grant to turn it into a Sub-Continent Art Centre dependent upon public funds.

That is £3.1 million as the latest installment of public money caused by Mandelson's Dome failing to account for Christianity in 2000 AD which begs the question why was 2000 AD so important ?

More than £1.6 million of debt is to be written off after contracts were exchanged to sell St Peter's House, Bradford.

The prestigious building in Forster Square, which once housed the failed £5m Life Force faith museum, has been sold by the Millennium Commission to the Kala Sangam South Asian arts company for £570,000.

The Commission took over the title of St Peter's House from Bradford Cathedral after the collapse within months of Life Force, which received a £2m lottery grant and sent the Cathedral to the equivalent of bankruptcy.

A spokesman for the Millennium Commission said: "In our annual accounts this year, we wrote off £1,654,369 of funds associated with the grant in the expectation that about £480,000 would be recovered from the sale.
continued...

"The Millennium Commission is pleased that a sale has been agreed which secures a public benefit use of the site and allows recovery of some of the lottery money spent on the original project."

Kala Sangam has been given a £1.5m award by Arts Council England to create a centre of excellence for South Asian and International Collaborative Arts.

[Goldie]

JB. What I should "apologize" for? Here are the nineteen names:

ALI, Abdula, Ahmed
Date of birth (DOB): 10/10/1980
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

ALI, Cossor
DOB: 04/12/1982
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

ALI, Shazad, Khuram
DOB: 11/06/1979
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

HUSSAIN, Nabeel
DOB: 10/03/1984
Address: London, E4

HUSSAIN, Tanvir
DOB: 21/02/1981
Address: Leyton, London, E10

HUSSAIN, Umair
DOB: 09/10/1981
Address: London, E14

ISLAM, Umar
DOB: 23/04/1978
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

KAYANI, Waseem
DOB: 28/04/1977
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

KHAN, Assan, Abdullah
DOB: 24/10/1984
Address: London, E17

KHAN, Waheed, Arafat
DOB: 18/05/1981
Address: London, E17

KHATIB, Osman, Adam
DOB: 07/12/1986
Address: London, E17

PATEL, Abdul, Muneem
DOB: 17/04/1989
Address: London, E5

RAUF, Tayib
DOB: 26/04/1984
Address: Birmingham

SADDIQUE, Muhammed, Usman
DOB: 23/04/1982
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

SARWAR, Assad
DOB: 24/05/1980
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

SAVANT, Ibrahim
DOB: 19/12/1980
Address: London, E17

TARIQ, Amin, Asmin
DOB: 07/06/1983
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

UDDIN, Shamin, Mohammed
DOB: 22/11/1970
Address: Stoke Newington, London

ZAMAN, Waheed
DOB: 27/05/1984
Address: London, E17

[Jonathan Sheppard]

Simon - but in some areas of the country there are indeed communities where unfortunately integration hasnt taken place. Surely Asian community leaders are representing an Asian community?

[The Jabberwock]

All the above may be true, but I would take the Conservatives rather more seriously if they were to campaign for the ranks of the Civil Service and Local Authorities to be purged of the agents of sympathy for Radical Islam, for the repeal of all Equality and Diversity legislation that New Labour has enacted in the last 9 years, and for the dismantling of the State Apparatus of 'Equality and Diversity Units' (Thought Police), under which certain minorities have become virtually untouchable. Unless this is done, the Police and Security Services will continue to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. Then, and only then, will we stand a chance of defeating this enemy.

As a proof of his bona fides, perhaps Mr Gove would care to ask questions in Parliament as to why the likes of Mr Mockbul Ali, a suspected apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood, still enjoy employment and a position of influence in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

For those who doubt the veracity of this claim, please download and read Martin Bright's "When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries", an exposé of the British State's policy of accomodating Islamist reactionaries at home and abroad. Now available as PDF download from:

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/Publications.aspx?id=192

[TomTom]

Surely Asian community leaders are representing an Asian community?

That is just the point - they don't.

Think about the area where you live - who is the "white community leader" who speaks on your behalf ?

The Asian "community" is Kashmiri village politics replicated here; the "community leader" is the relative of the village elder in Pakistan, and the families here are obligated to his cousins, or some family debt in Pakistan is being paid off with votes in England.

The dynamics of this village and clan politics is far denser than people imagine. I was speaking with a Pakistani Muslim last night and he was saying how the "elections are just like in Pakistan" with the family loyalties and party affiliations there replicated here.

