In the soaraway Sun Jon Gaunt adds his ten cents to the Wilders debate, claiming that he “can clearly hear the shrill whistle of appeasement to a vocal minority community” and denouncing “double standards”. He tells us:
“After having 52 people slaughtered on 7/7, we spent millions on roadshows and diversion projects to keep young lads away from extremism. However, at the same time Labour allowed Muslim hotheads to preach death to the infidels on the streets of London, stirred up by radicals such as Abu Hamza.”
Er… actually, Abu Hamza is now serving a seven-year prison sentence and the idiots who took to the streets with provocative slogans during the 2006 demonstrations against the Danish cartoons have also been jailed.
Gaunt goes on to outline his position on the issue of freedom of expression: “As far as I’m concerned, in a mature democracy such as ours you should be free to worship who you like and criticise any belief structure you fancy as long as you don’t incite hatred.”
Sentiments with which we entirely concur. But the whole point about Wilders is precisely that he does incite hatred – in fact this is the charge on which he’s currently being prosecuted in the Netherlands. Hasn’t Gaunt watched Fitna? Well, since you ask, no: “I haven’t seen the film, just like I haven’t read the Koran. And I haven’t got any intention of doing either in the near future. Why? Because I am simply not interested.”
Still, never let your own ignorance stand in the way of a good rant about appeasing Muslims, eh Jon?