08 February 2011

Cameron's confusion on multiculturalism

The most striking thing about David Cameron's speech on multiculturalism was how little it had to do with conservatism. It had absolutely nothing to do with limited government or traditional values. Some of it was sensible, some of it was even persuasive. One passage seemed to echo directly the good bits of Baroness Warsi's speech.

"People think whether someone is an extremist is dependent on how much they observe their religion. So, they talk about moderate Muslims as if all devout Muslims must be extremist. This is profoundly wrong. Someone can be a devout Muslim and not be an extremist. We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing."

But most of the talk is right off the rails, He denies any connection between Islamic extremism and the foreign policies of his own government: something which is at best arguable, but then goes on to blame it on the domestic policies of of other, unnamed governments: [Guardian Cif] Read more