Secretary of state for communities Ruth Kelly has an article in the Observer justifying the government’s decision to shift resources away from the genuinely representative Muslim Council of Britain to organisations that will be less vocal in criticising the role British foreign policy in inciting terrorism.

Significantly, the Sufi Muslim Council – which Kelly was enthusiastically promoting only last year – doesn’t rate a mention, and now appears to have been rejected in favour of the British Muslim Forum (or the “Muslim British Forum”, as Kelly prefers to call it) as the government’s favoured partner in the Muslim community.

This procedure bears more than a passing resemblance to the practice of colonial governors within the British Empire, who would appoint their favoured individuals to represent the “natives”.