One small sign of the approaching election is a renewed courting of the Muslim vote. Unfortunately, this seems to mean sucking up to the Muslim Council of Britain, even though that body’s ability to represent the real range of Muslim opinion is hotly contested (see Stephen Pollard, p20). Last year, the government suspended its dealings with the MCB after Daoud Abdullah, the MCB’s deputy general secretary, signed the Istanbul Declaration, which threatens those who impede the violent work of Hamas against Israel. At the time, our government said that the Istanbul Declaration ‘does call for attacks on foreign warships, potentially including the Royal Navy, and also advocates violence against Jewish people and their supporters around the world’. It refused to engage with the MCB so long as Mr Abdullah’s signature on the declaration stood. Last week, however, the government decided to ‘re-engage’ with the MCB. The MCB has made some encouraging new noises about condemning attacks on British troops, but Mr Abdullah has not removed his signature from the declaration, so it is the government that has backed down. Now the MCB-organised ‘Muslim Leadership Dinner’, fundraising for MCB causes, will take place on Saturday in the presence of what the organisers rather quaintly call ‘The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain’, Jack Straw, and the Liberal leader, Nick Clegg. The good news is that the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, has refused to attend.
On Tuesday, I listened to two long items on the Today programme about restricting the sale of alcohol. The government now wants a mandatory code of conduct to imprison those who serve people under 18, make small measures compulsorily available and ban speed-drinking competitions and free drinks for women. Although the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, was brave enough to refuse minimum unit pricing on the sensible grounds that this would penalise normal drinkers as well as louts, no one, from beginning to end, even mentioned the word ‘freedom’ or the word ‘localism’.
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