Conservatives have influence in the Maldives and should use it.

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 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.

1st November 2008

New government sex education proposals and the 'hidden curriculum'

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 committee stated that

'Many parents lack the knowledge and confidence to talk to their children about sex and relationships.' (page 25)

So, the argument runs, schools should do it - not just for them - but for all parents.

The implication is that the government want every 11 year old in the country to be taught how to put on a condom. Whilst at the very same time the government is reviewing  whether to abolish the right of parents to withdraw their children from school sex education lessons.

Moreover, the reason the government want to subject every child in the country to this form of sex education is not primarily to prepare them for entering and sustaining a life long, loving relationship - but to reduce the UK's teenage pregnancy rate - which is currently the highest in Europe.

Fundamentally, this policy undermines parents. It is based on the ideological assumption of Liberal-Left politicians that the government not parents should be responsible for all of children's education. Although the committee's report talks about a partnership between schools and parents, by this it means a partnership where parents support what the school is teaching about sex, rather than the other way round. It is a partnership which

'encourages parents to reinforce the SRE (Sex and Relationship Education) being delivered in schools, within the home.' (page 9)

The 'hidden curriculum'

However, what successive government ministers have failed to grasp is something that educationalists call the 'hidden curriculum'. Basically, this means that some of the most significant messages children absorb at school are not what is formally taught in the curriculum, but implicit messages they pick up. It is the hidden curriculum messages in the the government's sex education policy that are the most dangerous. If we tell children in the early years of secondary school how to have 'safe sex' - then the very clear hidden curriculum message we are giving them...is that we now regard them as old enough to have sex. This is a message that is unfortunately often reinforced by the closing line of sex education lessons, 'it's your choice!' - as if the child was now a responsible adult free of the need for parental care, guidance and authority.

As a teacher I have seen this happen. For example, a year ago I was teaching in a comprehensive school drawing from a predominately white working class council estate. My class of 12-13 year olds had just had their sex education lesson with the school nurse. Now as a teacher you can fairly easily pick out key children who are potentially likely to be at risk of engaging in underage sex - the way the girls dress and general attitude to the opposite sex, not to mention what they talk about (!). However, in this class, one 13 year old girl, who was very much not an obvious candidate for that category, pulled out her purse to show her friend a condom the nurse had given her - 'just in case the need arose'.

What the government should be doing

What the government should be doing is to focus on the responsibility of parents - rather than seeking to restrict the innate right of parents when and what to teach their children about sex. Many ordinary decent parents would be horrified at the idea that they should teach their 11 year old daughter how to use contraception - it give their child entirely the wrong message. So why should the government expect those very same parents to be happy for the government to make this a compulsory lesson in schools - a lesson from which parents would have no right to withdraw their children? Even common sense should tell that government that parental responsibility needs to be encouraged not undermined. School age children spend only around 1265 hours a year in school - that's less than 15% of their time. The remaining 85% of the time parents are directly responsible for them.

What we need is a radical shift of government policy in sex education. A shift that as in other aspects of education emphasises the roles and responsibilities of parents, instead of the present government's approach of emphasising the 'rights' of legally underage children to make their own choices and the 'right' of government to impose particular forms of education on children in order to 'fix'. social and economic probelms in society.

What would happen if schools were allowed to tell parents very clearly when their children started school that it was the parents' responsibility to teach their children about sex - but it would also be covered in school science lessons at a certain age? Parents could be offerred help and advice as to how to do that - but it would remain their responsibility. That would allow sex education to become focused on what it really should be - helping children to make the transition from puberty to making what is ideally a life long, loving relationship, exemplified in many cases by marriage. Harm reduction strategies, including advice on contraception could still be targeted at children considered to be 'at risk' of engaging in underage sex. However, the school would have to send home a letter first, explaining to parents why their child is considered to be at risk of engaging in underage sex and exactly what the school was intending to teach them about contraception - unless the parents objected. Now of course there would be dozens of upset parents complaining to the school along the lines of 'Why has my child been singled out?' and 'My Tracey's a good girl - she wouldn't do that!'. Well that's exactly the response we need - forcing parents of at risk children to start taking some responsibility for their children.

Tragically, as with a number of the present government's education policies, their new sex education proposals risk harming the life chances of the decent majority of young people in order to focus on the needs of the delinquent minority.

We have to have an alternative - our children deserve better than that.

25^th October 2008

Government gives schools a new 'toolkit' to prevent violent extremism: but is it dangerously muddled?

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.

Instead, the only 'value' the DCSF toolkit says schools should actively promote is 'diversity'. Now tolerating other people's beliefs may well be a widely held value in British society - I would sincerely hope that it is. However, actively seeking to encourage 'diversity' is quite another issue. The latter may well be a New Labour value, but it is hardly a fundamental British value that schools should be expected to promote. In fact, its inclusion at all in this document is somewhat at odds with the toolkit's purported aim of promoting community cohesion. Promoting a list of specific British values might actively promote community cohesion by drawing people towards a common set of shared values. However, promoting 'diversity' almost by definition does the exact opposite and leads to a more fragmented society.

Frankly, the DCSF under Ed Balls' leadership seems to have got into a politically correct muddle that is in serious danger of completely losing the plot when it comes to creating community cohesion. As if to illustrate the point, at this very moment schools across England are being asked to report on their pupils ethnicity according to a new list of 90 categories that the DCSF have developed. The list includes 12 categories of 'Black' ranging alphabetically from 'Black Angolan' to 'Black Sudanese', but bizarrely no longer includes the category of 'White British' which is replaced with a range of categories such as 'White English', 'White Welsh', 'White and Pakistani' and even 'White Cornish'. I kid you not, the latter is not an ice cream flavour, it is now an official government ethnic category, something that 'White British' no longer is - at least according to the DCSF.

Now a government that is muddled is one thing, some may say that's hardly anything new! But the government's toolkit for schools moves beyond mere muddle to potentially dangerous muddle. A muddle that far from dissuading young people from extremism may actually encourage them towards it.The government's 'toolkit' advocates schools adopting 'the Oxford Muslim Pupils Empowerment Programme'. This programme, designed by the imam of Eton College and used in an Oxford secondary school, involves an imam coming into school and holding a 'confidential' lunchtime discussion group with Muslim pupils on subjects such as Qur'an, Hadith, sharia and British foreign policy, that aim 'to develop the foundations for a British Islamic identity'. One wonders quite how the government thinks that this can in any way promote community cohesion. Whilst the majority of ordinary British Muslims have little interest in political Islam or the details of sharia, virtually all imams have been trained in 'Classical Islam' i.e. the interpretations of the Qur'an and sharia that were 'fixed' in medieval times. These stipulate that non Muslims should be invited to submit to Islam and if they refuse, Islamic government with sharia should be imposed on them, if necessary by force. So, inviting imams to dig out their old school textbook on sharia and use it as a basis for discussion with young Muslims in comprehensive schools does not seem like a terribly well thought out idea...