The chances are the "community leaders" are not representative in English terms and that treating with them is reinforcing a ghetto from which people cannot escape

[william]

One effect of the terrorists' actions has been to justify Blair's Middle East policies. Eliminating Afghanistan as a safe haven for terrorists was essential work, and still is.

Iraq was suspected of being a threat, and who knows? With more planes now being targeted, people will be more likely to give Blair and Bush the benefit of the doubt about Saddam.

If Israel cannot break the power of Hizbullah in Lebanon, Iran will see its way clear to producing nuclear weapons. They will become a secure haven for well-armed terrorists from where they can attack worldwide targets with many weapons, including nuclear.

The West will have to act eventually. It would be better to go after them now before Iran has the capability, and not after. Israel's war is our war now.

Blair's position strengthens as the terror threat grows. Cameron's Conservative seem more and more irrelevant and unable to provide a milligram of leadership on anything.

Hague should not be talking about the appropriateness of Israel's battle in Lebanon. He should be calling for a ten times increase in military expenditure in Britain, a seizing of control of our borders from the EU and a cultural programme to ensure that young people are less likely to be drawn into the arms of terrorist organisations.

The West faces a battle which will ultimately be for its own survival. The sooner we engage in that battle and fight it, the cheaper that battle will be in terms of casualties and the sooner it will be over. We've all got our heads in the sands. We're not facing up to the task that lies ahead, and we need leadership. It looks like that role will fall to Blair.

As Churchill was a useless peacetime PM, but a great warrior, so with Blair. These events will push all other considerations to the side. We need leadership urgently. It looks like Blair will have to be the man of the moment.

[Mark Fulford]

Jon Gale,

Starting from forced exile for Muslims, should we complete our grotesque voyage with schemes for all identifiable groups who pose a statistical risk? Perhaps we should offer teenage girls on council estates cash for sterilization. How about sons from single parent families? Statistically they’re a greater risk so we should probably come up with something for them too – into the army until they 21? Anybody who goes to a pub poses a risk of drink driving. With 800 pedestrians a year killed by vehicles and human rights out-the-window, I’m sure we can think of a way to stop death that amounts to more than one 7/7 a month.

One of the greatest arguments I have with Labour and Lib Dem supporters is to what degree unpleasant opinions like yours exist within the Conservative party. Your comments seen to have turned very few heads so perhaps they’re right after all.

[Julia Manning]

Michael Gove's book Celsius 7/7 makes compelling reading, although I was sorry that he didn't write more about how to redeem the situation we are in.
There are lots of questions to consider including:

How can we have a strong country - where there is a 'we' - one nation with the glue of shared identity of culture and language?

How can we reclaim the ground lost to libertarians who think that you can have a multicultural society?

Do we feel stongly enough about all that is good in our Judeao-Christian heritage to re-assert it as foundational to our values?

Are we going to continue to have muslim broadcasters like the one on Terry Wogan's BBC2 show yesterday telling all muslims to be true to themselves and the koran and 'live whatever they believe the koran is telling them'?

Are we going to be more intelligent with our language and stop talking about 'communities' when actually we are talking about a religion, an ethnic or pressure group etc?

[Chad]

Slow down Mark, 100Policies.com doesn't start until Monday.... ;-)

[Denis Cooper]

Simon @ 15.03 - but there's no "Asian community" to lead. It's a miscellany of groups defined by religion, by country, region and village of ancestral origin, by caste, to some extent by their location in this country, and perhaps to some extent by shared trade or business. Similarly with most of the other ethnic and religious minorities. So it's not so much "them and us", as "them, them, them, them, them, them ... and us". The "us" itself isn't homogenous or completely unified, but it's far more cohesive than the disparate "them"s, and it's only that large majority "us" which holds it all together and prevents disintegration into hundreds of "them"s either not talking, or even fighting, each other. However one has to ask how much longer this can be maintained unless some of the "them"s become more completely assimilated into the "us". Obviously that's a problem if sons and daughters are forbidden to marry outside the group.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"One of the greatest arguments I have with Labour and Lib Dem supporters is to what degree unpleasant opinions like yours exist within the Conservative party. Your comments seen to have turned very few heads so perhaps they’re right after all."

Not true, Mark. It's just that responding to Jon Gale's ridiculous 'deport all Moslems' nonsense is giving the idea credence it doesn't deserve.

[Editor]

Thank you DVA. The best thing we can do with opinions we don't like is distance ourselves from them and then move on to discuss making our existing society work...

[Sean Fear]

Quite right DVA. Life's too short to respond to every comment like that.

[Tired and emotional]

If it's worth saying it's worth saying twice. Although I do wish people would leave off the public drunkeness...

