It was on both BBC and ITV’s London news, in the national media (here) and in London’s Evening Standard (here) this week: the country’s highest-paid council chief executive is leaving London’s poorest borough after only two years in the job. Despite intense media enquiry and speculation, no-one can or will find out why. This, after all, is the hyper-spun media-manipulating one-party New Labour borough of Newham. Think Peter Mandelson. Think Alastair Campbell. Throw in a budget-busting annual £2.5m publicity spend and you’ll get the picture. But you won’t get the facts.

Joe Duckworth was appointed chief executive just two years ago. It had been a long interregnum since the departure of predecessor Dave Burbage (who Box and Cox’d with Duckworth, ending up in the latter’s previous chief executive job on Isle of Wight council). Duckworth was installed in Newham with the brief of improving delivery of services and preparing the borough for the 2012 Olympics.

However it was his pay that became the story (here). Inevitably there is built-in organisational tension between Newham’s two chiefs, the elected executive mayor and the chief executive. To avoid Blair/Brown-style bad blood, mayor Sir Robin Wales fixed Duckworth with UK councils’ top pay packet of £241,000 a year (over £280,000 with pension and perks) and allowed him to continue to live in the Isle of Wight.

Throughout his two-year tenure Duckworth simply visited the borough for just three days a week and enjoyed a four-day weekend at home on the Isle of Wight.

(I called to see him about an urgent legal issue one Monday earlier this year. I sat on the phone in his plush office in Newham talking to him on the Isle of Wight. “It’s a detailed complicated matter,” he said. “It would be much easier if we could discuss it face to face.” Er… really?)

This was an appalling abuse of taxpayers’ money but Wales arranged it to buy Duckworth’s cooperation and amenability. Power-conscious Wales is the boss and he likes it that way. With classic Canning Town coarseness local people called it ‘Duckworth’s bend-over pay’.

The speculation now is that he will receive a £500,000 golden handshake (here), no doubt partly to buy his silence. The poor taxpayers of this deprived borough are likely to be screwed once again.

Why did Duckworth leave? Two separate sources have indicated the chief executive was escorted (‘frog-marched’ said one) out of the town hall on Tuesday evening. A middle-manager told me council bosses are internally promoting a story that Duckworth gave a £600,000 contract to a friend of his called Steve – which sounds to me like Mandelsonian dark arts of character assassination. Others have spoken of repeated clashes between Wales and Duckworth – which seems unlikely in view of the above.

One thing is for sure, we’ll never know for certain. We don’t know what goes on in Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea. Why should we know what goes on in Sir Robin Wales’ Newham?

Sport is like economics. There are as many opinions as pundits, and England’s football failure in South Africa has been to the back pages what the September 2008 banking crisis was to the financial pages – the commentariat ballooned to include social, psychological and political analysts and for a couple of days at least England’s early exit engulfed the front pages, the editorial pages and the op-ed pages too.

Even more, sport is like art. It mirrors life. The continued failure of our national football team mirrors an underlying and largely unacknowledged crisis in our national life and reflects the erosion of character, confidence and self-belief – and ultimately of identity.

I watched the team’s passionless effort against the Algerians and initially was angry at these soccer millionaires who seemingly couldn’t be bothered to turn up against the younger hungrier harder-working North Africans. Our underperforming Ferrari-driving soccer stars became – to me at least – objects of derision and disgust, rather like credit-crunch bankers with their bonuses.

Then I looked closer. The team’s jittery performance betrayed not a lack of talent and teamwork but a lack of assurance and conviction – it wasn’t physical skill that was missing but mental and moral strength.

We’d lost the match (well, not won it) before it started. The problem was spiritual. Faced with the biggest of international stages the players once again collapsed internally and collectively were overcome with doubt, fearing they might not win against the Algerian footballing minnows. Inevitably they produced another brittle edgy performance – and didn’t. Fabio Capello highlighted the problem last year (here): when he took over as manager he found “the same players who played well in training played with fear (in the matches), with no confidence, and I said this is a big problem of the mind.”

Why does this football failure mirror and highlight the national lack of confidence if Brits (and Northern Irish) are currently succeeding in other sports (we’ve just beaten the Aussies in one-day cricket; Graeme McDowell won the US Open; Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are currently one-two in the Formula One drivers table; and at the time of writing Andy Murray is through to the semi-finals at Wimbledon)?

