Reids Speech

Reid's Speech

Few people would think that telling members of a group that they are in the best position to be aware of signs that their children are being subverted by radical elements is a bad thing. Especially if that community is insular to the point of racism and further distance themselves from the rest of us by continuing to refuse, in some cases, to even learn the language of their adopted country. When the radicals we're worried about are exclusively from within their community and when these radicals have openly declared war upon the rest of us, is it in any way surprising that we ask the non-radical majority of that community to be involved in policing themselves?

To have made that request at an open meeting within that community can be considered either brave and courteous or opportunistic and manipulative. With New Labour involved you can guess which is my call, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt. However, to allow known radicals to just walk in without the slightest check was foolhardy and stupid.

The guys who did, whose names I can't relate, clearly are not the ones who would ever be strapped to a bomb. No, those cowards talk others into doing that for them. Reid did, however, hand them something of a media coup.

Few were talking about his request or his attempt to encourage ordinary, decent muslims to engage with the rest of us, in some way, in the war against terror. Those that were were were doing so in the terms of the radicals. The rest were just simply talking about what those radical hecklers said and did. News-wise they were far more interesting than boring old Dr Reid and New Labour's spin-meisters should have expected that.

Leaving that aside, though, am I the only one in the word to have noticed one chilling comment amid the bile they were spouting? "How dare you come into a muslim area?" they said. A tacit admission that they have already identified areas which they claim from the rest of us, areas that they want in this country where the indigenous population are not only not welcome but are actually banned.

Some would say that such areas have long existed, but that no one chose to pass comment on it, that Dr Reid himself allowed them to publicly claim such an area for themselves was equally terrifying to me. Was he afraid to dismiss such a claim?