Verbal

Phil Gartside, the Bolton chairman, is about to upset the apple cart again by proposing a two-tier premier league. The reason is that, outside of the top four or five, the costs of competing in the league - and the Sword of damocles that relegation has become - have wrecked the finances of clubs like Hull and Pompey, and will wreck many others to come. He put this idea up a couple of years ago, but suggested then that there wouldn't be any relegation to or promotion from the Championship. Now he's dropped that idea. But he's proposing that any club with enough points to be promoted from the Championship must also prove that it has a big enough supporter base and good enough facilities to actually qualify for promotion. That last bit is good for us, I'd have thought. But do we really want a two-tier league? http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/nov/06/premier-league-two-division-gartside

It's all but irrelevant. Religious texts, by definition, can be read any number of ways. You can be an axe murderer and claim religious motivation, or you can be the most altruistic person, and argue that your moral convictions stem from religious faith. I personally believe all religion is twaddle, but that doesn't give me the license to decry people who believe. But what is demonstrably wrong - and immoral - is to declare that anyone with a particular faith as inherently evil because of that belief. In the end, it's their actions and the consequences of those actions on which anyone should be judged. I think we can all agree that Osama bin Laden, because of his belief in mass murder as a fund-raising tool, is a particularly evil individual. And the child-snatching gangs in East Africa, under the influence of a fundamentalist Christian leader, are hardly sanctified by their loud profession of faith. Not, of course, that lack of faith is necessarily the road to enlightenment either. It's easily forgotten that Stalin and his brand of state-religion communism killed far more than Hitler.

OK Obi Wan.

(A non-religious) Amen to that.

Well, it does I think. Can you think of any other party or organisation that is made up of such a bunch of violent, no-brows? It's that 'branding' that attracts a very good number of BNP supporters, as EDL demos and BNP rallies have all well illustrated. In any case, I saw that first membership list, and discovered that there was a BNP member three doors from us. Once he'd left, our house and those of other families in the street stopped being targets of racist vandalism. Coincidence? Probably not. I also found that he'd written violently racist posts on extremist websites. He, by the way, was a 'typical member' - not a BNP apparatchik. 'Greg Hill' is making a 'bet', based on sweet f**k all.

Easy to track down? Well, yes actually. David Enderby, BNP councillor in Redditch, West Midlands, was found guilty of three counts of assault in January 2007. Kevin Hughes David Enderby's agent in the elections sentenced to three to months in prison for racially aggravated common assault in May 2006. 

· Brian Wainwright The BNP Parliamentary candidate for Hull in the May 2005 General Election pleaded guilty in January 2007 after a campaign of hate mail against the local mosque, a Muslim councillor and a local anti-fascist activist. A letter in which he claimed, "Muslim blood will be spilt" included 'SS' skull and cross bones imagery. Mark Bulman BNP activist in Swindon sentenced to five years in January 2007 after attempting to firebomb a local mosque using a BNP leaflet as a fuse. He also daubed swastikas and racist graffiti on local shops and businesses that he believed to be 'ethnic'. Brian Turner Burnley BNP councillor In June 2006 he was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. Turner had previous convictions of common assault and police assault after he was convicted of beating up his wife. John Laidlaw In February 2007, he told police he was a BNP member and wanted to kill all black people, was convicted in February 2007 after terrorising London's tube network with a series of shootings. 
 Nick Griffin (Party Chairman) Received a two-year suspended sentence in April 1998 for inciting racial hatred. His magazine The Rune carried obscene anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial material as well as crude racism. Tony Lecomber (Group Development Officer). In 1985 he was convicted on five counts for offences under the Explosives Act, including possession of homemade hand-grenades and electronic timing devices. Sentenced to three-years imprisonment. 
In 1991 he was sentenced to another three years imprisonment for unlawful wounding for his part in an attack on a Jewish schoolteacher whom he caught trying to peel off a BNP sticker at an underground station. He has a total of 12 convictions. Colin Smith (South East London organiser). Has amassed a total of 17 convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars, possession of drugs and assaulting a police officer. John Tyndall (founder of the BNP). Six convictions. In 1962 he was jailed for organising a paramilitary organisation. Four years later, he was again sent to prison for possession of a loaded gun. In 1986, he was convicted for incitement to racial hatred under the Public Order Act and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Warren Bennett (Chief Steward). Supposed to keep order in the party yet has convictions for football hooliganism. In 1998, he was deported from France with over 50 other Scottish hooligans, including several BNP members. Steve Belshaw (East Midlands BNP organiser. Was convicted in 1994 for assaulting a lawyer in his home-town of Mansfield. At the time, Belshaw combined his BNP membership with Combat 18 activity. Kevin Scott (North East Regional Organiser). Was convicted in 1993 for hurling a glass at a black customer in a pub. Alan Gould (Waltham Forest Organiser). Was convicted in 2000 for racially abusing people in a local pub. He told the court that it was the drink getting the better of him. Robert Bennett. A leading activist in Oldham BNP during the 2002 elections campaign, Bennett has served five years in prison for the gang rape of a woman. He has also served seven years for armed robbery and has over 30 convictions in total. Mick Treacy. The Oldham organiser has five convictions for violence, theft, and handling stolen goods Darren Dobson. Found guilty of racially aggravated assault at Oldham magistrates in November 2001. Fined £300. Connected to football hooligans in the Oldham area, and has links to the nazi terror group Combat 18 Darren Hoy. April 2002, the BNP supporter was sent to prison for 3 months for racially abusing people as they left an anti-fascist rally in Oldham. Care to reconsider?