Easy. Football is the people’s game. Cricket, golf, Formula One and tennis, like vicarage croquet, are middle-class sports and during international competitions the national flag is nowhere to be seen outside the competition venue. Football is full-blooded, classless and reaches parts other sports cannot reach – and during the World Cup hundreds of thousands of England flags bedecked homes and cars across all social groups, and especially on council estates and in deprived inner-city areas. It represents ordinary England like no other activity. Famously and only half-joking, former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly articulated the grip of football on English hearts: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you it’s much more serious than that.”

The flag-waving however was simply a bravura show of tribal loyalty and hope that didn’t match the doubting hearts underneath – hearts that in previous eras were more confident, more believing and more self-assured. No one thought that England would actually win the Cup in 2010 and most weren’t surprised when the team failed to shine in the first match against the USA. Following that game, dormant doubt became active self-fulfilling prophecy in players and nation alike, and three games later the Germans – inevitably the Germans – took us apart and dumped us out of the tournament.

Fortunately, while the English have lost their sense of identity and self-belief, they can still take it on the chin – and it’s this that sets them apart from their prickly neighbours across the Channel. While French President Nicholas Sarkozy and colleagues bemoaned Les Blues’ even more ignominious exit from the tournament with haughty Napoleonic mutterings about national disgrace, loss of glory and dishonouring the French colours, the English cried into their beer and got on with their lives.

“At least the crap’s gone so I can now enjoy the football,” said one supporter. “No more anxiety and stress,” said another, “I’m off to watch the Brazilians.”

I am hoping that the Labour government’s £145m Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) initiative will get the chop as part of the new ConLib coalition’s spending cuts. The programme has been ineffective, wasteful, puts public money into extremists’ hands (here) and finds our avowedly secular and religiously-neutral government pouring £millions into anything from schools to soccer clubs, whose common identity overwhelmingly is that they are Islamic. As far as the UK is concerned, Buddhists don’t do violent extremism so their religion doesn’t get state financial support. Nor do Christians. Nor Hindus. Nor Jews. Nor Sikhs. Odd isn’t it?

It is also awful but ironic that a senior member of the government that introduced PVE has himself been assaulted allegedly by one of the violent extremists that PVE was intended to prevent.

Stephen Timms is the personally likeable Labour MP for East Ham. He was a member of Tony Blair’s cabinet and he also held senior portfolios outside the cabinet under Gordon Brown. He lives in Newham, describes himself as a Christian Socialist and is recognised as a hard-working constituency MP.

The alleged assailant Roshonara Choudhary, 21, lives with her parents and four younger siblings in East Ham, just a mile away from Timms. According to neighbours she is a devout Muslim who has given private English lessons to local kids for £5 an hour (here) . She is also bright. A reliable source says that she was an A-star student at a London college who dropped out and became unemployed earlier this year when she started getting involved in radical Islam and studying Islamist websites.

The same source says it appears the suspect would have preferred to get Tony Blair but, reckoning she wouldn’t be able to approach him because of security, she chose Timms instead as an easier target.

Apparently wearing an orange hijab and carrying two kitchen knives she attended Timms’ first constituents’ surgery after the 6th May general election when he was returned with the largest majority in the country. Unusually for a devout Muslim woman she allegedly put out her hand to shake the male MP’s hand – then apparently she suddenly plunged one of the knives into his stomach.

The wounds were not life-threatening and after a spell in hospital Timms has now recovered enough to attend both parliament and his surgeries. He also appeared at the Global Day of Prayer at West Ham FC, Upton Park, on Sunday (see previous post here) where he said he’d been helped by the large number of people praying for him.

(“The church is growing in London,” he also told the 10,000 worshippers, contra Alan Wilson’s Guardian article quoted in the previous post too, “and is a remarkably diverse group of congregations, but one in their faith in Christ.”)

Two thoughts struck me about the stabbing:

First, Timms’ alleged assailant is likely to spend the next decade or so in jail – what a waste of a promising young life. But even more, what a tragedy for the accused’s family who by all accounts are normal local people who will now have to live with the bewilderment, horror and shame that the attack has brought upon them. They deserve our sympathy.

