Good speech but the one really important thing she fails to bring up - and the media and others tend to ignore it too - is that the extreme radicals, the threat to the west, belong to distinct sects within Islam and they are being taken on by not just by us but by other Muslims - Shia - as well.

Iran - a Shia country - will be our ally very soon in all of this because it turns out they are not the real danger to us that we were told they were over the last 30 years.

The fanatical Sunni Muslims are the enemy. We should be told that from all angles and we should be olive branching the Muslims that abhor them as much as we do. Strength in numbers.

Big chest and massive boobs

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Essentially she's right.

People should really read the work of Irshad Manji. She's an Islamic reformist and she isn't happy with the attitudes of well meaning people who essentially have made extremism easier. Her message is principally to them....It's them who need to change......They should read her books....But they won't of course.

Anyway to an extent, in my opinion, the relative success of radical Islam in this country is down to the ideology of left wing politicians and commentators.

They created the fear of accusation....It was they who created the climate of fear to call a spade a spade. It was them who provided the space and freedom for radical groups to form without scrutiny.

For years whoever raised an objection was called a racist.......The left have been terribly wrong and almost criminal on this.....They deserve blame for their 'head in the sand' blindness and inaction.

All the easy cries of racism, all the easy cries of bullying and unfairness.....I remember a few weeks before 7/7 my left wing mate telling me that our government over stated the Islamic threat so that it could ask for what it wanted in terms of security funding.....It's a joke really.

Edited by Stirlingsays (21 Jun 2014 9.36am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

That's simplistic and again reducing things to the usual convenient but red herring of left/right.

London became "Londonstan" with a deliberate or blind eye policy allowing many "extremist" Sunni political and religious figures to operate here and then start to radicalise opinion in many Mosques ,in the eighties and nineties.......who was in power then?

Similarly, the overreaction to 9/11 in terms of going into (completely unconnected to 9/11)Iraq which perhaps did more than anything else to radicalise domestic Muslim opinion was orchestrated by G Bush Jr's administration (hardly of the left)

The issue/question of balance between taking on extremism and not demonising a whole religious group isn't assisted by sweeping generalisations

Notably they were known to be involved in those groups, and courted really as potential allies for western interests against hostile interests in the middle east (as well as allies representing anti-Soviet interests).

Throughout the 90s the UK was regarded by groups such as Al-Quedia as a 'safe haven' and operated with a covenant that no direct action should be taken that could compromise the UK as a operational and logistics safe haven. A lot of groups, particularly those active in Chechynia, Bosnia and the Middle east utilised the UK as an operational centre, notably for groups to liaise, organise financially and trade information.

These groups were also seen as an alternative to other less 'western' friendly movements (Hezbollah, the PLO, PFLP Iran, Iraq etc which had been the face of change in the middle east and were anti-western)

9/11 changed all that (although in truth from about 1998 with the Embassy bombings of Tanzania and Nirobi and the US Cole bombing, the existing 'detente' between Islamists and the UK was already broken, with the UK beginning to abandon these groups as potential 'allies').

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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