CentreRight

As Conservative Home reported on Monday, Alan’s Duncan on BBC called Miss California a ‘bitch’ and joked that if she was found murdered he would be responsible because she disagreed with gay marriage…

Dear Mr Duncan,

Many people in our party and also outside it hold you in high esteem. You have risen to hold high office in the shadow cabinet. It is one of the virtues of our party that although we hold to certain core values, such as freedom of speech, the party is by no means intolerant of those who hold a range of opinions on other issues. It was therefore deeply disappointing to hear your comments made on BBC about Miss California (Carrie Prejean) who had been called a b****** and a c*** by one of the Miss USA judges simply because when asked about her views on gay marriage she politely stated her honest and deeply held belief that “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offence to anybody out there”. The very gracious way that she responded both to that question and to the subsequent abuse from the judge who asked her the question set a standard for the rest of us to follow.

Alan we all know that you personally disagree with her. However, the manner in which you expressed your disagreement with her comments caused very deep offence to many people, including many whom the Conservative Party will be asking to vote for them in the next few weeks.

Mr Duncan, you called the lady a ‘bitch’ and joked that she should be murdered because of her deeply held beliefs that ‘marriage is something that is between a man and a woman’. A few weeks ago Stonewall circulated a briefing note to MPs citing a rap song with lyrics suggesting that gay people should be murdered. They cited it as an example of the sort of comment, however intended, that should be criminalised. I have no doubt whatsoever that as a gay man you would have found such a song deeply offensive. Would it therefore be too much to hope that reflecting on this might help you in turn to understand how deeply offensive your comments were to those who, out of religious or moral convictions, disagree with your own views on gay marriage?

Those of us involved in politics know that at times we all make mistakes, we say something that was inappropriate, something that offends those we did not mean to hurt or abuse. However, it is how we respond to that situation afterwards that shows our true character. Boris made his famous Liverpool comment, but responded by apologising, saying how stunned he was by the offence he had caused. No one thought the worse of him for it, in fact it raised him in many people’s esteem, it showed him to be the greater man. Alan, for the sake of those you’ve hurt, it’s time to do a Boris…

To mark St George’s Day 1933 Winston Churchill made a broadcast speech entitled ‘England’, edited excerpts of which I have reproduced below, (courtesy of the Royal Society of St George to whom Churchill made the speech). Read today, his comments are a sobering verdict on the present government who have undermined and even discarded values that Churchill believed were indisputably integral (though not exclusive!) to ‘England’. Churchill began by speaking about the legend of St George and the dragon:

"I have been wondering what would have happened to him and his story if he had lived now-a-days. St George would have arrived in Cappadocia accompanied, not by a horse, but by a secretariat. He would have been armed, not with a lance, but with some flexible formulas. He would, of course have been welcomed by the local branch of the League of Nations, and, encouraged by them, he would have proposed a conference with the dragon. He would have made a trade agreement with the dragon and would certainly have lent him a lot of money raised from the Cappadocian taxpayers. The question of the maiden’s release, which is very important in the story, would no doubt have been referred to Geneva. It being understood that the dragon reserved all his rights in the meantime. Finally, St George would have been photographed with the dragon, inset the maiden."

At 0810 on Tuesday morning Jacqui Smith went on Radio 4's Today programme to explain the government's new counter terrorism strategy. The Home Secretary was at pains to emphasise that non violent Islamist groups must be allowed freedom of speech. Ms Smith told listeners:

"I've been very clear that one of the important values we have in this country is free speech. People should be able to say what they believe, but they shouldn't necessarily do that without challenge. An argument we're making is not that these views become illegal, but that we as government, citizens and others will challenge the views of those who seek to undermine our shared values."

At 17.41 that same day, less than ten hours later, the government used a 3 line whip to force through the Commons the abolition of the 'Free Speech' clause that the House of Lords last year made the government insert into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. The 'Free Speech' clause essentially sought to ensure that whilst stirring up hatred against people who were homosexual would become criminalised, free discussion of the morality of homosexual practice (i.e. beliefsabout sexual ethics) would not be. In particular, it sought to protect Christian ministers from being prosecuted for simply stating what the Church has for the last two thousand years held to be the teaching of Scripture, that sexual relationships outside of hetrosexual marriage are in the Bible's words 'sinful'.