Second, what is it about Islam that regular and socially-integrated people from normal families with good futures ahead of them serving other people can suddenly turn into monsters and killers who perpetrate unspeakable evil?  The Glasgow car bombers were doctors working in NHS hospitals and the leader of the 7/7 bombers was a primary school teacher with a young family. Outwardly there was little sign of the dark destructive thoughts that were corroding their inner beings.

The issue is a spiritual one of course and the crisis lurks deep within the consciousness of the individuals. I have noted before (here) the inner moral collapse that was the result of one intelligent middle-class Englishman’s conversion to Islam. How much more must have been the moral and spiritual collapse of the suicide bombers cited above?

PVE is not the answer. A spiritual problem requires a spiritual solution. As a committed Christian Stephen Timms will know this too.

Like our recent prime minister, German federal chancellor Angela Merkel is a child of the manse but, unlike him, she is willing to bat for the public benefits of Christianity – as of course befits the leader of Europe’s largest Christian Democratic party, the CDU.

In Munich last month, following in the footsteps of federal president Horst Kohler, she beat a path to the Ecumenical Kirchentag (church congress) where 50,000 Christians from all major Gernam denominations heard her clearly re-affirm that Christianity is the main foundation of that country’s value system.

Alan Wilson reported in the Guardian about Kohler’s robust pull-your-socks-up call to the ecclesiastical leaders attending the Kirchentag – ‘power speaking truth to church’ Wilson dubbed it (here).

(Incidentally, Wilson writes an informative article – but why does he underplay Christianity on this side of the Channel? He states twice that the 55,000 attendees at Munich are about 20 times the numbers of those at the largest Christian gathering in England. Really? Just 2,750 people?

Here in Newham 30,000 Christians meet twice a year at the ExCel Centre for an all-night ‘Festival of Life’ (here) .

Also in Newham this coming weekend, Christians from across London and the denominations will meet at West Ham United FC in Upton Park for the annual Global Day of Prayer (here). If the last GDOP at West Ham in 2007 is anything to go by, there will be up to 15,000 Christians in the stadium on Sunday afternoon.

At the end of July my family will attend New Wine (here) for a week of Christian worship, teaching and fellowship – together with over 10,000 other believers.

There are many more examples. In its heyday before the development of the Olympic complex claimed its premises in 2007, Hackney-based Kingsway international Christian Centre (here) had 12,000 worshippers in its 4,000-capacity building every Sunday. So although Wilson is (a) a C of E bishop and (b) writing for the Guardian, surely these are inadequate excuses for him being so out-of-touch with on-the-ground Christian reality.)

But while Kohler’s robust comments rightly grabbed the headlines, Merkel’s were important too. “Our society lives on premises that it cannot create by itself,” she reminded the Christian audience, a statement which commentators recognise as based on the dictum of German legal philosopher Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde, that “the liberal secular state is based on normative premises that it cannot itself guarantee”.

Basically the argument is that only religion – Christianity – can create the ethical basis that modern secular societies depend upon to function. “On the one hand (the liberal secular state) can subsist only if the freedom it consents to its citizens is regulated from within, inside the moral substance of the individuals and of a homogeneous society,” wrote Bockenforde in his ‘Staat, Gesellschaft, Freiheit’ (here). “On the other it is not able to guarantee these forces of inner regulation by itself without renouncing its liberalism.”

Exactly! Our democratic freedoms depend on their Christian undergirdings, and as the latter are eroded from public life so inevitably the former shrink too. The direct consequence is our burgeoning and increasingly illiberal nanny state where Big Sister knows best and replaces God; citizens are handbagged into line by progressively more intrusive laws, bureaucratic regulations and diktats from Brussels as well as Whitehall; fear and caution replace faith and optimism in public discourse; and, for example, freely consenting adult smokers are no longer allowed to get together to form a smoking club! The vital organs of our mature democracy – such as freedom of association – are being closed down. Liberalism is being renounced.

Regrettably despite his much-vaunted churchgoing, I don’t see David Cameron following Angela Merkel with a reminder of the necessity of Christianity for the health of our democracy.

