Complacency is the curse of the British! One adult one vote in 1950 – and not a damn thing since. Where is the proportional voting? Without this you do not have a democracy worth speaking of.

As for the House of Lords – Blair replaced the hereditary peers with a bunch of his own mates. Do you really think any of these clowns would have the job if the electorate had the opportunity to vote for them? And how do we vote them out pray? The Lords remains as undemocratic and unrepresentative as ever.

Absolutely. But that is neither here nor there when you are trying to a) expose how rubbish and ridiculous their views are, b) marginalise those views and c) change the minds of people who might be tempted to sympathise with those views.

The aim of a centrist campaign, it seems to me, should be to sidestep the quibbling, pussyfooting and bickering over terminology that has crippled opposition to prejudice lately, and to go for broad-stroke, easy-to-understand – and dare I say it Obama-esque – statements that say “X IS NOT ACCEPTABLE”, “Y HAS TO CHANGE”, “Z IS JUST LOONY”. Don’t get drawn into the sectarian debates, but play to the gallery, say to the wider public “RACISM IS RACISM, YOU CAN CHANGE IT”.

Rintintin takes me to task for saying I know many Arabs who are better than people on this thread. First of all, don’t take everything I say literally. I hate you because I love you. But one can form an opinion of sorts from what Joe Muggs calls attitudes and behaviour.

Many of the attitudes above are entirely absent in the Arabs I know in Verona. I could write paragraphs about the kindnesses they have done and still do for me when I am in difficulties, while European friends made a quick getaway.

Joe Muggs, I think the point you are pressing about judging attitudes and behaviour is perfectly correct. Unfortunately many individuals associate with groups and do not express their own opinions but only that of their group. They have suspended their individuality.

“That would be a Muslim who campaigns against the political project that is Islamism, and who has a commitment to a secular pluralistic society, equal rights for men and women, and the rule of law.”
Thanks for that. So it is partly a Muslim who does not believe what the Koran teaches about women? I can see a problem with this definition.

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It’s apparently then a muslim who goes against his or her religion and the fundamental principle of Tawheed (‘oneness’) and rejection of Shirk (polytheism). Any attempt to change/modify the religion is bid’ah (‘innovation’), also a very grave sin.

But shhhhhhhh, they’re role playing… Don’t break the spell.

Do you blame him?

The way the Germans behaved from 1933 to 1945, they were lucky they weren’t Morgenthau-ed, with German being a language now only known from the history books.

Except the ones in Bolivia and the Congo.

JP may not like the SPLC but, as Gene points out, they are getting on with the job of pointing out the links between Islamists and the far right. We should never tire of talking of the connections between Le Pen and Fadlallah, the NPD and HuT, Griffin and Qadaffi and so on.

I know there’s no point engaging with headbangers like “Morgoth”, but in case anyone is tempted to take his post even half seriously…

1) Dealing with racism in our own country in 2009 is different to dealing with racism in another country in the 1930s. Amazing, I know, but true!

2) By the time we were “fighting against that Mr Hitler”, public opinion was more-or-less united against Germany. The public attitude to the diversity of racism and Fascism here at the moment is variously bored, confused and apathetic on the whole. Consciouness-raising and good PR for halfway-decent, rational thinking is the order of the day, not a fucking war.

3) The Nazi party with its flags and boots and funny walks and invading of other countries was quite easy to unite people against. Faced with various overlapping extremist groups, many with funny foreign names, most people go “who?” and go back to reading Heat or the Guardian Guide.

4) If, as David T has suggested, it is to be possible to build a broad-based coalition which opposes the lunacy of racism whoever it comes from, it most vitally needs NOT to be vulnerable to the accusation that it is carrying out vendettas against particular groups for arcane political reasons. Therefore it needs to be very clear that it is fighting a type of behaviour.

Tell that to the chaps who fought against that Mr Hitler naughty boy.