Tommy Robinson of the EDL wiped the floor with Paxman last night. Had to feel sorry for Jeremy, though - because it's hard to pick holes in someone's argument when deep down you know that they are telling the truth.

intolereant of right wing hate mongering bull --dan join the queue

the progressive left needs a liddle intolerance

Oh and Mehdi - could you point out where my post was 'hate-filled'?

I'm middle class.

You know, the people who pay the tax, do the most complicated and important jobs, work the longest hours, take on the most debt, have the highest rates of stress, provide the vanguard of equality, tolerance and fair treatment, produce and protect culture, and basically drive the whole economy.

Oh, and we don't go on EDL marches.

This exchange of views seems to be a competition between people who are determined to compete for the title of the most insulting, most bigoted and most narrow-minded.

Of course the Koran contains some violent passages; so does the Bible. Most believers, however, manage to select the nice passages and ignore the rest.

So though I find I agree with many of the criticisms of the Repulsive Right, my sympathies are with the Muslims who have to endure this abuse.

On the other hand, Muslims are Islam's worst enemies. Every time a suicide bomber blows up a crowd of people, every time a group of Islamist fanatics attack and kill some victims or drive them out of their homeland, Islam is demeaned. The only answer for this is for rank and file Muslims to condemn the horrors that are done in their name. That is the best answer to the bigots, both pro and anti-Islam.

HaHaHaHaHa - I've never seen a so-called journalist so completely owned and exposed: Mehdi Hasan give it up, mate, you're a total loser.

I'm not Liddle's biggest fan but he's bang on the money when it comes Islam, and you've only got to check out bertie bert's facts to see why (see his link above).

How anyone such as Mehdi Hasan could deny that women are not second class in Islam is beyond belief. Look out your window mate-boy, they're walking around covered from head to toe! Why's that, eh?

The thing is, though, it's utterly pointless showing the texts from the Koran & Hadith, etc which prove everything Liddle says is so true.

It's pointless because Mehdi Hasan and his fawning followers have an agenda they'll never concede. They'll just bang on that Islam is innocuous despite the facts.

Still, it's funny watching them do it. I'm laughing at the way they always change the subject and start talking about Christianity and the Bible.

Yeah it's funny watching them wriggle and squirm. Meanwhile, however, wife-beating, homophobia, forced marriages, genital mutilation, etc., etc., carry on regardless. Nice one, New Statesman!

HaHaHaHaaaa!

bollocks to you stupid fucking people. put it this way if you hate (or despise if you are clever) a billion plus people because of what church they go to. what happy sort of world are you looking for. If it rains, put a fucking coat on.

Mehdi - "Non-Moslems live their life like animals" - Hasan...

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa - you' couldn't make it up. What a hypocrite!

Lefties make me laugh! They dumb down our education system, preach that spelling and grammar are irrelevant and then, when a product of their meddling tries to express himself, they call him an uneducated, ill-informed prat!
Tommy Robinson is a working class man ( in the distant past the left were supposed to stand up for them, remember). He spoke the truth with passion and you mock him. Shame on all you sneering snobs.

Mehdi - love your response. Its admirable that you have the decency to explain what you have said. Unfortunately, as you mention, there are people on here who want to promote negativity and they will continue to do so. The only piece of advice I would give to those Islamaphobes is that if you have hate in your heart, the only person you are harming is yourself.

I'm not a snob, I'm working class too but Tommy doesn't speak for me or many other working class people. The uneducated and ill informed comment refers directly to his views and knowledge on Islam and is not a reference to the education system.

Dear Imran and Mehdi Hasan,

have you read Christopher Caldwell's book about The Revolution in Europe ? It attacks European politicians' stupid immigration policy.

I encourage you to read reviews of this book on the Guardian webite. By Martin Wollacott and David Goodhart.

The cat is out of the bag - European politcians have imposed on the continent a level of Muslim immigration that none of us wanted.

That's democracy, je suppose.

Thanks for your reply, Mehdiy.

The name is Lev, not Levy. Never mind.

Perhaps Mark Steyn is more decent than you, Mehdiy. He doesn't refer to Muslims as "cattle", does he ? He doesn't say that Muslims live like animals, does he ?

Mark Steyn is a fan of musical theatre, so he can't be all that homophobic.

Remind me - how are gays treated in the Muslim world ?

Religion of peace ?????

My a**e !

Imran, I think you might find that the Koran has hate at its heart. Pointing that out is not 'phobic.

Medhi, like Baroness Warsi is in very deep denial and has, very typically, the entire issue completely back-to-front.

A phobia is an irrational fear. It is entirely rational that any person be "afraid" of a Dark Age cult founded by a barbaric, illiterate nonse that is followed by infantile, credulous cretins who actually believe that:

1. Women have half the rights of men and are to be treated like second class chattel who are to be forced to cover themselves from head to toe in public, be circumcised by having their clitoris cut off, stoned to death for adultery, forced into marriage, honour killed or disconnected from their family or friends if they do not comply.

2. Believe that homosexuals should be stoned to death.

3. Regularly call call for Jews and people of other religions or none to be killed.

4. That Apostacy (the “crime” of changing your mind and no longer believing in the infantile myths and fairy tales) should be punished by death.