The clue is in your last sentence.

YDRC.

I bet it was a transfer.

Next week's lottery numbers please.

Socialist Workers' Front. Delldays is a Trotskyist. Surprised?

We also beat Tottenham 1-0 at White Hart Lane - my first game. Ron Davies scored the winner, and we made a team with Alan Gilzean, Martin Chivers, Pat Jennings and (I think) Mike England look quite ordinary.

That ‘someone’ was me. I do find it depressing that you understood so little of what I wrote. I have no particular opinions about what’s good or bad about the religion itself, other than those based upon what I’ve seen. My point in talking about Sufism in particular is that it explicitly rejects Shariah. As someone who’s spent time studying what happens at one of the world’s most sacred Sufi shrine, at Sehwan Sharif, I can only tell you that what happens there is about as far removed from your clichéd view of the religion as it is possible to imagine. Sufis aren’t some small, insignificant part of the religion; in the Indian sub-continent, and in the largest population centres of Pakistan in particular, they are the dominant form of religious practice. So it is no surprise that the Wahhabis have taken especial care to wipe out all traces of Sufi beliefs and customs. Not that we in the West care, but Sufis once also dominated in Afghanistan. But there shrines have been burned down, and the adherents terrorized and murdered. Why does this matter? Because what’s really going on is a battle for the soul of the religion. Al Qaeda’s basic end-game is to assume control of Mecca and Medina – to ‘liberate’ it from the House of Saud, whom Osama bin Laden regards as too soft and thoroughly corrupt. If you think shariah is bad now, wait until OSM and his wild bunch gets his hands on the real levers of power. Now we fancifully believe that we are engaged in a ‘clash of civilizations’ – a war on terror where one way of life will triumph over another. For OSM, however, the attacks in the West are nothing more than ‘spectaculars’ (his word), whose intention is to act as a recruitment drive for more maniacs and to raise enough money to take them that little step further towards Mecca. The West, in other words, is a sideshow. We are not important – just cannon fodder. Our deaths and maimings simply mean more cash and carriers in another, unrelated cause. As part of this general strategy, OSM and his lieutenants explicitly want to drive as many Muslims into a corner as possible – wherever they are. Only then will they ‘see the light’ and come over and support him. The great paradox of the BNP’s behaviour regarding Muslims is that they are, quite directly, acting as recruiting sergeants for al Qaeda. Every Muslim beaten up by BNP thugs is another potential recruit. Revenge is a dish best served with a plateful of dynamite. Moderate Muslims are under assault, on the one hand, by al Qaeda evangelists, and on the other, by thuggish dimwits in ‘white-rights’ organizations like the BNP. It’s no wonder many feel under siege. This is why we should support traditions of Islam like Sufism. By the way, I’m sorry, but I always treat with the utmost scepticism claims that start with: ‘I have read the Koran and…’ Unless you’re an actual, devoted Muslim, the book is interminably, unreadably boring and unintelligible. As evidence that you haven’t read it, your claim that ‘The Koran does tell its followers to spread Sharia Law’ is untrue – for the pretty good reason that the Koran predates the formulation of Shariah by three hundred years or more. Also, your claim that all ‘Islamic societies treat the Koran as their constitution’ is patent rubbish. The largest Muslim country in the world, by far, Indonesia, has a constitution that explicitly incorporates five religions. If you look at the Pakistani flag, the large band of white represents Christianity, etc, etc. It’s only in places like Saudi Arabia and the places where Wahhabism has spread like a disease that the Koran could be said to be a constitution. The enemy isn’t all Muslims. If you don’t understand that, and bang on as if they were, you are not part of the solution regarding the extremists – you’re part of the problem. You are a cog in the engine that churns them out.

