The road to hell is paved with good intentions!

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill now before the British Parliament marks a sad turning point in this tolerant nation's history. If passed, this free country, till now famed for its freedom of speech, will never be the same again! This bill is as dangerous as it is absurd!

Never in my lifetime have I lived through a period as dangerous as this one, never in my lifetime have I lived through a period of government so intrusive, never in my lifetime have I lived through a period of government so determined to rob the British of their hard-won liberty, and never in my lifetime have I been ruled by people so determined to coerce the majority to appease the minority!

Tony Blair is a Prime Minister like no other we have ever seen. In a short time, he is managing to change the landscape of British politics and the life of the average man in the street.

In my opinion, he will go down as the banning prime minister, since he is clearly intent on banning everything he dislikes or everything he thinks is bad for us. He is turning Britain into a nanny-state. Mrs Thatcher came to power to free up the people; Mr Blair, to place them in shackles!

He has banned smacking, fox-hunting, and much else besides. Further, he is going to ban smoking in all public places. And now he is bent on introducing the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill which will effectively take away our freedom of speech. This is quite unforgivable!

This Prime Miinister seems not to understand the true nature of the tolerant society he is governing. What he is doing to this country is not in the spirit of land. We have had a rich history of tolerance and even diversity. All other groups have managed to blend in. So why should the Muslims be any different? What is particularly galling is that he is doing this to appease the Muslims whose support he has lost because of his ill-fated war in Iraq.

I have said all along - actually for more than twenty years - that we are in grave danger of losing our own culture to mollify and appease the growing number of Muslims in this country. Received wisdom has long told us that immigrants should adopt the culture of the host country. This is in accord with the idea of when in Rome, do as the Romans do. It seems that the new way is for the 'Romans' to be forced to do as the immigrants do: the majority has to mend its ways to appease the minority. This is the nature of Blair's Britain.

This is a dangerous development. Moreover, there will be no end to the demands of the Muslim minority. They are a growing minority, and as this minority grows ever stronger, ever more demands will be made, since so much in our country, as in every other Western country, is potentially offensive to a Muslim: from pigs to wine, from the crucifix to the church bells! Are we eventually to ban everything offensive to Muslims?

This is all happening because we are being led by the weak! Surely, nobody could be weaker than Tony Blair! His premiership has the appearance of strength simply because he faces no real opposition in Parliament (the Conservatives continue to squabble among themselves); in actual fact, however, the reverse is true.

If Blair thinks that he is going to bring about racial harmony with this ill-conceived legislation, he is greatly mistaken. If anything, it will increase tensions between the communities, not minimize them.

Saturday night saw bad riots on the streets of England. Such riots will surely continue if he insists on making one racial group despise the other like this, setting one racial group against the other. The middle classes may well grin and bear it all; the working classes will not! Tolerance is the key to racial harmony. So tolerance must be fostered. What Blair and his administration are proposing will increase intolerance; so racial disharmony could well ensue.

Tony Blair came to power determined to make Britannia cool. He is in grave danger of making it hot, for as the proverb goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions; and we all know just how hot that place is!

©Mark Alexander