The trouble is that the government is so focused on countering violent extremism, that it is largely ignoring the non violent Islamist agenda of many groups in the UK that have the same ultimate aims as violent Islamists - creating an Islamic state in Britain. Such groups pragmatically reject violent jihad preferring instead a strategy of 'political jihad'. The latter aims to achieve a step by step islamicisation of Britain involving for example a gradual alignment of British law with sharia and in the education sector pushing for more genuinely Islamic education in schools, first for Muslim pupils and then for all pupils. That, appears to be just what the Oxford Muslim Pupils' Empowerment Programme is doing - and which the government are suggesting that other schools should copy.

So let's just ask ourselves how effective the government's 'toolkit' is likely to be at equipping schools to counter even just 'violent' extremism, by assessing it against some real life situations found in UK schools.

A couple of years ago, having just returned from aid work in Afghanistan I was temporarily working as a supply teacher in a tough inner city comprehensive school that was approximately 50% White and 50% Asian, most of the Asians being Muslims. I developed quite a good relationship with some of the teenage Muslim boys - it was a bit of novelty having a white teacher who spoke Urdu! I'll briefly relate here two incidents related to extremism that occurred. The first was when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muhammad. 'What do you think about this sir?' came the slightly aggressive and clearly aggrieved question from a group of the lads. 'I quietly replied 'I think both sides need to act more responsibly.' What even us?' came back the aggrieved response. 'Look lads, you know that I understand what this means to you' (saying anything negative about Muhammad is the single most sensitive issue for most Muslims and bound to provoke a huge emotional response), 'but someone deliberately chose to take that Danish flag to Palestine and burn it front of the TV cameras - you can't buy foreign flags in most Islamic countries - and now innocent people are suffering, churches have been burnt down by rioters in Palestine and a Catholic priest has been shot dead in Turkey.' Their mood changed and they listened to me in silence. No one had ever challenged them with that side of the story before.

The second incident concerned one of these lads on his own. Imran had a large amount of rebellion in his general attitude and was also deeply religious. It was that volatile combination that made me concerned that he was at least potentially vulnerable to extremism. One day as I was walking around the class he said to me 'I found this verse in the Qur'an that says that we should kill non Muslims'. He didn't name the verse, but there are a number of such verses, such as Q9:29 (Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them...until they submit and pay the Jizya - a tax on non Muslims forced to live under an Islamic government).

His comments raised an important issue. Namely, that throughout Islamic history there has been both a peaceful Islamic stream and also a violent stream. Both of these are based on a whole range of Qur'anic verses - the violent stream emphasising verses such as Q9:29 quote above and the peaceful stream emphasising verses such as Q2:59 that encourage Muslims to have peaceful relationships with Jews and Christians. Historically the overwhelming majority of British Muslims have followed the peaceful stream, However, the internet access that has become widely available in the last 10 years has resulted in many young British Muslims readily finding material produced in other countries, where less peaceful interpretations of the Qur'an are more prevalent.

So, would the government's toolkit have dealt with either of these situations? The answer is almost certainly 'no'. I was only able to respond to the first situation because I had specialist knowledge of Islam gained through living and working in Pakistan and Afghanistan for a number of years as well as a PhD in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. Few teachers, even RE specialists have anywhere near sufficient expertise in Islamics to deal effectively with such issues. In fact, many RE teachers are not even aware of the fact that historically Islam has from its very earliest days always had both peaceful and violent streams - both drawing their inspiration fro the Qur'an.

A more effective 'toolkit'.

So, what should a future Conservative government plan to do? I would suggest that it should provide a 'toolkit' of effective guidance that would genuinely help schools - both those with significant number of Muslim pupils and those with a predominately non Muslim intake. I would suggest that this 'toolkit' should contain at least 3 elements that are currently missing from the 'toolkit' that Ed Balls has just provided for schools:

1. It should draw up on a cross party basis and then circulate to schools a list of British values that are central to our free democratic society - such as parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, one law for all, independence of the judiciary, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, no imprisonment without the right to trial by jury, loyalty to Britain, sovereignty of Britain as an independent nation state and British citizenship conferring both specific rights and responsibilities. Unfortunately, as I demonstrated in an article this past summer, the present Labour government has in the last few years actively undermined at least 50% of these historic British values.

2. Provide schools with a regularly updated list of extremist organisations - both racist groups such as the BNP and organisations that have produced Islamist literature or made pro Islamist statements. Currently many schools both those with large numbers of Muslim students and those in almost entirely white monocultural areas struggle to know which organisations they should avoid inviting speakers from, not accept donations of library books from and should block student access to their websites. Whilst this would require ongoing monitoring by the DCSF, as a first step I would suggest that any school should avoid inviting speakers from and block access to the websites of the following organisations - all of which academics have identified as having either published or distributed Islamist literature or have a significant Islamist orientation in their ideology or leadership: the East London Mosque, Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), Finsbury Park Mosque, Hamas, Hizb ut Tahrir, Interpal (an Islamic aid agency long thought to have links to Hamas), Islamic Forum Europe, Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), Supporters of Shariah (SoS), The Saved Sect, UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), Young Muslims Organisation (YMO), Young Muslims UK (YMUK)...(This list is not exhaustive)

3. Give examples of ways in which Muslims can be persuaded away from extremist ideologies such as Islamism. One of the best examples of this is the innovative new RE agreed syllabus which Birmingham Local Education Authority started using last month. This starts from a list of 24 shared values such as 'caring for others', 'living by rules', 'being loyal and steadfast', 'being fair and just' - then looks at what each religion, including Islam says positively about these values. As such it positively encourages Muslims (and others) to follow a peaceful, rather than a violent path in life.

 11^th October 2008

Islamism is territorial as well as political…

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.

Throughout this book Dr Sookhdeo demonstrates that 'Territory' is central to the aim of Islamic da'wa, because once an area has once been subjected to Islamic control, whether in terms of a being a mosque, or some other form of Islamic control, it is regarded by Islamic conservatives as Islamic sacred space that cannot at any later date be 'reclaimed' for any non Islamic use:

"Any space gained is considered sacred. Whatever has been won for Islam is dedicated to Allah, and belongs to the Umma (i.e. Islamic community) forever. Non Muslims could at best be tenants on their former property. Any lost sacred space must be regained - even by force if necessary. So Islam can only be expected to expand its territory, never to move, exchange or yield anything it has already gained in the UK."