Advisers to President Obama are reportedly split over whether the US should try to bribe moderate elements in the Taliban to defect.

It is certainly true that many Afghans joined the various mujhaddin factions and later the Taliban because the offered a pay packet - in a country where aid agencies are the largest employers and often the only ones offering a living wage.

However, history tells us that bribery can never provide a lasting solution to 'the Afghan problem' as local people call it. Neither can it provide President Obama with his desired exit strategy from Afghanistan. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the British colonial administration pursued a similar policy in the tribal areas between what is now the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan (NWFP) and what in 1895 became the border of Afghanistan. The Pushtun (Pathan) tribes were given muwajib - an 'allowance' to live peacefully. They accepted the allowance, then a year or so later rose up against the government until they received another allowance...!

Suffolk police have revealed that an eight-year old boy in a rural area of Suffolk raped a girl aged under 10. They also recorded the case of another eight-year old boy who sexually assaulted a girl under 13. Both were among 24 very young children that Suffolk Police were unable to prosecute because they were below the age of criminal responsibility.

When such serious sexual offences are committed by very young children in one of the most rural and socially unspoilt areas of Britain we should ask ourselves some serious questions about quite how broken some parts of our society have become. Unfortunately, at the moment we have a prime minister in Gordon Brown who, whenever the issue is raised, simply insists that society 'isn't broken'.

Rebuilding Britain's broken society will be as important a task for a future Conservative government as rebuilding an economy was for the last Conservative government at a time when many believed it to be in terminal decline. A key feature of rebuilding our broken society will be the need to sensitively address the premature sexualisation of children, whether by the advertising industry, or even some of the government's own policies. Many of us seriously question whether the government, in the form of what has been renamed the Department for Children, Schools and Families, should be seeking to impose its writ specifically on children and families. However, if there is any value at all in having a government department for children - then it surely must be to protect childhood.

The Times Educational Supplement has revealed that teachernet - the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)'s own in house training and resource centre for teachers - has been promoting a series of lessons whose activities included encouraging children to imagine that they were one of the 7/7 London bombers. The course called 'Things do Change' was developed by Calderdale Council seemingly in response to a 'toolkit' on how to prevent violent extremism sent by Schools Secretary Ed Balls to all schools last October. The 'imagine you are a terrorist trying to blow up London' lesson is according to the TES now being used not just in West Yorkshire schools but also in other schools and madrassas (Islamic theological schools) in the UK...

So there we have it, the government department responsible for our schools is promoting lessons that encourage vulnerable young Muslims to pretend to be terrorists...

In several respects the responsibility for this catastrophic failure goes right to the top of the DCSF - Ed Balls the Schools Secretary and Jim Knight the Schools Minister:

1. Ministerial oversight: These two ministers were responsible for overseeing the department that promoted these lessons - they clearly failed in this duty.

2. A dangerous degree of muddle and confusion in the advice these ministers gave to schools on how to prevent violent extremism: Ed Balls and Jim Knight cannot simply claim that they didn't know what was going on in their department. It was very specifically their muddled policy on how schools should prevent violent extremism that directly led to Calderdale Council developing these lessons.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has used the anniversary of his sharia speech to defend the views he advocated then - that Islamic law (sharia) should be implemented in the UK for issues such as family law. Dr Williams argued that implementing parts of sharia would be similar to the Jewish Beth Din arbitration courts that have operated for some time and subsequent debate focused on the question of whether the 1996 Arbitration Act could be used by sharia courts.

Subsequently, and as a direct result of Dr Williams comments, some of the UK Islamist organisations that operate what they term 'sharia courts' have started to claim that their actions are legally binding under the Arbitration Act. Their claim is that they have, by this route, in effect introduced sharia into the UK legal system. This is a situation that as far as I am aware has yet to be tested in the courts.

However, whilst only some of the UK 'sharia courts' currently claim that their decisions are legally binding, no one should be in any doubt that many of the decision made by these sharia courts are profoundly at odds with fundamental principles of British law. Whilst much has written about the discrimination faced by women divorced under sharia the issues of inheritance and child custody, which are equally central parts of Islamic family law, similarly highlight the discrimination against women inherent in Islamic law.

