Isis and Islamophobes: what a lousy time to be a British Muslim

Just over a week ago I wrote a piece in the Spectator asking if we were on the verge of an anti-Muslim backlash that could spread beyond the strongholds of the aggrieved white working class in Barking and Rochdale and into the home counties. After the gloating videotaped murder of David Haines, a British aid worker, the answer is increasingly likely to be yes.

The Telegraph is carrying a piece by the international affairs analyst Shashank Joshi headed: ‘Where does the Islamic State’s fetish with beheading people come from?’ He begins: ‘Of course, the practice of beheading is invoked in the Koran, but only the most extreme Islamic militants carry it out in the modern day.’

Really? According to Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabia beheaded 19 people  between August 4 and 20 this year. Several of them were drug traffickers; one might argue that there’s no moral distinction between the death penalty in Saudi Arabia and America, which – disgustingly – carried