Local councillors on planning committees take note!

Sookhdeo observes that this has profound implications for the planned building of a mega mosque next to the planned Olympics site in London. A mosque which could accommodate 40,000 (or according to some local sources 70,000) worshippers - making it the largest religious building in the UK.

In this book Patrick Sookhdeo covers an impressive range of subjects including Islamic educational institutions, financial institutions, legal institutions, charities, lobbying and monitoring organisations, media and publications. In doing so he repeatedly demonstrates how the British government has naively given ground to the Islamist agenda in a whole range of areas. For example, he observes that the Halal Foods Authority that the government's Food Standards Agency works closely with, was in fact set up by the Muslim Parliament - a group that looked to the Iranian revolution as the 'ideal' Islamic model; Similarly, he observes that the current British government has actively pursued the creation of sharia compliant financial products, another aspect of the Islamist agenda, despite 70% of British Muslims having conventional mortgages. This naivety is even evident in the government's counter terrorism strategy. The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) set up after the 7/7 London bombings as part of the government's Preventing Extremism Together (PET) programme consists of four organisations. One of these is the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Another is the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which, whilst being an umbrella Islamic organisation, has a strongly Islamist orientated leadership itself. His analysis of the present government's relationship with the MCB penetratingly exposes the present government's naivety in dealing in Islamic extremism:

"The UK has sought through the Muslim Council of Britain to empower the Muslim conservatives instead of seeking out the modernists and liberals within Muslim society. Effectively they have worked to consolidate the power of the imams and mullahs, something which very few governments in Muslim majority countries do..."

Dr Sookheo goes on to demonstrate that Islamist terrorism does not exist within a vacuum, but within the wider infrastructure that provides the ideology. Therefore focusing on violent groups, as the present government continues to do, will not solve the problem. The mainline Islamist ideology - which has the same ultimate aims as the terrorist groups - must be confronted and dealt with. He argues that:

"It must be recognised that there is a link between da'wa, radicalism and jihadist ideology."

The book concludes with a facsimile of what appears to be a Muslim Brotherhood document outlining a strategy to bring about an Islamic government in North America, a disturbingly revealing document that the book reproduces in both its Arabic and English formats. Section 4 of this strategy document, headed "Understanding the Role of the Muslim Brother in North America" clearly articulates the Muslim Brotherhood's understanding that Islamic mission (da'wa) involves gradual, though ultimately total, islamisation of the social and political structures of western society. It clearly indicates that political action is seen by Islamists as being as much of a strategy to achieve this end as violent jihad and indeed appears to suggest that it is a strategic foundation that must be laid before a violent jihad could be launched with any hope of successfully enforcing Islamic government on western society:

"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means. The Ikhwan (Arabic name for the Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's duty to perform Jihad and work wherever he is..." (page 7).

The document claims that so far 8 stages of this 'Civilizational-Jihadist process' have been completed. These are listed as:

"A. The Stage of searching for self and determining the identity.

B. The stage of inner build up and tightening the organization.

C. The stage of mosques and the Islamic centres.

D. The stage of building the Islamic organizations - the first phase.

E. The stage of building the Islamic schools - the first phase.

F. The stage of thinking about the overt Islamic movement - the first phase.

G. The stage of openness to other Islamic movements and attempting to reach a formula for dealing with them - the first phase.

H. The stage of reviving and establishing the Islamic organizations - the second phase.

We believe that the group is embarking on this stage in its second phase as it has to open the door and enter as it did the first time."

Sobering thought when one considers that some of the key organisations that the present government and Labour politicians are actively working with such as the MAB, look to the Muslim Brotherhood for their ideological inspiration.

What are realistic political aims for Afghanistan?

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 alternative - we have to fight to prevent this happening.

2. It is possible to return to a situation similar, though obviously not identical, to that which existed before the soviet invasion of 1979. Then, Kabul and some major cities were effectively governed by a semi westernised elite who had often been educated (and had their thinking liberalised) in western universities. Meanwhile the rural areas were effectively ruled by tribal elders. Even in the Pushtun (Pathan) areas, which are the Taliban heartland, this tribal structure remained largely intact throughout the soviet invasion. However, when the Taliban emerged as a political and military force from 1995 onwards, instead of the effective power being held by the grey beards - the old men, it was suddenly wielded by young talibs, many still in their teens, educated to primary school level in maktabs (Islamic schools) and armed with Kalashnikovs. That is why Taliban rule was one of the traumatic events for ordinary Afghans living in cities such as Jalalabad where I lived at the time.

However, tribal society, particularly in the Pushtun areas whence the Taliban derive most of their support is potentially the single most powerful political weapon against the Taliban. Pushtun tribal society is governed by a strong tribal code of conduct known as Pushtunwali. Anyone who breaks the tenets of Pushtunwali is known as peghor - a term of utter abuse meaning devoid of Pushtunwali and by implication of manliness itself. Pushtun commitment to Pushtunwali is in fact stronger than their commitment to Islam, to the extent that the Pushtun tribes are primarily Muslims simply because being Muslim is part of Pushtunwali. In fact, whenever there is any clash between Pushtunwali and sharia (Islamic law) - Pushtunwali always wins. This can be seen throughout Afghan history (Afghan is simply another term for Pushtun - at the end of the nineteenth century the Afghan i.e. Pushtun tribes conquered the non Pushtun tribes in the north and east to create the present 'Afghanistan' i.e. 'land of the Afghans'). For example, in 1827 a zealous mullah called Sayyid Ahmed Shah Bareli led a 'back to the Qur'an' movement that established a strict Islamist style government among the Pushtun tribes in what is now the Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The Pushtun tribes went along with him until he tried to impose aspects of sharia (Islamic law) that conflicted with Pushtunwali. When he tried to bring Pushtun marriage customs in line with sharia, the Pushtun tribes rose up on mass. On the signal of a bonfire lighted on a central hill one night, they silently rose up and murdered all of Barrel's followers in their beds. Pushtun ballads are still sung remembering this event.

Today, something similar is happening among some of the Pushtun tribes in Pakistan's tribal area. One Khan (tribal leader), Anwar Kamal in Lakki Marwat has formed a lashkar (tribal militia) with a core of 2,000 men expanding up to 10,000 when needed, to fight Taliban militants who enter his 200 square miles of mountainous territory. It is this sort of traditional tribal authority that is the most viable alternative to the Taliban in the rural areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, which are the Taliban heartland.