[Jonathan Mackie]

As I posted earlier in a different thread, I believe the country crossed a rubicon yesterday. Tolerence and reaching out have run their course.

As a country we now need to decide if we are to exercise hegemony of traditional values of christian democracy, english language, and the rule of law or are we to subjugate our values in the name of diversity.

It is easy to blame Blair's foreign policy here, but it is wrong. These Islamic nazis have not been radicalised because of Iraq or Afganistan, they were radicalised before. Iraq is the excuse that is used as a flimsy justification for the actions and beliefs of many Muslims.

Many Muslims openly wish to see an Islamic state in Britain, and I would guess that the majority secretly desire that too. That is their true motivation not Iraq.

From a political perspective, I think we as a party could be in for difficult times. John Reid has proved to be the full master of his brief the last few days. Post 9/11 people were genuinely thankful it was Blair and not Hague in number 10. Could the same opinions occur with Reid verse Cameron?

[Jon Gale]

Well I'm glad to see so many reasoned arguments against my idea, otherwise you'd have to rely on straw men and sanctimonious platitudes.

[Tired and emotional]

I have to say the John Mackie is right (again)... tolerating the intolerant is not working.

How can we reconcile our belief that loyalty to country is the overiding prerequisite of citizenship with a religion that renders all loyalties to itself, and to hell with Caesar?

Something has to give... either country (as this isn't the Guardian I'll assume no-one will find that attractive), or the extent to which we allow complete unchecked freedom of religion (this requires will and hard choices).

I am not sure that we can maintain one without restricting the other...

[William Norton]

Tired & Emotional: fear not, we already have a mechanism for dealing with the problem people you identify.

It's called the criminal law.

Last time I checked, attending a mosque was legal but plotting to blow up an aeroplane was illegal. Our sophisticated western judaeo-christian jurisprudence has evolved a means of telling the difference between the two.

[Denis Cooper]

Yes, William, except the criminal law doesn't necessarily apply to Muslims, does it? Back in 1999 when a Muslim cleric publicly issued a death sentence on a gay playwright, what happened to him? Arrested for incitement to murder? Not all, the police and CPS turned a blind eye. No wonder that Muslim extremists thought they would be allowed to demonstrate with placards calling for the murder of anybody who insulted Allah - they'd been given to understand that they had a special dispensation and were above the law. See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/493436.stm

[Denis Cooper]

Yes, William, except the criminal law doesn't necessarily apply to Muslims, does it? Back in 1999 when a Muslim cleric publicly issued a death sentence on a gay playwright, what happened to him? Arrested for incitement to murder? Not at all, the police and CPS turned a blind eye. No wonder that other Muslim extremists assumed that they would be allowed to demonstrate with placards calling for the murder of anybody who insulted Allah - they'd been given to understand that they had a special dispensation and were above the law. See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/493436.stm

[Tired and emotional]

Hmmm... inciting racial hatred and violence are also now illegal, I think. Does that stop the networks of individuals and groups, 'charities' and 'learning centres' from raising and indoctrinating new generations of suicide bombers around the world and here in Merrie Olde England?

Relying on our sophisticated western judeo-christian jurisprudence has left us in a situation where we cannot even deport armed gangs who hijack planes.

Do try and keep up.

[The Jabberwock]

In respose to a posted by Cllr Francis Lankester August 11, 2006 at 14:17.

"Too many people talk glibly about our multi-cultural society but do not follow the logic of living in one. The idea that we are going to adopt any religion's system of law is out of the question. Equality means just that-learning from one another, but no-one's values are superior. We look for the things that unite us and leave the divisive things at home."

Councillor, you and your fellow multiculturalists just don't get it, do you? IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE OF YOUR EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY POLICIES THAT THERE IS nothing TO UNITE US ANY LONGER.

As an evangelical Christian and an Englishman, I utterly repudiate and reject the Cultural Marxist basis of multiculturalism and the idea that "no-one's values are superior". It is the adoption and promotion of this 'Big Lie' that has brought this country to its present parlous state, and you, Sir, and the entire political class are complicit in this.

Without in any way being an apologist for Radical Islam, one reason why Muslims may have retreated into isolation is their genuine anger at the gross promiscuity, drunkenness, hedonism, perversion and utter selfishness that characterises 'post-modern' Britain.

White Christian men who dare to stand on a street corner saying such things are arrested (e.g. Harry Hammond in Bournemouth). He did so because in Jesus Christ we find the only true antidote to the 'rottenness' (original sin) that unaddressed leads to the very real decay in moral fibre that our society has experienced.

