The Islamic sermon that taught me what’s happened to Birmingham

Birmingham has changed a bit since I grew up there in the 1970s. Back then, the stories of the hour were the usual industrial unrest at Longbridge, the IRA bombs in the Tavern in the Town and the Mulberry Bush, and the ongoing success of local lads Slade, Wizzard and ELO. Today, though, it’s mainly stuff like Operation Trojan Horse, and I barely recognise the place or the culture at all.

So when, driving back from the Conservative party conference the other week, I found the radio button that normally takes me to Radio 4 mysteriously tuning instead to a local Islamic station, I thought I’d do a bit of homework and listen to the sermon it was playing. I’d never heard an Islamic sermon before. Nor probably have you. But if you want to understand what’s been happening in inner-city Britain these last few decades, I recommend you do. It will give you an insight as to why there’s a parallel culture developing which has little or no interest in integrating with the one most of the rest of us inhabit.