Having much of Afghanistan governed by Pushtunwali is not an ideal situation in terms of western standards of freedom and human rights. Not least because it is a strongly male dominated society where women have few rights and where law and order is maintained by blood vengeance. However, it is a realistic political possibility, which would allow the west to encourage more liberal influences to be nurtured in Kabul and other urban areas in the hope that such influences, not least in western style schooling (in contrast to the alternative Islamic maktub and madrassa system which the Taliban emerged from), may slowly begin to spread out to the rest of the country.

If there is one thing that we should have learnt from recent history in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it is that a democracy with the liberal freedoms we take for granted cannot be created in the Islamic world overnight or even in a few years. It requires 'patient nurturing' as David Cameron emphasised in his speech this month in Pakistan. In saying this, he was wholly in line with the great Conservative campaigners for social justice William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury. When radical voices urged immediate and often violent change, Wilberforce and Shaftesbury saw that only gradual change could succeed in bringing about long lasting social justice in Britain.

It is this Conservative approach to foreign policy that can offer real hope of permanent change for good for the long suffering people of Afghanistan. It contrasts starkly with the dangerously muddled policy of the present Labour government that on the one hand sends British soldiers to fight the Taliban without adequate equipment and on the other hand and at the very same time talks about bringing the Taliban back to share government and having government imposed Islamic law - even though, at least from my experience of living there, most ordinary people living in the cities of Afghanistan desperately do not want either - they just want the Afghan constitution and to be allowed to get on with their family lives without constantly living in fear of the Taliban's religious police. 

27^th September 2008

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.

So, at a time when Afghanistan rather than Iraq is increasingly being seen as the key challenge, it would be wise to review what our specific war aims should be in Afghanistan. I would suggest the following:

1. Preventing a radical Islamist state being established which would be used to launch jihad attacks on other parts of the world. This is essentially what happened to Afghanistan when the Taliban government invited bin Laden to base his operations there after he was forced out of Sudan.

2. Preventing radical Islamist organisations obtaining nuclear material, which would allow them to create a "dirty bomb" i.e. the scattering of radioactive material over an area by means of conventional explosives. There has long been evidence that ex soviet nuclear material has passed through Afghanistan, with some evidence that some Taliban commanders may have been able to obtain it. There is also evidence that in summer 2001 bin Laden met with two Pakistani nuclear scientists who provided al-Qaeda with a blue print for developing a nuclear bomb and discussed uranium mining in Afghanistan.

3. Allowing a stable Afghan government to emerge that the West can positively engage with to promote a gradual liberalisation. However, this does not necessarily mean a government exercising the same degree of government control over all of its territory as a western government does over its regions. The power of successive Afghan governments has always declined significantly the greater the distance from Kabul.

If specific war aims such as these are clearly enunciated then military strategy can be developed that is both consistent with them and actively works to achieve these aims. However, the lack of clear enunciation of such aims by both the British and American governments has led to a series of policies that politically may undermine these basic war aims.

Most notable of these is President Bush's reported decision to allow US forces to undertake operations inside Pakistan without the prior consent of the Pakistani government. Nothing could be more calculated to swing even the most pro western liberal minded Pakistanis against the West. Popular reaction could all to easily lead to the emergence of a radical Islamist government in Pakistan in the not too distant future - precisely what we are fighting in Afghanistan to prevent.

Equally questionable, is the present British government's policy in Southern Afghanistan that was originally sold to the public in terms of "reconstruction". However, we now have British forces fighting to hold small towns such as Musa Khala and Sangin in Helmand against Taliban attacks. If this is part of a military strategy that will prevent the Taliban taking over Afghanistan again, then no one should argue with that. However, it is worth bearing in mind that historically the Afghan government's influence has always been significantly less in provincial capitals than it has been in Kabul. The provinces such as Helmand were effectively ruled by governors appointed by the interior minister and even the governor’s influence declined significantly in the rural areas away from the provincial capital. I have travelled through many rural Afghan towns and villages and apart from the provincial capitals most did not even have a police outpost. If there was a major outburst of 'trouble' then the provincial police chief might have sent a bevy of police there for a few days. But by and large provincial rural areas have traditionally been largely left to govern themselves. So, whilst Afghan officials may well be keen to get British troops to enforce the government remit in remote rural areas, it would be politically naive to engage in such activities - unless they form part of a military strategy that clearly contributes to specific war aims.

If the government is serious about the war in Afghanistan not only must it provide our troops with adequate equipment and a fair policy on such issues as when leave starts, it must most fundamentally of all spell out much more clearly what the specific war aims actually are. That is the very least that we owe to our armed forces when we ask them to put their lives on the line.

13^th September 2008

Labour Council enforces Ramadan on non Muslims

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...

The problem comes down to Labour's approach to so many things - instead of encouraging people to be act responsibly they enforce it with government rules; and instead of encouraging cultural sensitivity in all directions (Muslims councillors shouldn't actually need to be told to be tolerant of non Muslims taking a sip of water on a hot day!) Labour's political correctness creates 'in groups' whose 'rights' are enforced on everyone else. This Labour approach to multiculturalism is in fact the exact opposite of tolerance and actually creates victims among people who are not in Labour's politically correct in groups'. These include:

1. Muslims who don't strictly keep Ramadan. Despite what some politically correct councils seem to think, many Muslims do NOT fast during Ramadan. When I lived in Pakistan many of my Pakistani friends quietly told me that probably no more than 30% of local people actually fasted during Ramadan. However, in any Muslim community, whether in the UK or in Islamic countries, there is a huge degree of social pressure to at least be seen not to be breaking the fast. There is a very real issue of intimidation in many Muslim communities that policies like those adopted by Tower Hamlets Council are actually facilitating.

2. Non Muslim minorities in the UK such as Christians and Hindus with family origins in predominately Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Such people are cruelly disappointed to find that politically correct local councils enforce the same sort of rules on them and their children that oppressed them in their countries of origin. In fact, one of the greatest failures of 'multiculturalism' has been that it has transported into Britain social power structures from countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh that oppressed non Muslim minorities in those countries. This was indelibly impressed on me some years ago when I was invited to speak at the Asian Christian Fellowship in Southall, which numbered well over a hundred people. After the meeting a family of Pakistani origin invited me back to their home for a meal (hospitality is one of the very positive cultural values that Asians contribute to this country...!). There it quickly became apparent that I was one of the first white Urdu speakers (of a sort!) they had ever met. With tears streaming down her face, the lady of the house in a mixture of broken English and Urdu, poured out her heart about how distressed she was that the local council and schools kept treating them as if they were Muslims - because they were of Pakistani origin. It wasn't a question of ignorance - at the time the mayor of neighbouring Hounslow was an Asian Christian, one of 50,000 in the UK. The problem was the political correctness of their local council that listened to self proclaimed Muslim community leaders, instead of relating to people as individual citizens.