Yet, by preaching in Arabic, the likes of Abu-Hamza have for years been able to poison the minds of hundreds of young British Muslim men against their fellow countrymen, and to exhort them to murderous Jihad against the filthy 'Kuffars'. (See http://jihadwatch.org/archives/009793.php for excerpts.)

After 9 years of New Labour double standards, I want to hear from someone from my 'community' who is prepared to get up off their knees, stop crawling to special interest groups and STAND UP for the majority of this country who are sick and tired of the mess that three generations of 'progressive' ideas have got us into.

So, please, Councillor, spare me your sanctimonious platitudes. If what you have written above is the best you can offer, I suggest you resign and let someone who has the stomach to take the fight to the enemy take over from you.

[Tired and emotional]

Hurrah! You go girl!

[The Jabberwock]

Tired and emotional | August 11, 2006 at 17:18

"Hurrah! You go girl!"

Errm ... I'm a man, actually.

[William Norton]

Tired & emotional / the evangelical Jabberwock:

Thank you for your stirring rhetoric. I can't help recalling, however, that much the same thing used to be said about Roman Catholics and the Latin Mass.

Yes, there are some evil people walking around, abusing good old British freedom, and it would be nice if the law were enforced against them once in a while. But that's my point - the law's already there.

Yes, there's a lot of waffling cant about multi-culturalism, which often seems to be an excuse for a crew of spongers to soak the taxpayer for all they can. So let's sack the "community leaders".

I'm not convinced that thrilling rants are going to get any one anywhere. Rounding up particular social groups and stigmatising certain groups of people aren't the way we do things in this country. We fought a few wars to stop that sort of thing. I'm not convinced we can beat Osama bin Laden (or more pertinently, deserve to) by turning ourselves into rather second-rate Oswald Mosleys.

[Martin]

Chad, Switzerland is hardly a reasonable comparison. How about France, which after all opposed the war in Iraq and and is very sympathetic to the Palestinians. Their current threat status? The same as ours.

[Cllr. Robert-j Tasker]

I think the above was being sarcastic Mr. Jabberwock...

[Michael McGowan]

William, Jabberwock is not saying any of the things you allege. He made two perfectly valid points which a half-decent Opposition not foreever deferring to leftwing opinion would have been making months ago:

1. The criminal law on incitement must be applied even-handedly in a secular liberal society, not in a way which gives client groupings of the present Government the message that they are above the law which applies to the rest of us.

2. There comes a point, which we have now reached, where a secular liberal society can no longer accomodate the idea that its basic values are no better than anyone's else's. Otherwise it is voting itself out of existence. If you think otherwise, presumably you would simply agree with your Aztec next-door neighbour when he demands the right to sacrifice your children to the Sun God because "it's his culture/religion, innit"?

[Tired and emotional]

Jabbawock - I guessed that, I just got carried away.

Norton - does anything rouse you from your torpor? What would it take to get you to actually engage with what is happening rather than hide behind the normal accusations of fascism?

You pretend there is no problem to trouble your weary head with, at least nothing that can't be sorted out with a good dose of common sense and a bit of a chin-wag over a cup of rosie lee.

You don't address the fundamental point I made which is what if Islam and citizanship of Britain (indeed any nation-state) are fundamentally incompatible?

If you need to find yourself on safer ground why not water it down as follows: what if certain strains of Islam are incompatible with citizenship of a secular, non-Sharia, non-halal country?

We fought wars to protect the freedoms we now take for granted and that are again under threat from an ideology with far more in common with Mosley than Jabbawock or myself.

[Mark]

Thank you DVA. The best thing we can do with opinions we don't like is distance ourselves from them and then move on to discuss making our existing society work...

The problem is that this blog is so widely read and is taken to be a "party website". I worry that if we don't vocally refute certain ideas, it's as if we accept them.

[TomTom]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism became incorporated into official policies in several nations in the 1970s for reasons that varied from country to country.

In Canada, it was adopted in 1971 following the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, a government body set up in response to the grievances of Canada's French-speaking minority (concentrated in the Province of Quebec). The report of the Commission advocated that the Canadian government should recognize Canada as a bilingual and bicultural society and adopt policies to preserve this character. Biculturalism was attacked from many directions.

Progressive Conservative Party leader John Diefenbaker saw multiculturalism as an attack on his vision of unhyphenated Canadianism. It did not satisfy the growing number of young francophones who gravitated towards Quebec nationalism. While many Canadians of British descent disliked the new policies of biculturalism and official bilingualism, the strongest opposition came from Canadians of neither English nor French descent, the so-called "Third Force" Canadians. Biculturalism did not accord with local realities in the western provinces, where the French population was tiny compared to other groups such as the Chinese Canadians, the group that was arguably most important in modifying the policy of biculturalism. To accommodate these groups, the formula was changed from "bilingualism and biculturalism" to "bilingualism and multiculturalism."