Now that the dust has begun to settle on the BBC's refusal to air the Disaster's Emergency Committee (DEC)'s Gaza appeal, it is time in the cool light of day to take a good hard look at the issue of political bias.

The spat between the BBC and the DEC should never have happened. The modern Aid agency movement was set up in the aftermath of war, Save The Children was set up in 1919 to relieve the suffering at the end of the first world war, OXFAM in 1942 and CARE in 1945. Moreover, aid agencies always work within a political context. Aid workers have to make local contacts and get local permission to work. Sometimes this is with groups that it would be wholly inappropriate for western governments to negotiate with. As an aid worker in Afghanistan I had to negotiate with radical Islamist groups such as the Taliban and the notorious Hezb-i-Islami party of Gulbadin Hekmatyer, in order to be allowed to travel to areas that they controlled access to. However, anyone who has worked in such areas is acutely aware that whoever is seen by the local people as introducing or facilitating the entry of aid workers to an area will get an enormous amount of political kudos when the aid work starts. In fact, it is often a very difficult task for aid agencies to avoid increasing the political influence of some rather unpleasant political groups. For example, in going to an area in Afghanistan where no other aid agencies were then working, I had to negotiate hard for my agency to be allowed to travel there without being accompanied by Hezb-i-Islami soldiers.

The situation in Gaza is particularly difficult for aid agencies as Hamas very deliberately and successfully used aid projects as a means of gaining power in the 2005 elections. Whilst Hamas' share of the vote for the nationally decided seats remained at almost exactly the same level as it had been in previous elections, it won by winning an unexpectedly large number of locally decided seats. This was achieved by local Hamas candidates deliberately pursuing a long term strategy of starting local humanitarian projects, often funded by western sources, as a means of increasing their personal vote. Many Palestinians who had voted for local Hamas candidates were then shocked when a succession of local seat wins led to Hamas winning the overall election.

The trouble with calling for a 'truce' between Israel and Hamas as Foreign Secretary David Milliband and numerous non governmental organisations now have is...the underlying assumption that if Israel and Palestinian groups such as Hamas can simply be made to talk to each other, then the whole squabble can be solved.

However, there are 3 reasons which fundamentally prevent that ever happening and at least the first two are deeply grounded in Hamas' very raison d'etre:

1. Domination: Islamist groups exist to create an Islamic government with Islamic law (sharia) imposed not merely on Muslim majority areas, but ultimately on the whole world, including Israel. Islamic theology held both by Islamist and historically by Sunni theologians holds that it has been divinely decreed that the whole world should be subjected to Islamic government and law (not the view of a great many ordinary British Muslims who understand Islam primarily in devotional rather than political terms). Therefore once an area has at any time in past history been subjected to Islamic government, it then become an act of 'defensive' jihad to fight to reimpose Islamic rule on that area. Palestinian Islamist groups such as al-Jihad and Hamas therefore see their actions in firing indiscriminately into Israeli towns as an act of divinely commanded defence, restoring Islamic government and sharia over an area where it once held sway.

2. Deception: Hamas have very different concepts of 'truth' and 'treaty' from the western world. Lying is not necessarily regarded as 'bad' if it gains one a strategic advantage. There is an Hadith (Islamic tradition traced back to Muhammad) which states that it is permissible to lie to reconcile friends, to any woman and in jihad. The concept of 'truce' used by Islamist groups such as Hamas largely reflects the last of these. When Hamas broke their truce with Israel on 19th December, it was not a treaty in the western sense of the term, but what is termed in Islamic theology hudna (a temporary truce before war is recommenced). It is based on the sunna (example) of Muhammad who agreed a peace treaty known as 'the treaty of Hudabiya' with the pagan Quraish tribe who then controlled Mecca. Muhammad then dispensed with the 'treaty' a year later when he had become strong enough to take Mecca by force. The concept of Hudabiya is so widely known in the Middle East that even a predominately nationalist leader like Yasser Arafat is reported to have silenced the criticisms of the Arab press when he signed the peace accord by simply saying 'well brothers, let's just say this is Hudabiya'.

