Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Where are the moderates?

“£10 note is at the centre of a crossroads. To the north, there’s Santa Claus. To the west, the Tooth Fairy. To the east, a radical Muslim. To the south, a moderate Muslim. Who reaches the cash first? The radical Muslim, of course – the others don’t exist.”

So runs one of the many gags in Mark Steyn’s America Alone. As ever, it makes a deadly serious point: very few moderate Muslims are identifiable and this makes it far easier for Bin Laden to convey his key argument: that there is a clash of civilisations, Islam v The Rest. Two news pieces yesterday threw this into focus: Dean Godson’s piece in The Times about the problem of funding moderates and The Sun’s splash about Omar Bakri denouncing boxer Amir Khan as an “ignorant deviant” because he flies the Union Flag.

How bin Laden would have hated to see The Sun piece in particular.

Britain’s best politics newsletters

You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Comments

Join the debate for just £1 a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in