The Liberal Party government of Pierre Trudeau promulgated the "Announcement of Implementation of Policy of Multiculturalism within Bilingual Framework" in the House of Commons on 8 October 1971, the precursor of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act which received Royal Assent on 21 July 1988. Symbolically, this legislation affirmed that Canada was a multicultural nation. On a more practical level, federal funds began to be distributed to ethnic groups to help them preserve their cultures. Projects typically funded included folk dancing competitions and the construction of community centres. This led to criticisms that the policy was actually motivated by electoral considerations. After its election in 1984, the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney did not reverse these policies, although they had earlier been criticized by Tories as inconsistent with "unhyphenated Canadianism." This policy has been supported by every subsequent government and was added to Canada's 1982 constitution, in section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

NB Mulroney's Conservatives did not reverse these policies.

Perhaps Karl Popper "The Open Society & Its Enemies" should be required reading

[Chad]

"Chad, Switzerland is hardly a reasonable comparison. How about France"

Hi Martin,
Ergh, I wasn't trying to be reasonable, I was trying to challenge some views here.

My overall point was not about Switzerland in itself, but that are the residents of European countries that meddle less in the affairs of other countries more or less likely to face a terrorist attack?

We shouldn't be afraid to ask the question and we should think about the answer rationally rather than bringing up Hitler, losing our cool etc.

Are Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland etc, etc at as high an alert as us, and if not, is there a pattern?

These are not rhetorical questions, I really would like to know.

Remember we were told this pre-emptive action was to make us safer. We shouldn't hold back from challenging that assertion if we do not believe it to true.

Calm, rational debate. And I'm the the ukipper! ;-)

[Cardinal Pirelli]

Never posted before but the jabberwock's post is just so poor and confused I just had to say that it had tears of laughter streaming down my face.

Go and join another party, they might even want you if you choose the right one.

I thought that people like that had died out. Oh well, a salutary lesson to us all.

[Martin Cole]

The Martin who is posting above is not the editor who runs the blogs UKIP Uncovered, Ironies Too, Teetering Tories etc.

Good to see that one of your posters - Tom Tom quotes the greatest democrat of the last century Karl Popper.

My blogs will very shortly return to their earlier level of activity after fifteen months of frustration with no broadband.

On topic, Michael Gove should seek some real experiences at this stage of his career and then return to pontificate. He might then have leadership potential unlike Cameron and Osborne

[TomTom]

Remember we were told this pre-emptive action was to make us safer. We shouldn't hold back from challenging that assertion if we do not believe it to true.

The Luftwaffe did not bomb London before we declared war on Germany; it did however bomb Guernica without declaring war.

February 1969: Yassir Arafat becomes leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah takes over the PLO)

Leila Khaled did hi-jack aircraft with the PFLP and involve Britain in her schemes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leila_Khaled

Switzerland, February 1970: A bomb by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine kills all 47 people aboard a SwissAir flight

September 1970: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine carries out simultaneous hijackings to Jordan (Dawson's Field) of TWA, Swissair and BOAC planes for a total of over 300 hostages ("Skyjack Sunday"), which are swapped with Leila Khaled, the leader of the PFLP cell captured in Britain

November 1970: Hafez Assad, Shiite leader of the military wing of the Baath Party, overthrows the President of Syria

We don't need to do anything - they just come for us. London is the major Arab centre outside the Middle East - just how do people think it can disengage itself from Islam and the travails of the Middle East ? Expel all Muslims and Arabs ?

Has anyone noticed just how Arab London is in terms of banks, restaurants, areas, people, newspapers, media ?

[Derek]

Our state of alert reflects our prominent role in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the large number of muslims here. We can continue to argue we would rather be in some other nations shoes, but the reality is we are where we are.

I suspect we may face this for some time and sooner or later some indoctrinated muslim fanatics will succeed again in perpetrating another atrocity. How do we stop this indoctrination? This is very difficult, but the best way is by insisting that all mosques and schools of all types are open to snap inspection, and encouraging pupils and teachers to report any attempts to "radicalise" young people to the authorities.

[CJ]

Mark @ 18:43

The problem is that this blog is so widely read and is taken to be a "party website". I worry that if we don't vocally refute certain ideas, it's as if we accept them.