This week the question of whether pre nuptial agreements should be made legally binding was raised in a report reviewing family law reform for the Centre for Social Justice. Hardly a hot topic you may think unless you happen to be fantastically rich and about to get married? Well actually such a proposal could effectively legalise a situation of grave injustice experienced by a number of Muslim women.

Although it may come as a surprise to many, the islamisation of family law in Britain is at the forefront of the strategy being pursued by some 'non violent' Islamist groups in the UK. Put simply, the strategy of such groups is to bring about a step by step alignment of British law with sharia - either by lobbying for changes to parliamentary law or by pushing test cases through the courts. Illustrative of this was a meeting that government ministers had with leaders of key Islamic organisations immediately after the arrest of a number of Muslims on suspicion of being involved in a terrorist plot centred on Heathrow airport in August 2006. The government ministers aimed to allay the fear that the arrests had generated in the Muslim community. However the Islamic leaders chose this occasion to make two wholly unrelated requests - Islamic festivals to be made UK bank holidays and a partial implementation of sharia in Britain in respect of Islamic family law. The then Communities Secretary, Ruth Kelly rather naively responded by setting up a commission to look into implementing the first of these.

However, if we are to avoid importing and institutionalising the injustices experienced by some women in the Islamic world, then we need to have our eyes much wider open to the agenda of 'non violent' Islamist groups than the present government has, and this includes even seemingly innocent matters such as whether pre nuptial agreements should be made legally binding in the UK.

It's not often that an opposition has potentially more influence with a foreign government than the incumbent British government. But this may be the case with the Maldives. The newly elected president - Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldivian Democratic Party - relied heavily on Conservative Party expertise to win the country's first democratic election in thirty years. It is reported that his election campaign was run by a former aide to London mayor Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party was also instrumental in securing funding for his campaign.

The democratic election took place under the auspices of a new constitution ratified three months ago by the country's former President Abdul Gayoom, who had presided over a dictatorship responsible for significant human rights abuses. However, there is a fly in the ointment of the new constitution in the form of a clause, which states that

'a non Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives'

This is a significant deterioration from the situation under the previous constitution, which only denied non Muslims the right to vote. The new law effectively strips around 3,000 Maldivians of their citizenship and basic rights. This is an area where there is a real opportunity for Conservative shadow ministers to exercise quiet diplomacy behind the scenes. This may not get media attention, but helping change a human rights abusing Islamic state into something approaching a liberal democracy is the sort of foreign policy success that provides a very sound foundation for good Conservative government in the future.

When parents educate their children about sex - the overwhelming majority of responsible parents are likely to aim to help their offspring make the transition from puberty to forming, what is ideally, a life long loving relationship exemplified in many cases by marriage.

However, when the present government takes charge of sex education - its primary aim is altogether different. Announcing that the government will make PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) including sex education compulsory for all children from 5-16, the Children's Minister Baroness Delyth Morgan stated that:

'Ultimately this will help the drive to reduce teenage pregnancies, STIs...'

That, is an altogether different aim from those of most parents. So parents SHOULD be concerned that the government is also considering abolishing the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex education lessons.

The government's argument is based on the report of an 'external' review committee on sex education chaired by School's Minister Jim Knight MP. This claimed that OFSTED have identified the primary/secondary transition (i.e. age 11) as a weak point in school sex education and also criticised schools for concentrating on factual sex education information, rather than on

'helping children and young people to develop the skills and confidence they need to manage real life situations they face in their daily lives, such as ...how to negotiate condom use when they do choose to become sexually active.'

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has just launched what it describes as a new 'toolkit' to equip schools to prevent violent extremism.

Sadly, as with so many DCSF documents, what is included in this 'toolkit' is largely a rehash (or perhaps the word should be 'respin') of what is already going on in schools. Schools are encouraged to use the Every Child Matters framework, to develop school strategies that promote critical thinking, to challenge any behaviour that harms the ability of individuals or groups to work together and to manage harmful media and internet information etc. Does the government honestly think that the overwhelming majority of schools are not already doing all of these and more - and were doing so long before Ed Balls became Schools Secretary?

