sadoldgit

Bloody hell, and I thought we had a strange one with Hypo? Okay I will indulge you. I don't profess to be an expert on rape but I did work as a manager in the CPS for 8 years and for many of those years managed a group of paralegal officers who worked with the Rape and Serious Sexual Assault team, so yes, I know quite a bit about the prosecution of rape. I have never professed to study homosexuality nor do I profess to be an expert on the subject. There are gay people who live in the village and I socialise with some of them. You do know that Turkey is a Muslim country don't you?

Oh yes, because I cant have a view on Muslims unless I know several personally. Which also means I cant have a view on Southampton FC and many other things. You really are a strange little chap aren't you? I don't think I have had an exchange like this since I was about 7 or 8 years old. Help me out here...Autism or Asperger's?

Yeah, it is full of them. Who'd have thought it? I even keep in touch with one on FB but I don't know if he is a practicing Muslim or not so he probably wouldn't qualify for Hypocrite. I even went to a Muslim wedding once. Get me!

Right on cue. Yes I did say that and I don't meet people and ask them what their religion is. That doesn't mean to say that I have never met any Muslims. When you meet people do you ask what religion they follow?

I don't meet many Muslims in the park Whelk, but it is untrue to say that I have very little real life knowledge of Islam or any contact with Muslims. What I don't have is real life knowledge or any contact with terrorists and extremists which may be because there are not a lot of them in SE England - of the Muslim variety that is. You have probably seen the white racist mobs in Dover which is only down the road though.

Charlie, you don't really need to know who Katie Hopkins is other than she is a minor tv celebrity who has had a column in The Sun and now has an online column for the Mail. She is known for her unpleasant outspoken views. Her religious beliefs only became an issue because a poster on here thought to make an issue of them rather than the comments that she made. For the record, she was being interviewed by Andrew Neill and made the point that not enough Muslims for her liking had come out and condemned the recent terrorist atrocities. Apparently the person who made an issue about what I thought her religious background was seem to think that more important than her statement condemning moderate Muslims because they hadn't satisfied her criteria as to what constitutes a decent backlash.

Can't fault his self belief.

twitchy

I am not sure where you are going with this Whelk? Are you saying that if there were 5 Muslims in a park with your kids they would be in jeopardy? Sounds like Sour Mash territory to me.

Roundly derided by you and your mentor so hardly counts for anything does it? Once again you twist something to try and make yourself look clever but fail miserably. Once again and just for you because you really are one of the most stupid posters on here - I assumed Katy Hopkins was a "Christian" because if a number of reasons. The main reason was that she was educated in a convent school. Maybe I was wrong and perhaps they educated her as a Muslim or a Jew. Who knows. She references Jesus on a number of occasions (not Buddha or Mohammed etc). The nativity issue came about because she had a bit of a spat with Andrew Neill about how she was still able to take her children to the Nativity play at school (you know, the thing that celebrates the birth of the son of God). This came about in one of her many anti Muslim rants. I may be wrong. She might not be a Christian but she was raised as one. I am not wrong about her anti Muslim sentiments as they have been widely published. Interesting that the likes of Fry and his sidekick Hypo are not in the least bit bothered about her vile outpourings as they are about taking the **** out of moderates. Fry seemed to think it was more important in getting me to name the racists on this thread rather than deal with them himself. Hypo wouldn't go there until either for quite some time but has done recently, only now to revert to type and go back to picking at moderates again. CB Fry has all the traits of a kid that was bullied at school and has now turned into an internet troll in an effort to make himself feel better about himself and get his own back. His sidekick Hypo looks like he is well on the spectrum and there is some serious stuff going on there as evidenced in his alter ego posts on another related forum. I would give it up mate. As much as you try and impress your mentor you will never be as unpleasant as him, even with your going to Syria and getting killed stuff.

Ah, how sweet. Hypo and his mentor posting together again. You guys need to get a room.

catholics

I am sorry but I didn't realise that it was a close discussion and that we could only discuss Muslims in total isolation. I assume the Muslims who have said there is a problem with integration (is that anything like "blending in?) have integrated or "blended in." Are we okay with those ones then Batman?