Very well said. The views of some on this thread are repugnant

[RodS]

Some things are black and white ! If you are not with us you are against us. That should be the message to the Asian/Muslim bloc that has occupied large areas of England. No ifs and buts - no excuses. If you do not accept the norms and conventions of this country and its democratically derived Foreign Policy - then bugger off. That's the bottom line and I am with Jon Gale

[lucy74]

No wonder senior Tories are terrified of talking about immigration for fear of being labelled racists - when we have such regugnant, racist and bigoted views amongst the grassroots, it's no wonder so many still don't trust the Tories.

[CJ]

The views expressed are still repugnant whether you think the answer is black and white, or not (and it isn't)

[Cardinal Pirelli]

Could be Cameron's equivalent to rooting out Militant to get rid of the extremists like those on here.

Until that happens then other parties are always going to point to people like this and all those votes go trickling away.....

[Matt Wright]

I think the threat from Islamic extremists is real, serious and perhaps inevitable but the actions in Iraq have compounded aspects of the problem and accelerated it. Not long ago sections of the Arab world were pitched against each other and in part Islamic extremists were kept down. This provided the West with proxy Allies if you like. Now we seem to have successfully united many people in the Arab world against us. With their allies amongst our own communities in the West we have the potential for alarming problems,

Matt

[El Orens]

Is anyone else listening to Radio Five right now?

Its the standard Israel/US/Imperialism/Poor Palestinians/Oppression/Poverty/Je....sorry, Zionists/"tiny minority of extremists" schtick that we've come to expect from the BBC in response to attempts mass murder by the Religion of Peace.

Except that it's being spouted by our ex-PPC for Watford, Ali Miraj.

The man is a disgrace.

[Paul Staines]

That Guido has long been a member of "the crazies."

Just wait until they are all convicted, then he'll have to retract.

[James]

Just a thought for all those keen to endlessly juxtapose the Israeli-Palestinian issue onto the Islamic terrorism issue: do any of you seriously think that bin Laden and co would pack up shop and head home if this age old issue was finally resolved - even to maximum Palestinian benefit? That the Ayatollahs would call of the revolution, and all those Finsbury Park Inams end their deranged rants and head back home with a resolution to watch Arsenal play more often?

I'd like to think so, but I doubt it. I can see the importance of western actions not providing an obvious recruiting sergent for Islamist movements, and that this question is directly relevent to Iraq. But these guys didn't come from Iraq, Palestine or even Afghanistan. I may be jumping the gun, but it looks like a substantial portion of the plotters were again British, and from a nominal (if incredibly shakey) ally: Pakistan. There all comparatively wealthy, comfortable and secure.

To ascribe anything close to a reason for their actions insults people in far more dire straights than them. It also ignores bin Laden's stated reason for the 02' Bali bombing: to punish the west for their support for East Timorese independence from Islamic Indonesia.

But aren't westerners always the imperialists?

[malcolm]

What a terrible thread. I'm embarrased to be in the same party as some of the posters here. I'm suprised at you Jon Gale and Jonathan Mackie I hope you don't get within a million miles of a Parliamentary seat.
Thank God for the likes of William Norton.

[Chad]

"Thank God for the likes of William Norton."

..and Chad

[El Orens]

Its time for William Norton, Malcolm and Chad to get serious about defending Western civilisation. They are the modern equivalent of the men of Munich.

War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Let us give them all they want of it.

[Ted]

"Second rate Oswald Mosley's"

fantastic summation William.

just as militants are a small minority in the British muslim community this thread shows the Mosley's are a small but vociferous minority among this blogs correspondents - not necessarily Conservatives either- and the response to their inane comments shows the real sensible face of Conservatives.

[Patsy Sergeant]

The government are between a rock and a hard place on this issue, and it is entirely of their own making (their own fault!) So now if they do their usual thing and seek to placate the muslim community (as I put on another thread, something that has never been done before to any other religious community), they will seriously lose that precious thing that - on masse - they care about more than anything else VOTES, yes this government will lose lots of votes probably to the BNP. But if they seek to reassure the rest of English society that they have their safety in mind, then they might upset some areas of muslim society. Well Matey's you have brought it on yourselves. A decade of virtually unlimited immigration, of 24hr drinking encouraged, of enormous gambling casinos opening - if they have their way - drunkeness and violence regularly in cities and towns, what a wonderful advertisement for a trendy liberal leftwing establishment!!

[Ted]

Western Civilisation is among other things about tolerance, the rule of law, personal liberty, the right to disbelieve, to be different, freedom of movement - those who posit a whole community as the villians have joined the Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and allies against Western Civilisation.

