The burka curtails my freedom

The great debate about the full-face Muslim veil is usually cast in terms of religious rights, says Carol Sarler. But what about my right to see who I’m talking to?

So we’re all agreed then. The great burka debate has enthusiastically consumed recent weeks, even though its conclusion was never in doubt: nobody actually intends to ban the thing. Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman was correctly smacked for gushing that the garment ‘empowered’ women, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown raged against it as ‘a perversion of our faith’, while on these pages last week Hugo Rifkind more calmly disparaged the robe as ‘rude’. Nevertheless, all would prefer that the sledgehammer of legislation not be used.

As it happens, I am with the consensus — not least because the word ‘ban’, along with its implementation, always reeks of choleric impotence. I would like, too, to be able to share Rifkind’s restrained scorn; to shrug it off as a mere discourtesy.