Baroness Warsi on "My Week"!

This in the Times yesterday: My week: Baroness Warsi - Times Online.

The good Baroness writes this on the Luton incident:

In fact, a surprising amount of good has come of it. I have been flooded with emails from Muslims around the country, expressing shame and revulsion at what happened. There has been an outpouring of condemnation. The vast majority of Muslims abhor this sort of behaviour — the response I’ve had shows that we are winning the battle for Islam’s soul.

The next battle is to improve the external image of Islam — and that’s much harder. Anti-Islamic sentiment is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry in Britain. The media do not help — we only hear about the extremists and the idiots. People forget what a tiny minority they are.

She writes more common sense later:

Some people assume Muslims are ruled entirely by their faith. But I did not oppose the war in Iraq because I am a Muslim; I opposed it because I am a lawyer. And I don’t believe in lower taxation because I’m a Muslim — I believe in it because I’m a Conservative. And I do not think Christmas should be banned. Councils can ditch their fairy lights if they want to, but they are not doing it in my name. And I cannot think how any Muslim could take offence at a nativity play. I’ve been to dozens. My daughter always longed to play Mary, but she usually got cast as a sheep.

On Tuesday night I went to a party at Conservative Central Office to celebrate the festival of Eid. There was a recital from the Koran, and it was noticeable that Jesus and Moses were mentioned more times than Muhammad. People forget that the birth of Jesus is an intrinsic part of the Islamic faith.

Its always good to hear Muslims honouring our celebration of Christmas, and the place of Jesus in Islam. As the Baroness and my friend Fiaz, spokesman for our Luton Council of Mosques, both say, celebrate Christmas! This is a Christian country. As I did last year I am keeping an eye on the news this year to see where Christmas is given a hard time, and why.

Its certainly not the case here in Luton. More of that in another post!