Martin Parsons has beaten me to the post by mentioning Brian Paddick and his comments on the morning of 7/7 regarding Islam and terrorism. But I'm pleased because it has given the Lib Dem Mayoral candidate himself (and I have checked this with his office and know it is him) the opportunity to respond directly to Parson's on this blog [scroll down on this link to the first comment].
I suppose that I ought to state in advance that other than his 2005 comments and the fact that I think he isn't the person to topple Livingstone from office, I have nothing against Brian Paddick. But his comments that morning - and his even more astonishing comments here - really can't go unanswered.
On that morning three years ago Mr Paddick stated with strange certainty, as the bodies were still strewn in the subways, that 'Islam and terrorism do not go together.'
Now, on CentreRight, the man who is the third-party's candidate for London Mayor has compounded the problem. Not only by denying that he said what he said at the time (which he has now done), but by adding that:
'The term 'Islamic terrorism' is a contradiction in terms as there is nothing In Islam to justify the murder of innocent people.'
I wouldn't want to have to point Mr Paddick to every single verse
from the Koran which not only 'justifies', but actually extols murder.
But 9:5 (known as 'the verse of the sword') is a pertinent example. In
the Arberry translation this is rendered as follows:
'Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush.'
There is, to be fair, on this occasion an option on offer to the 'idolaters'. If you don't want death you can choose to convert to Islam, or live as a second-class citizen (a 'dhimmi'). But the 'idolaters' aren't always as lucky as that in Muslim scripture. Certainly not the Jews. Bukhari (one of the most respected collectors of the hadith, or sayings of Mohammed) is the source (Vol. 4, Book 52, Number 177) of this classic:
'Allah's Apostle said, "The hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say: "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
There is also the 'example' of Mohammed himself, not least his beheading of up to 900 male Jews of the Qurayzah tribe.
All this is before we even get into the discussion of what, in Koranic terms, constitutes what Brian Paddick terms 'innocent people.' The picture certainly doesn't justify Paddick's claim that "'Islamic terrorism' is a contradiction in terms."
Before people leap on this and remind me that Christian and Jewish scriptures also have violent passages (as if that challenges the point at issue) and before pointing again to a recent chronicle of Muslims taking Koranic injunctions very seriously indeed, I might state that I am really making really a single point.
Why should a police chief or prospective Mayoral candidate have to make statements about what any religion is or isn't? As well as being theologically presumptuous, it also wouldn't appear to me in either case to be a necessary part of the job-description. But if that person did decide that making theological statements about Islam were part of his role, why would he get it so wrong?
Either Mr Paddick has read Muslim scriptures, in which case he would know that the situation is - to say the least - a tad more complex than he portrays it. Or he thinks we can't possibly know the full picture because if we did then we poor, bigoted Londoners wouldn't be able to resist indulging in some kind of exuberant anti-Muslim rioting.
Trying to pre-emptively quell some possible back-lash on the day of 7/7, though dishonest, might have made been understandable. Telling fibs three years on really is not.
Update: Martin has also responded to the comment with evidence of its inaccuracy