3. And of course the other victims of enforced 'multicultralism' exemplified by Tower Hamlets council, are all the other non Muslims in the area who don't want to be subjected to Islamic rules! Let's be clear - in the UK there are plenty of Islamist groups who engage in a 'political jihad' of seeking to slowly step by step align British public policy with that of Islamic government. Their strategy to achieve this is firstly, to push for special recognition of religious distinctives by local and central government, which then gives them greater leverage to 'enforce' these by social pressure and intimidation within predominately Muslim areas of the UK, then finally requiring non Muslims to observe these 'rules' in the name of 'tolerance' of Islam. It looks like Labour controlled Tower Hamlets Council have fallen into this Islamist trap hook, line and sinker...

30^th August 2008

Record breaking exam results – but what is really happening to Children and Young People’s educational achievement?

 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.

Research by educationalists at Durham University suggests that the A-level standard now awarded an A grade in many subjects would have only merited a C grade in the 1980s (i.e. 2 grades lower). In fact, their research suggested that in A-level Maths the standard is now 3 and half grades down (i.e. a D grade in the 1980s might now get an A grade). Their research provides hard evidence of what many long serving teachers have long suspected.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) predictably dismissed the Durham research. Many, like me, will find it profoundly disturbing that politicians and spin doctors at the DCSF, who are not even trained teachers, actually think they know more than professional educationalists at a leading university.

In fact, the Durham research - which measured the level of conceptual understanding required to get specific grades in exams, produced very similar conclusions to a 2006 research study done by educationalists at Kings College London for the ESRC. The London University team found that in 2004 the level of conceptual understanding that 11 year olds had was 2-3 years behind their counterparts in 1990, i.e. there had been a significant decline in the general level of educational ability.

Taken together, these two pieces of research suggest that far from standards of learning improving as government ministers keep claiming - the reverse may actually be true. That is to say, the intellectual ability of British children taken as a whole (i.e. not necessarily you or your particular child!) has actually decreased compared to what children in the 1980s achieved. This decline in learning (i.e. what children comprehend) has occurred despite there being a whole range of evidence that that teaching (i.e. what teachers do in the classroom) has significantly improved since the 1980s. A number of education writers point to the most probable cause of this decline in learning ability as being 'toxic childhood' (See Sue Palmer's excellent book with this title - which David Willetts called 'one of the most powerful books of the year'). 'Toxic childhood' is the cocktail of factors from lack of outdoor play, overuse of computer games resulting in a lack of social skills, violent video games, poor parenting and family breakdown etc., which inhibit learning. Significantly, this list includes a number of issues also identified by Iain Duncan Smith's Social Justice Policy Commission, as being long term causes of poverty.

Taken together, the findings of the London and Durham University research teams suggest that this decline in children's learning ability may possibly be being masked by 'grade inflation' i.e. exams getting easier.

The situation is hidden partly because in the 1980s both A-levels and GCSEs were marked by what is termed 'norm referencing' i.e. a set percentage of students got each grade. This was later replaced by 'criterion referencing' - in which students have to achieve certain set standards. This makes it hard to compare standards just by comparing results. However, when GCSE was introduced the grade F mark (equivalent of the old CSE grade 4) was set at the 50 percentile mark i.e. 50% would get grade F and above and 50% below. By comparison today in most subjects around 75% of students achieve grades A*-C - (the equivalent of an O-level pass) i.e. 3 grades higher. Now it is entirely credible that improved teaching could have improved pass rates from 50% getting a particular grade to 75% getting the same grade. However, it is much more questionable as to whether, with even the best teaching in the world, children who would have got a low grade CSE in the early 80s would now get the equivalent of an O-level pass (which implies they might go on to A-level and potentially university).

So have exams got easier? Many teachers feel that A-level became easier a few years ago when they became modularised instead of being examined just at the end of the course. Last year the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) announced that in future GCSEs would also be modularised - potentially allowing students to retake modules to improve their grades.

Similarly, many schools have met government targets to increase the number of A*-C GCSE passes by students taking easier subjects such as PE and Media Studies. Research findings announced last year by Durham University suggested that GCSEs in PE, Media Studies, Textiles and Drama were approximately one grade easier than GCSEs in Languages, History and IT.

When this evidence is taken together with the Kings College London Research that showed a significant decline in intellectual ability among 11 year olds - it raises the uncomfortable question of whether grade inflation at both A-level and GCSE might possibly be masking an actual decline in school leaver's intellectual ability.

The truth is that government targets to constantly improve can all to easily have the opposite of the intended effect. They pressurise teachers to teach to the test, rather than widening the thinking skills and knowledge base of children and they put pressure on schools to steer children into easier subjects.

Is grade inflation masking a decline in educational ability? Whilst there is a body of evidence that points to that possibility - the truth is that school exam results have become rather like the government's inflation figures - everyone knows what the official figures are, but no one definitively knows what the actual levels are - and that is a scandal for any government to preside over.

Consequently, I would suggest that the next Conservative government makes it a priority to:

1. Urgently review the target driven culture that the present Labour government have imposed on schools that is distorting Children's education.

2. Commission educationalists to establish clear and permanent bench marks in terms of knowledge, conceptual understanding and skills for each subject and grade to stop any further grade inflation.

3. Commission a major independent research project to determine whether children and young people's educational ability has actually been rising or falling during the last decade.

 14^th August 2008

Recommended books for understanding Islamism

 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.

 14^th August 2008

The fire service needs to be freed from its health and safety straitjacket

 When I was an aid worker in Afghanistan, parents of those looking to join our team would sometimes ask 'is it dangerous?' To which my standards reply was that there are certain professions - the armed services, the police and the fire service etc. where you have to accept a certain amount of risk.

Not any longer it seems according to the health and safety bureaucrats responsible for the fire service... 

A few weeks ago I went for a quiet evening stroll down by the river and came upon a calf, which had fallen down a steep bank into the river and was struggling to keep its head above water. A couple of unemployed teenagers had already spotted it and called the police (time the press said more good things about teenagers like these!). It looked a bit risky to try to pull it out alone, as without someone behind it the calf might panic and go out into deeper water. So, ten minutes later when a local WPC arrived, I suggested that if she didn't mind getting into the shallow water to help the calf out - I'd go into the main part of the river behind it (it didn't look more than waist deep). Health and safety kicked in - it seems the police now have instructions not to enter water themselves, caution the public not to enter and call the fire service. OK - fair enough the fire service are the guys who are paid to get wet!