5. Refuse to assimilate into a host culture and actually preach hatred and destruction of host Country in favour of an Islamic Caliphate that can enforce Sharia Law trumping all other man-made laws (as if somehow Sharia Law wasn't itself man-made).

6. See nothing hypocritical about wallowing in collective hurt for any sleights or injury real or imagined on co-religionists even of other nationalities, but refuse collective blame or responsibility for the horrors committed by co-religionists.

7. That is it perfectly OK to kill people for blaspheming, drawing pictures of THEIR (no one elses) precious prophet or burn THEIR (no one elses) supposedly "Holy" book as well as consistently demonstrating that their faith is unable to deal or cope with any form of criticism or ridicule.

8. Arbitrarily label anyone who points any of this out as "Islamophobic" in a futile attempt to silence those who dare to criticise or question such a backward, bigoted ideology.

This is why I believe that it is entire rational to be "afraid" of a fascistic ideology that wishes to impose a world-wide theocracy. I'm very sure that the overwhelming majority of the British public would completely agree.

This is why all rational people should rigorously oppose Islam in all its manifestations as it is as unreformed as medieval Christianity and entirely counter to living a genuine advanced, civilised society and a secular democracy that recognises individual freedom and personal responsibility.

However, I do agree with Lady Warsi, but for entirely different reasons, on one thing. The moderate/extremist Muslim split is inaccurate and unhelpful.

Islam itself, a total submission of oneself and ones will to God, is quite simply an extreme belief system.

As Ayaan Hirsi Ali says:

"There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it."

Lev. Do you think 'Levy' was a Freudian slip?

@ Keir
In the context of this thread I don't see how the comment you refer to, which I assume is MikeG's ( though for some reason, which I won't assume is derogatory, you refer to him as Baldrick)is bigoted, irrelevant or false?
It is just as valid an opinion as yours (if not more so as it is based on rationality rather than blind faith)

Mounting bigotry, falsehood and irrelevance!

I suppose it comes down to democracy, at the end of el dia: no European population ever wanted so much Muslim immigration in their country to begin with.

certain Old Testament passages provide excuses for stoning people to death for adultery and the like.
The fact is, however, that unlike Islam, Judaism has always mediated such passages through rabbinic interpretation, with the result that such activities have not been tolerated. Jews pose no threat to anyone -- other than those who try to wipe them out. The sly insinuation that Islam is inherently no more dangerous to life, liberty and human rights than is Judaism is quite wickedly false -- and all too telling.
This is also why the equation of 'Islamophobia' with Jew-hatred is so odious. That's why some of those supporting Baroness Warsi today for her stand against anti-Muslim 'bigotry' themselves display vicious bigotry towards the Jewish people. Prejudice, as I said below, is based on faleshoods of one kind or another -- lies, distortion, absence of evidence. While some people are indeed prejudiced against Muslims, most of what is termed 'Islamophobia' arises from entirely rational and legitimate concerns. Jew-hatred does not.
In short, this is all about the difference between truth and lies. And in western society, where the very notion of objective truth has been written out of the script, many can no longer grasp that difference. That is the real crisis for the west -- and Baroness Warsi has now shown us, twice, that she is part of the problem, not the solution.

There are obnoxious things in Jewish and Christian scriptures - nobody is denying this.

However, to quibble about what the the Bible and Torah say is waste of time. The problem, from Manchester to Malmo, Mumbai, Melbourne, Mineapolis and Manila, is the Koran - and the strange people who believe and carry out the intolerant, violent instructions that are written in it.

Mehdi, I just staggered that you'd smear me as an EDL member. I mean, that's simply egregious defamation masquerading as a defence: you should be embarassed. It's weak and sloppy for nationally-published journalist, and is, again, the stuff of presupposed victimhood.

Is there any hatred of Islam in my post above? No, only hatred of a garment, in place without Quranic authority, which is self-evidently repressive of women; and which as such deserves hatred. And I'm merely pointing out that it is preferable to put living people before a strict observance to writing on a page which, if universally applied, would have horrible consequences.

Your response one that you would rightly criticise an vulgar advocate of Israeli policy for - branding a critic of Israeli policy an anti-semite, and so on. It's a crude, childish and divisive rhetorical technique. And it's rank hypocrisy from someone who should - and I think does - know better.

You are becoming the Muslim Jonah Goldberg: take stock.

Were immigrants encouraged because they were Muslim rather than because they provided labour?

Agreed, just as Zionists give Judaism a bad name, the Catholic church disgraces Christianity, and those fools who dance around Stonehenge lessen our respect for Hawkwind.

Mon the atheists!

Mehdi, your argument seems to be along the lines of the old NRA slogan 'Guns don't kill people - people kill people'

As you say, many of the things Liddle is complaining about isn't actually in the Quran, but the fact remains that these things are being done in the name of Islam whether you agree with them or not. Just this week we've had the suicide bomb in Moscow, another in the Phillipines and another at a Shiite pilgramage in Iraq.
As I've said before - perhaps a little less shouting Islamophobia - and a little more towards denigrating and combating Islamic fundemantilism in your column probably wouldn't go amiss.