In the event it wasn’t so bad. I had watched Jacqui Smith leave her election count in tears and seen Charles Clarke’s look of defeat as his result was read out, and I’d wondered if that’s how all incumbents feel when they’re defeated at the polls.

All I can say is that it wasn’t so for me, partly because of the conduct of Labour supporters. As I had also seen and experienced at innumerable Council meetings, the tribal and primitive nastiness of Newham Labour Party is a wonder to behold. I was the butt of it when first elected in May 2002 when Tony Banks MP and Cllr June Leitch led the hissing and booing; CPA was the butt of it this time when Mayor Sir Robin Wales led the noisy Labour celebrations of our defeat with an inelegant jig. If you can find some kind of perverse pleasure in seeing human nature at its most graceless and infantile, then there was quite a lot of enjoyment – of sorts – available at the Newham count. Unlike the outgoing Labour prime minister, the Labour Party in Newham doesn’t do dignity.

We ran an effective campaign and I don’t think as a small party that we could have done much more. For the first time CPA was criticised in Labour Party election leaflets but I don’t think these scored much with the voters, and certainly we rapidly answered their points with our own flyers. This was good election stuff, kept CPA accountable to our voters and there can be no objection to Labour doing their job in this way.

The decisive problem for us was the fact that the general election took place on the same day as the local elections; voters’ focus was inevitably on national issues and on the three main national parties. As far back as January we’d talked privately about the possibility of a Labour tsunami in Newham – and so it proved. The parliamentary votes were counted first and once I saw the significantly increased majorities – against the national trend outside London – of Newham’s Labour MPs, I realised CPA’s time on the Council was up, for now at least.

In the event Labour wiped out all opposition and once again holds all elected seats at all levels. Their total grip on the borough is amazing and unique.

For me the most revealing event at the count was Mayor Sir Robin Wales’ acceptance speech in which he rounded on CPA and accused us of lying. Of course we’ve become used to this allegation over the years as it is the bog-standard reaction of the Mayor and his colleagues when their activities are exposed and their policies criticised yet they have no answer. Frustration, anger and bluster are their usual response.

I first came across this in 2001 when I led local residents in their campaign against the brutal Canning Town housing regeneration project. At meeting after meeting Sir Robin publicly accused me of lying. I wasn’t of course, but in the Orwellian one-party state of Newham where everyone is expected to view the world through the Labour Party prism, speaking an alternative truth to power is tantamount to treason.

Also I have previously posted about another incident when I was absurdly accused of lying (here).

So Sir Robin’s accusation this time was neither abnormal nor unexpected, although it was made more entertaining by two amiable young hijab-wearing members of Respect who shouted back “You’re the liar; you’re the liar!” However CPA supporters kept their cool despite the Mayor’s torrent of vitriol; turning the other cheek is an important ethic.

But Sir Robin’s spite was revealing. Clearly the exposure of his parking habits deep in the basement of the Council’s Building 1000 (see previous post) was still rankling. He has no explanation for his abuse of the disabled parking space apart the strutting self-important self-promotion that is symptomatic of his administration, so in his embarrassment he lashed out at CPA. An urgent FoI request by his campaign manager Lisa Buckingham (here) revealed that as usual Sir Robin hoped to pass the buck and blame Council officers. But unfortunately for him he’s in charge, he’s the boss, and daily he chose to park his car right over the disabled logo. So he’s stuffed.

Of themselves, of course, his parking proclivities are no great shakes. But as a metaphor for the corrupting self-centredness of the Mayor’s image-conscious spin-addicted administration, they are superb. And his reaction to our publication of the photo – the uncontrolled anger, the bullying solicitor’s letter, the responsibility-ducking FoI request and the false accusations – exactly highlight much that is wrong in the Mayor’s office.

And the future for CPA in Newham? We’ll have a break and then review the options. After eight good years I don’t think I’ll stand for Council again. But there are good people in the party who want to serve the wider community through CPA and Newham urgently needs an Opposition party. I’ll be happy to support them.

Personally, I’ve always found election time in Newham enjoyable but regrettably there’s rarely any real debate. The democratic deficit created by the all-powerful Labour Party – that’s produced effectively a one-party state in the borough – ensures that there’s little scope for sparks to fly or temperatures to rise. Labour labours hard to close down debate and to ensure that everyone sings from their Town Hall song sheet.