There are people in this community who are a danger to our freedoms, through intelligence and policing we need to find them and drive out those who inflame and use them. They threaten us with violence in hope of martyrdom and hope to create over-reactions that further inflame and bring new converts to their cause. Gove is right to identify where Government policy is supporting the wrong groups and using the wrong tactics in dealing with the internal threat - that way lies appeasement. I'm not convinced that the solutions are miltary or that describing it as a war helps. There is a place for military action as in Afghanistan but I don't want to see Bradford, Walthamstow or High Wycombe under martial law.

We must find ways to starve the militants of the fuel they need, to isolate them and distance them from the communities they operate in, to strengthen those in British Islam whose values are those shared by the majority of the British people.

[Bob B]

The suggestion made above about (re)reading Karl Popper's The Open Society is an inspired one in this context. Prescribing a "War Against Terrorism" makes about as much sense as the warning that: "It is unlucky to walk under ladders."

Can Michael Gove point to a continuing period in European history, beginning with the Reformation, when there hasn't been some threat from terrorism? What does he make of the following events - to mention but a few that come easily to mind without much research?

St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris 24 August 1572
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre

"Guy Fawkes could have changed the face of London if his 1605 plot had not been foiled, explosion experts have said. His 2,500 kg of gunpowder could have caused chaos and devastation over a 490-metre radius, they have calculated. Fawkes' planned blast was powerful enough to destroy Westminster Hall and the Abbey, with streets as far as Whitehall suffering damage, they say."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3240135.stm

The Thirty Years War in Europe 1618-48
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/thirty_years_war.htm

The Gordon Riots in London 1780
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Riots

The Terror 1793/4 following the French Revolution of 1789
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror
(Note: Britain was embroiled in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1793 through to the battle of Waterloo in 1815)

The Peterloo Massacre in Manchester 1819
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre

The European revolutions of 1848
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848

- which incidentally led Karl Marx and family to seek asylum in London.

The Sheffield Outrages 1866
http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/tuc-2878-f6.cfm

The Fenian Rising of 1867
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_Rising

The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 by a suicide bombing
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Assass.html

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand 1914
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria

[Jon White]

Just got back on-line after a business trip - yes airport security was a nightmare for the travellers, but at least I felt safer - and find some of the comments here very very sad. To condemn an entire religion for the deeds of some of it's adherents is not only morally repugnant, but downright stupid. Should we blame all Christians for the deeds of the Inquisition? It's equally silly.

Of course not all Muslims are terrorists. Sadly, it is a fact that the vast majority of terrorists are Muslims. It would appear that the 'Muslim community' (if such a thing does exist) actually helped to stop these outrages, and that should be recognised. However, I see nothing wrong in stricter surveillance on the extremist factions of religious hatred - be they Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, or the fundalmentalist Christian. A society should protect the rights of all it's members to practise their chosen religion in peace and safety. However, if that religion includes preventing others from practising theirs - and killing members of other religions - then society has not only the right but also the obligation to act quickly to stop that. If that means racial 'stereotyping', then so be it. We should never become so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance.

[TomTom]

Should we blame all Christians for the deeds of the Inquisition?

NO !

a) The Inquisition never operated in England

b) The Inquisition in Spain and Portugal was under the control of the King of Spain and NOT the Catholic Church

c) The Inquisition did not affect most people

d) The Inquisition was more akin to a Sharia Court than anything else, so perhaps you should blame Muslims for Sharia Courts

[malcolm]

So what's your point Tom Tom?

[william]

Patsy - here is a flavour of how the BNP might approach the terror situation (from their website)

'The British National Party Executive's solution to this problem is to ban immediately, ALL MUSLIMS from flying out of (and in to) Britain until the security situation has been fully resolved.

During recent international football competitions, a similar ban on English football hooligans was carried out, when many football fans had their passports confiscated and travel restricted.'

If the BNP's policies were allowed onto the airwaves and not propagated by activists who can righly claim they are being repressed by Big Brother, the Conservative leadership could provide a reasoned alternative to the BNP.

As it is, as the BNP give the only 'strong' version of how to deal with terrorism, many people will be drawn to the apparent strength of their position, as they hear no reasoned opposition to it.

The current libertarian elite control the media so tightly that politicians don't dare challenge the current orthodoxy.

The result of suppressing debate is to create the sectarianism that Political Correctness is intended to prevent. It is instructive that before we suffered from home grown terrorism, we abandonned Freedom of Speech.