The toolkit's most glaring omission is that while ostensibly seeking to promote community cohesion, it fails to provide a list of the key British values that underpin our free democratic society - such as parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc - a list which many schools would greatly value the government providing. One cannot promote community cohesion in schools, or anywhere else for that matter, unless it is clear what key shared values, one is seeking to get people to cohere to.

Patrick Sookhdeo Faith, Power and Territory: A Handbook of British Islam (McClean,VA,USA:Isaac Publishing,2008) 360pp. 

Patrick Sookhdeo is always worth Reading on political Islam. He is the author of Global Jihad (see previous review) which provided a groundbreaking analysis of Islam and international relations. Dr Sookhdeo, who was until recently based in the UK, has now written an equally insightful book on British Islam. In Faith, Power and Territory he looks at how many modern expressions of Islam in Britain have both political and territorial ambitions.

The book demonstrates how, unlike Christian missions, Islamic missionary work (da'wa) aims not merely at encouraging a personal faith decision, but also at islamicising the social and political structures of society. Patrick Sookhdeo identifies attempts to 'contextualise' this da'wa to make it appear more acceptable to non Muslims in Britain. he observes for example that Islamists commonly refer to the creation of an Islamic state in Britain with the euphemism of creating 'a just world order', a practice based on the historic Islamic doctrine of taqiyya (saying one thing in public and another in private in order to advance the Islamic cause). The book also identifies specific Islamist strategies for achieving this islamisation of society, such as Islamist calls for the creation of 'no go' areas, where insults to Islam would not be tolerated.

As well as having clear 'war aims' in Afghanistan , the west needs to have a clear idea of what is a realistic political settlement. Unfortunately the present Labour government seem to have only hazy ideas about the objectives of fighting in Afghanistan and even hazier ones about what might be realistically achievable political objectives. A year ago Defence Secretary Des Browne told the Labour Party conference that a future political settlement in Afghanistan would have to involve both the Taliban being part of government and government imposed Islamic law - statements he rather patronisingly neglected to consult the Afghan government on. One might equally well ask exactly what sort of a government minister could make such statements while at the very same time sending thousands of British troops to risk death and disablement in southern Afghanistan. Let me say very clearly at this point that I don't believe that Des Browne or any other government minister is the complete moral chameleon that these comments imply (although some will doubtless disagree!). It's just that the Labour government don't seem to have any clear political vision for what can realistically be achieved in Afghanistan.

So, let's set out what in practical terms is at least potentially achievable:

1. We are fighting radical Islamists such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda to prevent them creating a radical jihadist state from which to launch attacks on the west, with the ultimate aim of enforcing an Islamic government on the whole world. This is what was being worked out in Afghanistan when the Taliban 'governed' most of country. There is no alternative - we have to fight to prevent this happening.

When Margaret Thatcher led Britain to war in the Falklands we had a clear war aim: "to cause the withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falklands, if necessary by means of military force".

Unfortunately the same clarity of aims seems to be lacking in the current campaign in southern Afghanistan. The latter was announced in 2005 in terms if "reconstruction", with the then Defence Secretary John Reid expressing the somewhat naive hope that it might be completed without a shot being fired. Given that the Taliban are primarily a Pushtun movement and southern and eastern Afghanistan were the Pushtun heartland, this was never likely to happen.

Despite recent temperatures pushing 30 C Labour controlled Tower Hamlets Council has ordered all councillors not to drink in meetings during Ramadan (starts in about 2 DAYS), so as not to offend Muslim councillors. It has even gone so far as to order non Muslim councillors not to eat the finger food prepared for council meetings until Muslims break their fast at sunset - despite the food being served in a separate room.

Now I'm all for encouraging individuals to act with cultural sensitivity. That's why during the years that I lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan I didn't drink alcohol (although there were places in Pakistan where it was available), I didn't eat pork or bacon (although my colleague Larry found a shop in Peshawar that sold it under the counter!) and I didn't make a show of eating during Ramadan - although I did discretely drink water and no local Muslims ever objected to that. The latter however, is apparently now against the rules for non Muslims on Tower Hamlets Council...

