I must be dreaming. Jack Straw of all people has broken the great taboo by daring to challenge the wearing of the Islamic full-face veil in Britain and ignited a hitherto suppressed public debate? Overnight, the man has become a national and international hero. Radio and TV stations report that messages of passionate support have been pouring in from all over the world – with a significant number coming from British Muslims.

Others, however, responded in the predictable way, sometimes without realising the hole they were digging for themselves. Sheik Ibrahim Nogra of the Muslim Council of Britain, for example, said:

{"} Does Mr Straw mean that people should give up certain cultural and religious customs and practices simply because a vast majority of the country do not share them? That is calling for assimilation. That is saying that one culture or one way of life is superior to another.{"}

Well, actually the point about being British is that, if your minority values conflict with those of the majority, the latter do take precedence. ThatÂ’s what citizenship is all about. So in his outrage, Mr Nogra gives the game away.

it appears that the Met {=the London Police Department} has an established policy of excusing an officer from service on ‘moral grounds’ — which in itself is extraordinary — because, as the Guardian reported, in the wake of the Sun story a panic-stricken Met Commissioner ordered a ‘rethink’ of that very policy...the police are in serious difficulty over the whole issue of how to deal with Islamic extremism, towards which they have adopted a policy of strategic appeasement.