THE MAIL ON SUNDAY: The poor old Ayatollah of Canterbury doesn't actually deserve all the slime now being tipped over his modernised mitre. Just some of it.
Of course it is absurd for the chief of the Christian Church in this country to cringe publicly to Islam. But at least Archbishop Williams is open about his unwillingness to defend the faith – as is his colleague, the wretched Bishop of Oxford, who recently announced that he was perfectly happy for loudspeakers to blare the Muslim call to prayer across that city.
Even on their own liberal terms, this pair are clueless about sharia and its scorn for women. It was exiled Iranian Muslim women who defeated a similar proposal in Canada. They had travelled thousands of miles to escape sharia law and didn't want it in Toronto, thanks very much.
Compare that with the Government, which poses stern-faced as the foe of "terror" and noisily jails figures of fun such as Abu Hamza while greasily pretending that there's no connection between Islam and terrorism.
Gordon Brown's Cabinet has also quietly agreed that Muslim men with more than one wife can now claim benefits for these extra spouses – while bigamy remains a criminal offence for everyone else, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
And what about the discreet little Whitehall celebrations of the Muslim festival of Eid, attended by highly placed civil servants?
Or the incessant multi-faith propaganda in supposedly Christian State schools, where children known to me have been pestered to draw pictures of mosques but are given virtually no instruction in the faith and scripture of our own established Church?
Why is it that in Britain, alone of all countries in the world, the most exalted, educated and privileged have all lost the will to defend their own home? Most of us liked it the way it was before they began to "modernise" it.
I know of nowhere else where those most richly rewarded by a free society are so anxious to trash the place that gave them birth and liberty. [Source: At least the Ayatollah of Canterbury is honest, Mr Brown] - By Peter Hitchens
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