The secret of Israel’s success
Naomi Klein (of No Logo fame) has an article in today's Guardian about the current success of Israel's economy, apparently despite its present "difficulties" and having lost out after the "dot com" bubble burst...
Author: Matthew Smith
Monbiot: getting into the Olympic spirit
London is getting into the Olympic spirit – by kicking out the Gypsies – Guardian Comment George Monbiot notes on the recent eviction of Gypsies and other Travellers from their sites in east London...
Imam training and terrorism
'Imams are not the solution to terrorism' – Education Guardian An article which appeared in today's Guardian Education supplement, featuring an interview with Shaikh Ibrahim Mogra, on why government funding for imam training may...
“Ed” Husain and other dividers
Sister Summayah Evans, who recently entered the Muslim blogging community, has posted this lengthy entry on the scandal of Muhammad Mahbub "Ed" Husain, the author of the book The Islamist which was published last...
Pictures from yesterday’s Palestine demo
Here are a few pictures I took at yesterday’s Enough Occupation demonstration in London to mark the 40th anniversary of the Israel seizure of the West Bank and Gaza. The demonstration wasn’t massive –...
“Cultural separatism” and the Islamic studies conference
Islamophobia Watch – David Cameron accuses Muslims of 'cultural separatism' David Cameron gave this speech at a conference on "Islam and Muslims in the World Today", hosted in London by Cambridge university earlier this...
Art may imitate life, but life imitates TV
BBC NEWS: Red-haired family forced to move This report is about a family which has had to move house twice because of harrassment by moronic neighbours who took objection to … their red hair!...
The mega mosque petition (updated)
Lately Jamal at Radical Muslim has been posting requests for people to sign a petition to the UK Prime Minister asking him to approve the construction of the Abbey Mills mosque. Several people have...
Dimwit truckers revisited
I've posted here before about the stupid truckers I occasionally encounter while driving in London, particularly on narrow dual carriageways like the Western Avenue and the one near where I live, the Kingston By-pass....
Our alleged duty to respect Israel
Melanie Phillips’s Diary; The Islamic duty to respect Israel Melanie Phillips, courtesy of “Arabs for Israel”, has found a selection of Qur’anic verses which supposedly enjoin Muslims to respect Israel – not the prophet...
We’ve got the power … or have we?
I woke up this morning to find that my bedside alarm-clock-radio was off, which could only mean one thing: a power cut. That had me worried, because I had heard on the radio yesterday...
Review of “This is England”
This is England is a film about skinheads in the English Midlands in the early 1980s, written and directed by the British director Shane Meadows (interviewed here) and set mostly on a council estate which turns out to be in Nottingham, although no reference to Nottingham is actually made anywhere in the film; some scenes are shot in Grimsby, an east coast port and seaside resort. It mainly revolves around the character of Shaun, a 12-year-old boy who has recently lost his father in the Falklands war, and who is partly based on Meadows (and some of the other characters are also partly based on people Meadows knew).
Mission creep
BBC NEWS | UK | Organic move to cut food flights The Soil Association, the organisation which advocates for and certifies organic food in the UK, is considering stripping organic status from food which...
Mad Mel’s short memory
Melanie Phillips delivers her usual denunciation of what she calls "two egregious additions on British television to the demonisation of Israel and the consequent furtherance of Jew-hatred", one of them being a Channel 4...
Bye bye, Faisal
Abdullah Faisal, the extremist Muslim preacher who was jailed in 2003 for delivering speeches which incited murder and racial hatred, has been deported to Jamaica after serving a large part of his sentence. I...
Brown’s betrayal of democracy
Brown's betrayal of democracy (Guardian letters) The latest in my occasional series on the impending "divine-right succession" of Gordon Brown to become British Prime Minister: the letters in today's Guardian, which show why it...
Hypocrisy over divestment
muslimmatters.org » Beware the Do-Gooders in Body Armor: The True Motives of those in Support of Divestment in Sudan A number of articles and blogs recently have picked up on the inconsistency of those...
‘Ed’ Husain and the Muslims’ dirty linen
Last Saturday the Guardian printed a full-page interview with “Ed” Husain (full name, Muhammad Mahbub Husain, as has already been established elsewhere on the Internet), the author of a memoir entitled The Islamist, recently published (although not that widely available, since I’ve yet to see it in any bookshop other than Foyles) in the UK to praise from, among those named by Madeleine Bunting, Martin Amis, Simon Jenkins, David Aaronovitch and Melanie Phillips, who published two blog entries ([1], [2]) telling us all to read it. I wrote a letter in reply on Monday (perhaps too late), but since it is Thusday and it has not yet been printed, I will reply here, insha Allah.
Why chip-tagging kids is a bad idea
In the wake of the recent disappearance, as yet unresolved, of Madeleine McCann on the Algarve in Portugal, nobody who listens to the British media could have missed the flood of smug mums and...
The martyrology of the smoker
Is the smoking ban a good idea? | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited In a few weeks' time, smoking in enclosed public spaces will become illegal in the UK; such places include pubs and...