So it was with some amusement that we received a letter from the solicitor of Newham’s Mayor Sir Robin Wales. It seems we’ve scored a significant hit and one of our election leaflets has incurred Sir Robin’s wrath: “It will be understood by those reading (the leaflet) that the Mayor has put his own interests above those of disabled drivers and (it) makes derogatory comments on the Mayor’s motives and values,” said the solicitor’s letter. “(It) will undoubtedly cause serious and ongoing damage to the Mayor’s reputation, feelings and chances of re-election.”

Our intention is not to upset the man himself but rather to expose his self-serving secular administration. So… yes, it’s election time and we are objecting by all valid means to the values and policies that this all-powerful executive Mayor has imposed on Newham during his second term of office. And yes, we believe from the evidence that the Mayor puts his own interests above those of disabled drivers and many others. And yes, we wish to do all we can to swim against Newham’s traditional Labour tide, to spoil his chances of re-election and to offer a better and Christian alternative.

So we’re guilty as charged by his solicitor – but welcome to democracy and legitimate democratic politics, Sir Robin.

The letter continued by listing 11 demands to which CPA should agree including the disclosure of all the names and addresses to which the leaflets have been distributed (we had 23,000 printed and most have been delivered!); the publication of a full apology; the payment of Sir Robin’s legal expenses; and the donation of £5,000 to a charity of his choice.

“Typical,” said one wit in the office, “God had Ten Commandments so Sir Robin has to have eleven.”

The source of all this controversy? It centres primarily on a photo taken with my family camera in the basement of Newham Council’s sparkling new glass offices close to London City Airport. It’s a picture of the parking space that is closest to the lifts and stairs to the offices above.

Before Newham Council moved in, it rightly had been reserved for disabled drivers. Now it’s reserved for you-know-who who parks his car daily over the blacked-out disabled logo. Case closed.

You can see how we’ve used the photo in the latest edition of the Newham Recorder – turn to page 15 on the online digital edition here.

We’ve used it too on the Christian Peoples Alliance pages in the Mayoral election booklet that is sent free to every voter across Newham. In view of Sir Robin’s legal letter it’s significant that all party inserts in the booklet have to be approved for their accuracy and fair comment by the Council’s Chief Executive & Returning Officer and also by the Council’s Head of Legal Services.

We’re also promoting it on a lorry that is driving around Newham for the last two weeks of the campaign.

Our aim is to highlight the strutting preening self-promoting values that are at the heart of New Labour’s showcase project in Newham – in direct contrast with the caring serving Christian values that were taught to us by the Son of God. Newham Labour operates at the Town Hall through the unholy trinity of power, control and self-promoting spin, and we are attempting to hold up a mirror so that all Newham can see just how ugly is this secular ‘we-don’t-do-God’ (here) New Labour project beneath its smooth glossy exterior.

We replied to the solicitor’s letter suggesting that Sir Robin should recognise that our leaflet is part of the rough and tumble of election politics and is therefore protected as such by the law. The alternative is that he’ll have to take us to court.

So far we’ve heard no more. It seems Sir Robin has blinked first.

My apologies to any readers who have missed my posts over the past few weeks. I’ve been taken over by preparations for the Newham elections on 6th May. The Christian Peoples Alliance is putting up candidates for Newham Council right across the borough; I’m standing as CPA candidate for Newham’s executive Mayor; and in the national General Election on the same day we’re running a candidate – Stan Gain – in the West Ham parliamentary constituency.

This is a massive exercise for a small party that relies almost entirely on volunteers. But we’re up and running, the initial exhausting preparation and organisation is over, the campaign is going well and I’ve now a little more time for blogging.

On the doors it appears many people are confused about how to vote in the General Election. “They’re all the same” and “I can’t tell the difference” is a common refrain, and apathy a common result. Many it seems won’t vote at all.

So I was amused to see this refusenik position being bolstered recently by handbills that suddenly sprouted on walls and advertising hoardings around my neighbourhood. ‘Voting is Haram’ they announced – ‘haram’ being an Arabic term for ‘forbidden by Islamic law’. Muslims were being urged not to vote in the elections.

