“I’m a big fan of plain-speaking Tory William Hague, but he’s wrong to condemn Church of England bishop Michael Nazir-Ali for saying Islamic radicals are turning parts of Britain into menacing no-go areas. Hague says the bishop ‘put it too strongly’. No, he got it right.

“The bishop is bravely giving voice to one of the great unspoken fears of our country: That our mainly Christian society is being swept aside as Islam stakes its claim to be our main religion…. The point about being British is that you don’t need to be a practising Christian to appreciate that our culture is underpinned by Christianity. Christianity has sculpted the fabric of our society, from our carols and cathedrals to our laws and language.

“Islam is an uncompromising religion…. Militant Islamic leaders – the ones most active in Britain today – do not believe in halfway houses. That is why they want mosques to broadcast the call to prayer from loudspeakers three times a day. In Oxford, the mosque has already applied for consent to trumpet its prayer calls over the spires of the ancient university. Thank God Inspector Morse isn’t here to see it.

“Almost half of Muslims here say they would prefer to be governed by Islamic Sharia law, which believes women should be stoned to death for adultery and thieves should have their hands hacked off. Such barbarism has no place in Britain. Yet every day more people arrive here who believe in it. The surge of Islam has been the flip coin of uncontrolled immigration under Labour.”

Fergus Shanahan in the Sun, 8 January 2008