Think I may have to give up on the Lounge. Too much aggression and unkindness around.

Sorry, you just tested the limits of my knowledge of Austria.

It's queuing back to Vienna?

What is the EEC?

A climate change denier from New Orleans... When the city was doing a passable impression of Atlantis, did you not even the briefest pause for thought?

I didn't say Wahhabism is or isn't 'Islam'. To say either is clearly idiotic. Islam as a religion has many strands, just as Christianity does. The tragedy is that Wahhabis, sponsored by the Saudis, have exported their violent ideology across the Islamic world, with devastating results. The BNP are screaming about Muslims for their own sleazy reasons. What exactly is real the 'issue' with Islam? It is, surely the violence perpetrated by the Wahhabis and their Jihadist followers.. Feeble d*ckheads like the BNP, by casting all Muslims in the same light, actually help to make the problem worse. No one looking at this sensibly is turning a blind eye. On the contrary, the BNP and their fellow travellers are the ones turning a blind eye, or two, to the real causes of - and solutions to - jihadist extremism.

One of the problems with any discussion about Islam is our profound ignorance of it. This is not a dig at you by any means - it's a widespread phenomenon that actually reinforces the problem itself. Islam's foundation dates back to the late sixth century, when it started as a social reform movement intended to bring monotheism to the polytheistic Arab peninsula. The brand of Islam you mean, when you talk about Saudi Arabia, dates back only to the 18th century - and to a psychopathic preacher called Abd al-Wahhab. After a motiveless attack on a woman, whom he stoned to death, he was evicted from the settlement he'd been staying in for some years, and wound up at an oasis village led by a nobody called Saud. Long story short, they entered into a pact which resulted in Wahhab gaining control of Mecca and Medina and Saud gaining political power. Ever since - and especially after the discovery of oil - the Saudis have exported this brand of Islam (known as 'Wahhabism') for all their worth. And that's a LOT. Consequently, the dominant liberal traditions in Islam, like sufism, have been shattered, and their adherents murdered and threatened. Believe it or not, Afghanistan was until relatively recently a country dominated by Sufi traditions of Islam. The shrines they once worshipped in are now mostly destroyed. How closely is Wahhabism related to Islam? Well of course, if you ask them, they ARE Islam. And unfortunately, you are one of many who simply perpetuate the myth. But ask yourself another question: how closely are the Wahhabis related to Mohammad and the original founders of the religion? A fairly graphic answer lies in the actions of Wahhabis in 1802, who, in a fit of collective rage, destroyed the graves of Muhammad's wives and daughters, and desecrated the places where he had grown up. By the way, 'Sharia' simply did not exist in Muhammad's time. The first mosque he built in Medina did not separate men from women, and women - especially his wife - had a profound influence on his most critical decisions and actions. Oh, and the Taliban are mostly ethnic Pashtuns, whose warrior-like ethos ("Pashtunwali') actually predates Islam by centuries - and goes back to the time of Alexander the Great.

I would very much like to get that image out of my head.

I shouldn't find that funny, I really shouldn't...

That would have been a good clue until recently, but Weston's right - my real name is Quad Wrangle, the talented axe murderer and stamp collector. I don't know how he put two and two together.

You have Babelskate?

Nope, don't understand a word.