It would have been better to allow Enoch Powell to speak and influence immigration policy in the 1970's. At least something would have been done to position the cultural problem we now have. It would be better now to allow similar voices to speak on the media, not because they are right, but because they would act as a catalyst, and show people where the middle ground on immigration is (after seeing the more extreme, it gives perspective to people).

Without a debate that allows more extreme views to be expressed, people are easily persuaded that there is a conspiracy to defraud them when they first meet the BNP's style of propaganda on the street. By repressing the BNP, the government are fuelling their fire. Let them speak openly. The resulting debate would be productive, and the BNP would lose a lot of their appeal by losing their 'martyr' status.

As Patsy says, they (the government)have brought this on themselves. What's even more important, they're bringing it on us.

[Bob B]

"Should we blame all Christians for the deeds of the Inquisition?"

What general conclusions might we draw from this?

Galileo Galilei 1564-1642: Italian astronomer and physicist. The first to use a telescope to study the stars. Discoverer of the first moons of an extraterrestrial body (see Galilean Moons). Galileo was an outspoken supporter of Copernicus's heliocentric theory. In reaction to Galileo, the Church declared it heresy to teach that the Earth moved and imprisoned him. The Church clung to this position for 350 years until Galileo was formally exonerated in 1992.
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/people.htm#G

[tired and emotional]

William is right about this... just as Margaret Hodge was right to report what voters were telling her about Barking. Given a referendum on an immigration question such as, "In order to allow the Home Office to clear the backlog of immigration applications and removals the UK should have a ten year morotorium on immigration" - which way do you believe England and Wales would vote?

[TomTom]

d) The Inquisition was more akin to a Sharia Court than anything else, so perhaps you should blame Muslims for Sharia Courts

Posted by: TomTom | August 12, 2006 at 06:34

So what's your point Tom Tom?

There it is Malcolm. If ALL Christians are responsible for the Inquisition - ALL MUslims are responsible for Sharia Courts.

Every woman stoned in Nigeria for adultery is the responsibility of every Muslim in Brick Lane, London.

Every time a hand is severed in Saudi Arabia it is an indictment of every single Muslim living in the United Kingdom

[Jon White]

Precisely TomTom. That is what I was saying. To blame ALL Muslims for the deeds of a minority (however significant that majority is) is plain stupid. It is also the sort of hate politics that will stop us being elected.

It is also stupid, however, to ignore the fact that the majority of the terrorist threat in the modern world comes from Islamic extremists. To recognize that fact is not racist, it is simply a statement of fact. Ergo, sadly the majority of peaceful, law-abiding, British Muslims will have to endure the increased surveillance etc of their 'communities' in order that the state can adequately protect the majority of it's citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim, against the murderous extremists.

[Patsy Sergeant]

William @ 8.19 - You are right about Enoch Powell in the 70's. I wasn't very politically sophisticated in those days, but I can remember feeling ill at ease and quite shocked at the way he was hounded in the press - and 'hounded' is not an over-statement! But if he had at least been given 'the time of day', and if there had been more proper debate... well yes. But often in history people refuse to face up to things, or people in power to admit to an unpleasant truth until it is too late, and the consequencies for everyone due to their shameless procrastination, are thoroughly unpleasant.

I only hope that people in the media are being as inconvenienced as ordinary members of the public, since many of them helped to bring this situation about. Of course politicians in power are always one remove away from reality - mores the pity, and our esteemed leader appears to have no problem relaxing and sunning himself, but then leaders do sometimes do that - once! The name Putin comes to mind.

[Phil]

Jon White (at 0247) makes sensible comments, but this needs clarifying: "However, I see nothing wrong in stricter surveillance on the extremist factions of religious hatred - be they Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, or the fundamentalist Christian" When do the Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, or the fundamentalist Christian advocate murder and engage in terrorist acts against non-believers in their faiths and seek to gain submission by force of arms? From what I know of evangelicals, for example, spreading the faith happens through showing God's love and preaching truth (although this might not always be popular!). Then they expect God would change the desires of people who respond so they want to obey Him. Jon White is better when he adds "if ... religion includes preventing others from practising theirs - and killing members of other religions - then society has not only the right but also the obligation to act quickly to stop that. If that means racial 'stereotyping', then so be it." But his statement "We should never become so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance." could be qualified - it is surely OK to be intolerant of wrong. So much talk about "tolerance" these days leaves out any sense of right and wrong.

May I say I think his piece at 1537 is sensible and well said.

[Phil]

When I asked, "when do the Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, or the fundamentalist Christian advocate murder and engage in terrorist acts against non-believers in their faiths and seek to gain submission by force of arms?" I could have added "and most Muslims" to the list.