The police radio crackled and I heard the WPC query why the fire service were sending a crew from 15 miles away instead of calling out the local retained (i.e. volunteer) crew. It seemed that the retained crew weren't trained in water rescue and would be tempted to just go into the river and get the calf out!

To put this into context - this is Suffolk - gentle quiet flowing rivers and about thirty yards upstream from a spot I used to paddle in when I was a child!

After about twenty minutes the fire crew arrive - turns out they are not

allowed to go into the river either and they also warn the rest of us not to enter the river. We try to coax the calf down to a section where it might be able to climb out, but it doesn't move far enough. By now the light is fading and it’s getting difficult to see the calf. The fire service decide they need a specialist water rescue unit i.e. fire crew who are actually allowed to enter the water! The unit is based in Felixstowe - the other side of Suffolk. Now Suffolk is a big county that has not exactly been blessed by government spending on roads - no motorways and basically only one dual carriageway of any length. So, we're told it's going to take the specialist water rescue unit at least an hour an half to get to us. (It will probably take even longer if the government force through its rather ill thought out plan of merging local fire brigades into regional fire services - at least this time the 'water rescue unit' was coming from Suffolk!).

After we've been there for about an hour, the calf by now totally exhausted, drifts out into mid river. In the fading light we can just see it disappear under the water. After twenty seconds or so it kicks itself back to surface before again disappearing under the water. It doesn't reappear. No one does anything. Frustrated and not feeling bound by fire service health and safety regulations I quietly asked one of the teenagers to look after my mobile phone, waded into the river and pulled the calf out. Everyone, including the firemen, cheered when I lifted the calf out of the water and hauled it to the bank, where the fire crew gave it oxygen until the RSPCA arrived.

Back on the bank, the firemen half apologetically explain that they constantly have it rammed down their throats that they are not allowed to enter water. Apparently it all came about as a result of two firemen drowning trying to rescue someone from a raging torrent in the North of England a few years ago.

That I understand. What I don't understand is the 'one size fits all' approach to health and safety that treats a quiet, gently flowing Suffolk river the same as a raging white water torrent elsewhere in the country. The water only came to my lower chest and although there was quite a lot of weed in the river, it wasn't exactly hugely dangerous. I understand that firemen shouldn't be pressured into jumping into a raging torrent. I can even - at a stretch - understand them being advised not to enter a river. What I cannot understand - and I am quite sure the public don't either - is firemen repeatedly being told that they are not allowed to enter any river.  Canoeists grade rivers from 1 (gently flowing) to 6 (definite danger to life) - do the government's health and safety managers think that firemen aren't capable of doing something similar?

These firemen didn't join the fire service to stand on a river bank for an hour watching a calf drown. They joined to save lives. It's about time the government let them do the job they joined the fire service to do.

 6^th August 2008

Labour are undermining at least 50% of historic core British values

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...

Secondly, this government - as I will briefly demonstrate below - has itself been undermining many of these core British values, particularly some of the more significant ones that Hazel Blears chose to omit from her list.

Thirdly, not only is the government's list of 'shared values' that are 'the fundamental tenets of democracy' wholly inadequate, the government appears to be equally hazy as to the precise points at which Islamic law (sharia) conflicts with our historic core British values. For example, I wholeheartedly agree with Ms Blears that the independence of the judiciary from the government is an important British value, but it is not as Ms Blears asserts 'one of the great dividing lines' between us and Islamic extremists (in Islamic countries sharia courts are normally independent of the government).

So, for the sake of the ordinary decent people in this country - like the teacher I met recently who, knowing nothing of my interest in this area, spontaneously spoke of how worried he was by a newspaper headline stating that the Lord Chief Justice advocated British courts using sharia, for the sake of such ordinary decent British citizens as that man, I'll briefly explain to Ms Blears and the rest of the Labour government some of the key points on which Islamic law (sharia) conflicts with some of our historic core British values - including a number that the present government are themselves actively undermining.

In order to do that I would suggest the following as 'historic core British values', by that I mean ones that have evolved to their present form over a significant period of British history and are central to the maintenance of our present freedoms. Most, though not all, of these values are expressed through our parliamentary and legal institutions. I am sure others will want to modify or add to this list. That will be a very constructive debate to have. I make no claim for completeness!

1. Parliamentary Democracy. This has several aspects:

a) One citizen one vote in free and fair elections to vote/out the government of the people's choice (and not as a 'one way street' to introducing an Islamic government as a significant number of non violent Islamist groups in the UK see it).

b) The right of any sane adult citizen not convicted of a serious crime to stand for election. (In modern applications of Islamic law if non Muslims are allowed to stand for election or vote at all, this is often only in a tiny handful of special seats for non Muslims, which completely marginalises their influence on mainstream politics).

c) Choice of government being based on being able to command a majority of elected members of parliament. (In traditional interpretations of Islamic law non Muslims are not permitted to be part of government).

d) Multi party participation in elections - with an official opposition in parliament.

e) Only parliamentarians becoming ministers so that they can be held to account in parliament.

f) Parliament being independent of government - including in its finances - so able to hold government to account.

g) Government by consent of members of parliament - originating in the Magna Carta provision of 'no taxation without representation'.

h) Laws being made by parliamentarians. (In Islamic law - laws are 'discovered' by sharia theologians interpreting the Qur'an and Hadith. Parliament and government can only apply laws that the sharia courts tell them are compliant with Islamic law).

2. Constitutional Monarchy - the sovereign as a non political head of state, but with the ultimate right to dissolve parliament. (In Islamic law non Muslims are excluded from being head of state).

3. One law for all - with absolute equality for all before the law - whether male/female; Christian/Muslim/Jewish/Secular - or anything else, one law for all. (Islamic law gives significantly lesser legal rights to non Muslims and to women - including a Muslim man's testimony in court being equal to that of two non Muslim men or four non Muslim women).

4. Independence of the judiciary from government (as stated above this isn't actually a major clash with agenda of Islamic extremists - despite Ms Blears seeming to think it is!).

5. Freedom of speech - including both freedom of the press and the right of individuals to criticise another's worldview - whether Christian, Muslim or Secular Pluralist or any other. (Criticism of Muhammad or the Qur'an is the most serious offence in Islamic law and carries the automatic death penalty even in 'moderate' Islamic countries such as Pakistan).