This is of course a minority position within the Muslim community (here) that is propounded mainly by extremist groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun and its successors. And it’s in interesting contrast to Premier Christian Radio’s worthy initiative called ‘I Promise To Vote’ (here) which attempts to mobilise Christians for the elections.

Personally I’ve always insisted on going to the polling station and fulfilling my civic duty. But in the past, when faced with the mind-numbingly anodyne and limiting choice of one of the three main parties (which is Box and which is Cox?), I’ve often scrawled ‘Christ is King’ across the ballot paper and stuffed it in the box.

It may have been a spoilt ballot paper, but at least I’ve expressed my views.

Religious minorities have a difficult, sometimes horrendous, time in Pakistan. In previous posts I have cited the murder of Christians in Gojra (here) and the persecution of the Ahmadi Muslim sect (here) . More recently Shazia Masih, the 12 year old Christian domestic servant of Lahore High Court attorney and former president of the Lahore Bar Association Muhammad Naeem, allegedly has been raped and killed by her well-connected and wealthy employer (here) and three Sikh men who refused to convert to Islam were beheaded by the Taliban in Peshawar (here).

So when the charismatic Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistan Christian Association, together with his cousin Alex, asked me recently to join a group of UK-based Sikhs and Christians who were presenting a petition and letter at Downing Street about these atrocities, I accepted with alacrity.

Our joint protest not only covered the Sikh beheadings and the Shazia rape and murder case, but also the urgent need to change the Blasphemy Laws of Pakistan, Sections 298A and 295B & C, which are used to persecute and harass minority faiths in the country.

Besides the BPCA and the Christian Peoples Alliance, the delegation included representatives from the British Sikh Council, United Sikhs and the Sikh Human Rights Group.

As ever, leading, organising and energising the delegation was Wilson.

This is a cause close to my heart and worthy of the support of everyone who sees freedom of speech and religion as vital human rights.

A friend recently drew my attention to an ‘Official Response’ issued to the press on 23rd December by the Muslim Debate Initiative which slates me for comments I made about Islam and women in posts on this blog. The Response was authored by Dr Tabasum Hussain, a UK-born Muslim now living with her family in Canada, and is published in full on the MDI website (here).

On behalf of MDI Tabasum took strong exception to a couple of light asides I made about the lack of women in the their organisation in London: In one post last November I wrote (here) ‘Yes, only guys, no girls of course – this is Islam’, and in a December post I remarked (here) ‘No women of course, this is Islam’.

In her Response Tabasum writes that ‘Mr Craig (makes) ignorant and often hateful comments about Islam in general, and in his failing to get his facts straight about this whole issue he does a great job of highlighting the lack of credibility in anything else he may blurt out against Islam, Prophet Muhammad (saaw), Women, and Muslim organisations.’

Fortunately this is neither true nor is it the view of all Muslims. Indeed in my December post, above, I quote journalist and blogger Umar Farooq who listened to my trenchant views on the niqab (Islamic face veil) and the gender bias inherent in Sharia law at MDI’s own Islamification debate, yet gave me the highest rating of the six panellists (here for Farooq’s full report).

So yesterday I emailed Tabasum as follows:

Dear Tabasum,

I was both surprised and sorry when a friend recently pointed out your Statement on the MDI website dated 21st December: ‘Official response to Head of Christian Peoples Alliance party, Alan Craig’s article: ‘Off with their heads.’’

I was surprised because, regrettably, in your Statement you don’t seem to take any account of my genuine warm regard for the MDI organisers as expressed in my comments such as “I take my hat off (to MDI)”, “The (MDI) event was democracy in action”, “courageous”, “genuinely interested in grappling with the issues”, etc.

I was sorry because, understandably but also regrettably , neither do you attempt answer the main thrust of my 9th November post which was a stonking great criticism of convert Paul Williams’ foul fetid views on the ‘hot issue’ (as he excitedly describes it) of the execution of apostates. I’m pleased Paul has since taken down his offensive post, but he refuses to debate the execution of Islam’s apostates with me and instead has retired upset into his shell. Perhaps he has had a slight taste of the distress that the growing number of people leaving Islam in the UK may feel when they read such murderous drivel.

