The Spectator’s Notes | 27 August 2005

What was amazing about John Ware’s ‘A Question of Leadership’ on Panorama last Sunday was that it has taken nearly four years since 11 September for such a programme to be made. It simply and successfully did the basic journalistic job of asking difficult questions. The chief object of the questions was Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain. Sir Iqbal was juxtaposed with moderate Muslims who unequivocally repudiate the doctrines of Islamist extremism and various apologists for them. What did he think of a group of people affiliated to the MCB who say that those who mark Christmas ‘will find a permanent abode in hellfire’? ‘It’s a view that they hold,’ said Sir Iqbal. The MCB had ‘no control’. Did he still think that Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses should be banned? There was ‘no law, sadly’, he replied, which could do this, but he had high hopes of the religious hatred Bill which is on the way.