6. Freedom of religion - including:

a) Not having a worldview whether Christian, Muslim, Secular Pluralist or any other imposed on individuals or private organisations by legislation. (Islamic law as a single religious and political system legislates a world-view).

b) The right peacefully to practise and eierenically persuade others of the truth of one's beliefs. (In Islamic law the death penalty applies to any Muslim man who embraces another faith such as Christianity and may also be applied to anyone trying to persuade a Muslim of the truth of another faith).

7. No imprisonment by the state or its agents without a fair trial before a jury of one's equals. (Islamic law does not require a jury - only a judge who according to sharia must be a Muslim).

8. Loyalty to Britain as a nation state before loyalty to any other state or organisation. This includes - but is not limited to - not giving any form of aid or assistance (political, financial or military etc) to those fighting against British armed forces, actions that have traditionally been described in Britain as 'treason'.

9. The sovereignty of Britain as a nation state - whose laws are solely determined by her parliament rather than by any non British power. (In Islamic law parliaments do not 'make' law - see comment on 1h above).

10. British citizenship being the birthright of every child born in Britain of British parents and conferring both rights (including an inalienable right of residence) and responsibilities.

I have written before on Conservative Home of how the present Labour government have a relationship with 'non violent' Islamist groups that is similar to the relationship Labour had with the unions a decade or so ago. Put simply, Labour doesn't want all of their agenda, but it does want their votes (and in the case of the unions their money!). So, it has appeased them by giving them part of what they want  - for example: the incitement to religious hatred legislation - widely viewed by Islamist organisations as an Islamic blasphemy law; a leading Islamist commissioned to write a government report alone (!) on how Islam should be taught at British universities; sharia treasury bonds (sukuk) currently being introduced by the government etc.

However, aside form its appeasement of 'non violent' Islamist groups, there are other ways that the present Labour government's ideology, policies and actions have significantly undermined historic core British values:

1. Parliamentary democracy

a) Free and fair elections - in 2007 Labour MPs voted to give themselves a £10,000 'communications allowance' from public funds to promote themselves to their constituents - on top of the existing postage and other allowances that all MPs receive (a future Conservative government is pledged to abolish this in the interests of democracy). While just to skew the playing field even more in favour in sitting Labour MPs, in June this year Justice Secretary Jack Straw proposed banning prospective candidates challenging a sitting MP from spending any money from any source in advance of an election. To put this into perspective - one of the major criticisms Britain has made of elections in in countries such as Russia is the huge advantage given to government MPs in terms of state funding etc.(See Greg Hands MP's excellent article on this).

e) Only parliamentarians becoming ministers 1. Unelected Labour political advisors have unconstitutionally assumed part of the role of ministers by giving orders to civil servants. 2. Immediately after becoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed Sir Digby Jones as a minister when he wasn't a member of either house of parliament, an ction which led to the Prime Minister being censured by an all party parliamentary committee for this.

f) Parliament independent of government - Gordon Brown unconstitutionally sought to interfere in decisions over MPs pay - which constitutionally should be set by parliament without government interference.

5. Freedom of speech

1. An unusual coalition of writers, actors and churchmen strongly condemned Labour's attempt to pass incitement to religious hatred legislation in a form which (before being amended) would have severely curtailed the fundamental historic British right of being able to criticise another person's worldview - whether Christian, Muslim, Secular Pluralist or any other.

2. Highly respected children's author Lynette Burrowes was subjected to a police investigation after saying in a radio interview that she had reservations about homosexual male couples adopting girls. Here was a perfectly legitimate expression of a difference of opinion from the Labour government's policy - but she was subjected to a police investigation for it. The police action is a massive erosion of freedom of speech. Unfortunately hers is far from being an isolated case.

6. Freedom of Religion

a) Not having a worldview (Christian, Muslim, Secular Pluralist or any other) imposed on individuals or private organisations by legislation. In 1559 Elisabeth 1 passed the Act of Uniformity requiring everyone to assent to a particular Worldview - that of the established church. It was not until the abolition of the University Tests Act in 1871 that Britain attained full religious freedom. However, the Sexual Orientation Regulations passed by the present Labour government reversed Britain's 400 year march to religious freedom by requiring Catholic adoption agencies to do something (place children for adoption with homosexual couples) that their own worldview said was morally wrong. In effect it enforced a world-view (a Secular Pluralist one) by legislation on individuals and private organisations. (I'm not a Catholic by the way, but this was a fundamental erosion of our historic core British value of religious liberty).

b) The right to peacefully practise and persuade others of the truth of one's beliefs. The Labour government now plan a further significant erosion of this in its proposed Single Discrimination Act, which in its present format may make it illegal for Christian ministers to state that homosexual sexual practice is morally wrong. The Church of England - hardly a bastion of radical fundamentalism - has already warned that this is a serious erosion of religious liberty. When the government tries to tell the church what it can and can't call 'sin' there is a very real possibility that some Christian ministers will go to prison rather than obey it.

7. No imprisonment by the state or its agents without a fair trial before a jury

Massively undermined by the government legislating 42 days detention without trial for terrorist suspects.

8. Loyalty to Britain

A bit of an open question this one, but I do have a question mark about exactly why the government thinks NOW is an opportune time to review Britain's treason laws...

9. The sovereignty of Britain as a nation state - with laws determined solely by the British parliament

Dare I just say the words 'Lisbon Treaty' a.k.a. 'The EU Constitution' - which the government was elected on a manifesto of allowing us a referendum on - but hasn't; which Gordon Brown promised parliament line by line scrutiny of - but didn't allow; but which does transfer huge amounts of power from our elected British parliament to unelected EU officials.

Now that means that of these 10 main areas of historic core British values - whilst Islamic extremists challenge 80-90% of them, the Labour government themselves are actively undermining at least 50% of them.

Many like me will find it deeply worrying that the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears' list of the 'shared values' that are in her words the 'fundamental tenets of democracy (that) form the great dividing line between us and the extremists' does not include many of our historic core British values - like freedom of religion and no imprisonment without trial by jury - precisely those core British values that the Labour government are actively undermining at this very moment.

When the SS Great Britain is being holed below the waterline by her own captain and officers, it is clearly time for a change of crew if the good ship Great Britain is to have any hope of defending our historic core British values against the hidden U-Boats of Islamic extremism.

30^th July 2008

I hope Gordon Brown is allowed a quiet Holiday in Suffolk…

 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!