Instead in your Statement you major on my light-hearted asides: ‘Yes, only guys, no girls of course – this is Islam’ and ‘No women of course, this is Islam’.

The fact that MDI takes such huge exception to my asides about Islam seems to indicate that I’ve touched a raw nerve.

This raw nerve – and Achilles heel, to mix my metaphors – is of course the fact that Islam is at root a misogynistic religion. There are all sorts of explanations for this, most of which go back to the Founder of Islam himself and the in-built inequalities between the genders within the religion. Of course there are exceptions which prove the rule (Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan less than a decade after Margaret Thatcher was elected Britain’s first and, so far, only female PM). And I don’t doubt you personally are an effective member of MDI, nor that the new appointee in the UK, Nazli Ali, will be too although I’ve yet to meet her.

But at a fundamental level it is impossible for Islam to provide for the intrinsic equality of worth between the genders that, for instance, Christianity offers.

However, we are members of our respective debating organisations so rather than writing Statements, how about us publicly debating the issue? I suggest I propose the motion: ‘This House believes that Islam is misogynistic’. You would be free to respond to the motion as you see fit.

Unfortunately I cannot undertake such a debate during your immediate visit to the UK, although I’m looking forward to attending your debate with Beth Grove on 5th March. But perhaps we could fix it for sometime during your next visit this side of the Atlantic?

With best wishes,

It will be interesting to see if Tabasum accepts the challenge, and also see if she is willing to debate Islam with a member of the opposite sex.

I’ll keep you informed.

Following my criticism of the National Secular Society as an essentially deceitful organisation (here), it’s interesting to find myself in agreement with them for once.

Last August Shamso Miah, described as an unemployed 25 year-old and devout Muslim, left his mosque and went to the East Ham branch of Lloyds TSB, just a couple of hundred metres from Newham Town Hall. There he was involved in a ‘queue rage’ assault on Mohammad Furcan, hitting him three times and breaking his jaw.

Miah came before Cherie Booth QC at Inner London Crown Court on 27 January, and the wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair gave him a suspended six month sentence plus community service.

But it was her comments that caused a minor storm. According to last week’s Newham Recorder (here), she told Miah that her reason for suspending the jail term was ‘based on the fact that you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before’. She added: ‘You are a religious man and you know that this is unacceptable behaviour’.

But the fact that Miah is a ‘religious man’ (she mentioned it twice) should not of itself qualify him for special treatment. In the UK at least, religious and non-religious people are all equal before the law and what the NSS wittily calls ‘Cheria Law’, with its apparent bias in favour of people of faith, is un-nuanced and inappropriate.

However judges have to take individual and personal factors into account of course and those of previous good character may expect to receive a more lenient sentence than habitual criminals. A law-breaker who is normally embedded in a stable family within a close-knit local community may be less likely to re-offend than a solitary unattached inner-city dweller. And a man who is a leader, earning obscene sums of money from his fans and promoted as a role model for youth such as John Terry, may expect less sympathy in court than ordinary Joe Soap. And in sentencing, religious belief is as relevant as these other personal factors

But spiritual discernment is required to assess such belief as not all religions are the same, and it’s regrettable that most of our judges, like most of society, are religiously illiterate. For instance, as the Royal Navy shows (here), many authorities seem to think Satanism may be treated as the spiritual and moral equivalent of, say, Quakerism. And it’s rare for a member of the media commentariat to throw political correctness to the wind and draw a fair distinction between ‘harmless’ Christianity and ‘sinister’ Islam, as Andrew Brown did recently in the Guardian (here).

Different religions, like different foods, have different effects on their consumers. And good food is good for you while bad food ain’t. And as a case in point, it ought to be blindingly obvious even to our secularised authorities that Devil-worship – including the Admiralty-approved variety – certainly ain’t good for a soul, a ship’s crew or society.

So instead of making blanket catch-all assumptions about ‘religious people’, Ms Booth should have looked at Mr Miah’s particular faith – as well as his crime record, employment status, family and home background, education, etc – and its effect on him personally. Then she could make the right judgement about an appropriate sentence for this particular individual in respect of his particular crime.