Everyone of us with friends or children who have taken exams recently knows how incredibly hard they have had to work and feels nothing but admiration for what they have achieved. We all offer our warmest congratulations to those individuals who worked and sweated for these results.

This year a record breaking 25.9% of A-level students were awarded an A grade - more than twice the number in 1990. Government ministers have predictably sought to shine in the academic glory achieved by teenagers and herald these results as evidence of the success of their education policy. They conveniently forget of course that any real improvement in standards is primarily due to the hard work of students and teachers! What ministers should be doing of course - a duty which they positively owe to those hard working teenagers who took exams this summer - is making sure that educational standards in exams are maintained.

However, there is an increasing body of hard evidence that exam standards have actually slipped significantly and even some evidence that this grade inflation may actually be masking a decline in general levels of academic ability since the 1980s.

For those who want to use the summer break to understand Islamism in both its peaceful and violent forms (same end goal...just different methods!):

1. Peaceful Islamism

Anthony McRoy From Rushdie to 7/7: The Radicalisation of Islam in Britain (London:The Social Affairs Unit,2006) 236pp

This is an extremely important book, which should have much wider exposure than it has done so far. It is basically the book form of Anthony's PhD on this subject. But don't be put off - it is both relatively short and extremely readable. Explores the history of recent radicalisation as well as giving a very helpful analysis of the history, ideological agenda and methods of the main peaceful Islamist groups in the UK including the MCB, Muslim Association of Britain, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Islamic Human Rights Commission etc.

2. Violent Islamism and foreign affairs

Patrick Sookhdeo Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam (McLean,VA USA:Isaac Publishing,2007) 669pp 

Brilliant analysis of the ideology of violent Islamism and its strategy in relation to global domination and entrapment of the West (see my earlier review of Global Jihad on CentreRight).

3. Security issues in relation to Islamism

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon The Next Attack: The Globalisation of Jihad (London: Hodder and Stoughton,2005) 330pp 

Historical and strategic review of Islamist attempts to enact terrorist attacks on the West. The authors are both former directors of the US National Security Council.

Earlier this month the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears set out the government's policy on combating violent extremism (why only 'violent' extremism one might ask - but that's another article!). In this she listed 6 'shared values': 1. a belief in democracy 2. the rights of minorities 3. the need for competing political parties 4. a free press 5. an independent judiciary and 6. free elections. She declared that

'These fundamental tenets of democracy form the great dividing line between us and the extremists.'

Really? Three things concern me here.

First, the government evidently lacks a clear understanding of exactly what are our historic core British values: do they not include freedom of speech for everyone - not just the press? Where is freedom of religion - particularly the right not to have a world-view whether religious or secular pluralist imposed on people by legislation? Where is the Magna Carta provision of no arbitrary imprisonment without trial by jury etc. I could go on...

I hope Gordon Brown is allowed a quiet holiday in Suffolk and I mean that most sincerely - politicians do need a life outside of politics, particularly private time with their families.

Gordon Brown has actually made a really good choice for once, the Suffolk coast not only has award winning beaches, but also has the best summer weather in the UK - same average summer temperatures as Devon and Cornwall, but only half the number of rainy days.

However, if Gordon Brown doesn't get left alone (as he should be) on his summer hols, then Hazel Blears the Communities Secretary and local Waveney MP Bob Blizzard (Labour majority 5,915) may have something to answer for. Local Labour MP Bib Blizzard has been pushing for the creation of a unitary council encompassing both Lowestoft (Suffolk) and Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) - a proposal strongly opposed by both local councils, but which would create a 'safe' Labour council (surprise!). So, Hazel Blears instructed the Boundary Commission to review local councils in Suffolk and Norfolk. However, Ms Blears only allowed them to look at setting up unitary authorities, specifically forbidding them from looking at the status quo (which funnily enough happens to be predominantly Conservative controlled district councils). She also required the Boundary Commission to look at creating a Lowestoft-Yarmouth ('Yartoft') unitary council. The actions of Hazel Blears and local MP Bob Blizzard have now resulted in the Boundary Commission coming up with two alternative proposals for Suffolk - BOTH of which put the historic Suffolk town of Lowestoft under a Norfolk unitary council - effectively moving it from Suffolk to Norfolk - entirely against the very strongly felt wishes of the local people!