Now I have just started teaching at a school near the area and Suffolk people are to say the least rather upset about the Boundary Commission's proposals to scrap local district councils ('why fix it when it isn't broke?'). In fact, in Lowestoft they are absolutely livid about being moved from Suffolk into Norfolk. Councillor Mark Bee, the Conservative leader of Waveney District Council memorably described it as 'a dog's breakfast, in fact the more I think about it - I wouldn't even give it to my dog!'

Suffolk folk are an essentially conservative folk who really don't like change being forced upon them. But mercifully for Gordon Brown on his hols – we are also on the whole a fairly polite and hospitable people. No one's likely to slow handclap Gordon out of the local pub - as Londoners recently did to School's Secretary Ed Balls.

BUT, I dare say that even in Suffolk there may well be a few aggrieved local people who will want to bend Gordon's ear on a rather pressing local political issue...

If so, Gordon should know exactly who to blame and insist that Hazel Blears cleans up the mess she and local MP Bob Blizzard have created, and reject both of the Boundary Commission's proposals for Suffolk, let Lowestoft stay in Suffolk and above all let local people decide for themselves whether they want an expensive reorganisation of local government imposed on them by the Labour government just weeks before the government is forced to call the next general election. 

Party differences aside I really do hope Gordon Brown and his family are allowed a quiet family holiday, everyone deserves that.

But Gordon Brown, Hazel Blears and the likes of Bob Blizzard really do need to listen to local people instead of trying to impose things on local people in the vain hope of gaining some party political advantage.

 25^th July 2008

Sharia legitimises slavery

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.

In fact, the extent to which political correctness has blinded our eyes to the role of sharia in legitimising slavery is truly astonishing. In the recent celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the British parliament's abolition of the slave trade, we heard very little about the role played by Muslim Arab traders in enslaving large numbers of black Africans prior to their transportation in European ships to the West Indies. Nor did we hear much of the one million white European slaves, many of them British sailors or even Cornish villagers captured in slave raids on South West England, enslaved and sometimes forcibly converted to Islam by the ruler of Morocco in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although we must be grateful to Giles Milton for bringing this subject to public light in his excellent book White Gold

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The truth is that political correctness and the fear of being accused of 'Islamophobia' have kept the Islamic aspect of the slave trade largely veiled from public attention. Yet the express permission granted in Islamic law for the enslavement of non Muslims was a significant factor not just in the eighteenth century transatlantic slave trade, but also continues to be in a number of modern Islamic contexts. The existence of twin system of law in many Islamic countries - one constitutional and the other, Islamic (sharia) often operated on a more informal level - allows those engaged in slavery to claim a degree of 'legitimacy' in terms of Islamic law.

Consequently, while Arab countries have in recent years made pronouncements in terms of their constitutional (i.e. western based) laws banning slavery, in practice slavery has often continued. For example, in November 1962 Saudi Arabia found 'a favourable opportunity' to formally abolish the slave trade, and paid £1,785,000 as compensation to slave owners for the release of 1,682 slaves. Yet the UN estimated that there were between 100,000 and 250,000 slaves in Saudi Arabia at the time. The overthrow of the Sultan of Oman in 1970 revealed some 500 slaves kept in his palace - some so badly treated that they were unable to stand upright while others had become unable to speak. Similarly, Mauritania whose constitutional law abolished slavery in 1981 was estimated in 1995 to have 300,000 'former' black slaves kept in servitude.

The point is simply this, sharia always trumps any man made 'laws' because Islamic theology understands that law cannot be 'made' by man, but only 'discovered' by Islamic scholars from study of the Islamic scriptures. It is therefore against the very nature of sharia, for it to exist - as Lord Phillips suggested this week that the UK should alllow it to - in a subservient position to any form of man made constitutional law. If the Lord Chief Justice does not understand this basic difference between western law and sharia, then he needs to refrain from addressing Muslim audiences on the issue of sharia.

Sharia does very clearly legitimise the enslaving of non Muslims, BUT not of Muslims - who Muslims are exhorted in the Qur'an and Sharia to set free.

Within Sunni Islam there are 4 schools of Islamic law - all are based on interpreting what the Qur'an and Sunna (example of what Muhammad said and did contained in the Hadith) say.

 1. The Qur'an does encourage the freeing of Muslim slaves. However, it also expressly allows Muslims to take slaves during war and in the case of female slaves - to marry them Q33:49 "O Prophet truly we have made lawful for thee wives to whom thou hast given their hire (dowry) AND what thy right hand possess out of the booty God hath granted thee."

 2. The Sunna - Muhammad's example - although Muhammad released some slaves who had become Muslims - most famously a black slave called Bilal, he himself ordered non Muslims captured in battle to be taken into slavery. The most famous example of this is after the Battle of the Ditch, 5 years after Muhammad became the political ruler of Medina. After the battle Muhammad felt a Jewish tribe living near Medina had not given him support so he ordered the execution by beheading in a ditch of 700 Jewish men and the enslaving of the women and girls...

 3. Sharia: The Hedaya - which for the last 400 years has been the main textbook on Sharia used in Sunni madrassas throughout the Indian subcontinent is explicit that enslavement of non Muslim captives is legitimate. It states that:

"The imam with respect to captives has it in his choice to slay them, because the prophet put captives to death, and also because slaying them terminates wickedness; or, IF HE CHOOSES HE MAY MAKE THEM SLAVES, because by enslaving them the wickedness of them is remedied, and at the same time the Muslims reap an advantage..." The Hedaya in fact goes into great detail about who may be enslaved and under what circumstances a slave may be released

5th July 2008

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.

During the recent election for London mayor I observed that the denials of any link between Islam and violence by both leading Labour politicians and ex Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick, then the Lib-Dem candidate for London mayor, ultimately provided fertile ground for racist parties to whip up hatred of ordinary Muslims. Put simply, it only takes a certain number of Islamic extremists to be convicted of planning terrorist acts before the ordinary man and woman in the street stops believing what public figures like Home Secretary Jacqui Smith say - and instead start to believe the  perverted claims about ALL Muslims that are made by racist parties.

The only safe course for the government is to speak with both truth AND responsibility. That means privately challenging Islamic groups to deal with the theology of violence in classical Islam (a subject most ordinary British Muslims thankfully know almost nothing about). While in public, the government must quite truthfully stress that the majority of ordinary Muslims totally reject violence - rather than making mistaken claims about what Islam is or isn't, as the present government continues to do.

If the present government continue to fail to do this, then as this week's events have shown, there is a real possibility that the UK will see rising levels of fear and hatred of ordinary Muslims, most of whom totally reject violence and just want to get on with their family lives. Ironically, such attacks on ordinary Muslims are themselves likely to broaden the appeal of radical Islam among British Muslims.