Now David Davies is having his go with the dog whistle, recently liberally covered in saliva by Jack Straw:
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Davis questioned whether there was a "series of closed societies" in the UK. And he said there was a growing feeling the Muslim community was ..."unwilling to engage in substantive debate".
This is what is known in marketing as a "me too" product. Jack Straw got there first, but the Tories are darned if they are going to be out-canine-tooted by the Labour government.
This morning's McVitie's Digestive must surely go to Davies for his statement that the Muslim community is "excessively sensitive to criticism". Well, they are getting it in the neck from all angles these days aren't they? If you get criticised from pillar to post from breakfast 'til supper time, you do get a bit jumpy don't you?
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Paul,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like this is an issue that isn't going to go away.... judging by what you've put in recent posts I think we have some common ground:
a) There are certain circumstances where you shouldn't be able to insist on displaying your religious symbols and the law shouldn't be able to help you.
b) the law shouldn't intervene in other cases (personally I don't want to see the veil on the streets of Britain - or of Saudi Arabia for that matter - but that's only my strongly-held opinion)and dress codes shouldn't be enforced by law.
As for 'excessive criticism' of the Muslim community, I'd like to sidestep the issue and say - what community? We should stop using the word 'community' with an ethnic or religious adjective in front of it, and use it to mean ' a group of people living in one place'. That may be a tiny step towards removing divisions...
Agree completely with all you say Chris. The last point is particularly good. I have worked alongside a Mulsim colleague for the last two years. It was 18 months before I realised she was Muslim (when she made a reamrk about missing lunch during Ramadan). It is heard to lump this colleague in with a vast "community".
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