That's a shame, I was looking forward to reading it but after the clips published in the Echo and this, I don't think I'll bother.

bees

So then, Trevor Phillips. He says there is a problem with Muslims "blending in." What does that mean exactly? Changing their diets? Changing their religion. Changing their clothes? Passing the Norman Tebbit Britishness test (which my wife would fail by the way as she knows nothing about cricket). I am sure many here have travelled to foreign cities and some may have enjoyed a nice Chinese meal in China Town in San Francisco or New York. Is that blending in by the Chinese? I am sure many spread out elsewhere and did get assimilated into North America but what of those who stayed put and built a Chinese community within the indigenous environment. How dare they? The need to blend in and look and behave like us. Just like the many Brit ex pats in Spain have done over the years...oh wait. I have had a quick look at the poll and also read The Spectator article about it. I am not surprised by the figures and given the fuss Philips was making about the poll I expect them to be a lot worse. The only one that bothered me was the homosexuality response but then some become more enlightened more quickly than others and I would be interested to see the same poll in ten years time as I suspect the 52% would drop. It wasn't that long ago that we were still locking up "queers" and homosexuality was only decriminalised here in 1967 (although not in the Armed Forces). It only changed in Scotland in 1980 and in N Ireland in 1982. The Spectator (a publication that seems to have a problem with all Muslims, not just the extremists) also fell into the same trap as The Sun, by twisting the figures to make them look worse than they are. Instead of saying that 77% (which is a large figure in terms of polls) of British Muslims polled didn't support the idea of there being areas of the UK where sharia law is introduced instead of British law, it spun it so that 23% of Brit Muslims agreed. I was always taught to put the biggest figure first. In four examples from the poll the only larger figure used first is 52% think homosexuality should be illegal in the UK. Following their previous example I wonder why they didn't say that 48% of British Muslims thought that homosexuality should be criminalised? On that note, I also wonder what a poll of non Muslims would show? I doubt very much if you would get 100% agreeing that it shouldn't be a criminal offence. Yes, there are problems in some areas concerning Muslim immigrants and we don't need Batman finding negative stories each day to remind us that things are not great. But we also need to keep some perspective on issues and to pretend that we are all at risk from an evil tide of Islamism is madness. There are plenty of migrants who go and live in other countries who don't "blend in" (there is a Jewish area in North London where the locals look like they have been stuck in a time warp) and why should they? So long as people abide by the laws of the countries they live in why should we expect them to turn into one of us to make them acceptable?

Going off on one? Why do you have to equate someone stating a view that you don't agree with have to be related in emotional terms? Anyway, I know what the thread was about because I started it. It was about a terrorist attack in Paris. No religion was mentioned initially but then it became about "Muslims." We have talked about many things which cast Islam as a whole in a negative light. "Muslim" rape gangs for example. Do we know that all of the accused were practising Muslims at the time of arrest? No matter, it was a "Muslim" rape gang. Holepuncture tells us to take care because Muslims are after us. Sour Mash doesn't think that Muslim immigrants have offered anything positive etc etc. This is not just about Muslim extremism (unfortunately) it is about Islam and "The West." We have ended up talking about Nazis and Christians and Nativity Plays (and somehow even Easter Eggs) because the point has rightly been made that evil is not the sole preserve of Islam. You say that you support moderate Muslims although it took you some time to start challenging the Islamophobes on here (it was even suggested that they didn't exist on here ). As you say, the discussion widened but there are some who still want to polarise issues down to Muslims. You might not agree, but there is a greater problem in this country with rapes by white males who may or may not be Christian. Batman goes out of his way to find a negative story about Muslims and for a period he was doing it every day. You didn't seem to have a problem with that yet you say you support moderate Muslims? Hmmm. Really? If you want to talk about a small percentage of people without a reference point to a wider world how aon earth do you think you are going to get any kind of perspective. Yes, some Muslims are terrorists, yes some Muslims commit sexual assaults, yes some Muslims break the law. It is not more likely to happen just because the person is a Muslim but to read some posts on here you would think that Islam is responsible for all of the evil in the world when if fact, mankind is responsible, no matter what race or creed. So if you support moderate peace abiding citizens why not save your barbed comments for those who have a problem with Islam?

Thank you. I shall watch it.

Please feel free to quote where anyone has said that there isn't a problem. There are many problems in the world but you seem to feel it is necessary to find evidence of problems with Muslims every day. It is nice that you have found something that supports your paranoia. A sample of 1000 out of a figure of over 1 billion people has really nailed it. I for one am going to stock up on tinned goods and put sandbags over the windows.

layla

Sounds interesting, what was it called?

What never fails to amaze me is how opinions on players and how they performed differ so much. Pelle for example gets shedloads of cr@p from some quarters and support from others. I have seen him slagged off even when he has been awarded MotM??

Don't sit on the fence Art. Tell us what you really think!

But where is that going to come from?

Nail on head here Charlie.