This week Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice advocated that some disputes could be settled on the basis of 'the principles of sharia' rather than English law. Douglas Carswell MP has written a commendable critique of why Lord Phillips has overstepped his constitutional position in making these remarks. What must be of equally great concern is that the Lord Chief Justice appears to have totally misunderstood the very nature of sharia. Put simply, Islamic theology unequivocally states that law cannot be 'made' by people, it can only be 'discovered' by Islamic theologians interpreting the Islamic scriptures (Qur'an and Hadlth). Consequently, when sharia exists alongside any other form of law, the 'man-made' law must always be subservient to sharia.

An example of the superior status given to sharia is slavery - which within the last 50 years has been banned by constitutional law in virtually every country in the world...yet is still present in a number of Islamic countries BECAUSE sharia legitimises the enslavement of non Muslims. An illustration of this happened this very week when Belgium police freed 17 women allegedly held as slaves by members of an Arab royal family residing in Brussels.

This week a white racist from the small Yorkshire town of Goole was convicted of plotting terrorist attacks aimed almost certainly at what are being euphemistically referred to as 'minority communities'. Also this week a white racist party came within 78 votes of securing 3rd place in the Henley by election, beating Labour by 177 votes. Given that neither Henley nor Goole are exactly multi-ethnic, the common factor is almost certainly a fear of radical Islam perversely twisted by white racist parties who want us all to believe that all Muslims are potential terrorists, a claim that is as untrue as it is dangerous.

However, both the conviction of a white supremacist of terrorist offences and the 3.5% vote gained by a racist party in the Henley by election, are at least in some measure a tragic legacy of the repeated public claims by both Labour  and Lib-Dem politicians that violence is a 'perversion' of Islam.

I have no doubt that such repeated comments by senior government ministers, including Jacqui Smith the Home Secretary and Hazel Blears the Communities Secretary are well intentioned. They doubtless see themselves as acting responsibly, aiming to avoid vigilante attacks on Muslims. But genuine responsibility needs to go hand in hand with truth.

Douglas Murray is almost certainly right in suggesting that the British government should seek to prosecute Abu Qatada. However, more fundamentally the government's problems in deporting Abu Qatada and other Islamist terrorists to their countries of origin stem from this government's own adoption of the European concept of human rights, in preference to our historic British one.

The European concept of human rights is exemplified in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and was incorporated into the 1997 Human Rights Act, which formed a centre piece of Labour's 1997 election manifesto. This gives innate rights such as 'liberty' to all individuals. In contrast to this, the Anglo American concept of human rights which originated with the Magna Carta limits the power of government to interfere unreasonably in the lives of its citizens (e.g. the government may not imprison anyone without a trial before a jury etc.).

Islamists like Abu Qatada - who has been named by four countries as al-Qaeda's spiritual ambassador in Europe - exploit the individualistic European concept of human rights to claim that their own human rights would be violated if they were extradited to their countries of origin, as they would face inhumane treatment there.

Today Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary announced a £12.5 million package to tackle Islamic extremism. However, the measures are fatally flawed because the government has failed to understand - let alone define - exactly what constitutes 'Islamic extremism'.

Jacqui Smith and the rest of the government persist in talking about extremism as a 'distortion' of the teachings of Islamic theology. So, when Jacqui Smith and other government ministers speak about Islamic extremism, they are effectively defining Islamic extremism' as being 'extreme' in relation to Islam in general, rather than as being 'extreme' in relation to British values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality for all under the law etc.

This difference - which the government has repeatedly failed to recognise - is absolutely crucial, as for historical reasons the majority of British Muslims follow a peaceful tradition of Islam that emerged in the Indian sub continent in the mid nineteenth century. Consequently, although most British Muslims are largely unaware of it, some of their views differ significantly from certain of the emphases of classical Islam (i.e. the interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith that were 'fixed' by Islamic scholars in medieval times and now taught in virtually all madrassas). In classical Islam the imposition of an Islamic state with sharia on non Muslims - if necessary by means of military jihad - has historically been a core belief.