vetuste - //I'm being curt, Andy, which, I admit, is rather rude of me. But it does become tiresome to see otherwise intelligent people so besotted with fashionable opinion that they cannot see what is staring them in the face. And I'm afraid on this occasion is the best I can do by way of apology.//
Well, thank you for the apology - appreciated.
I assure you I am not 'besotted' with any opinion - fashionable or otherwise!
// Hatred of gays, hatred of Jews, the view that any woman in a short skirt is a *** - these are cultural attitudes quite prevalent in many parts of the world. This culture has not been formed because of a "stance" some government has taken; it is to a large extent the product of a primitive religion.//
That is true - but all those negative attitudes apply to a vast swathe of the southern United States - no-one seems at all bothered about their Neanderthal attitudes poisoning the western world as we know it.
And for that reason this moral coarseness is not geographically confined. It travels. It puts down new roots. It is not transmuted into gold by free social housing in Rotherham and a British passport.//
Indeed it doesn't.
But I for one, and I am a minority voice on here, but not alone, do not believe that incoming Musilms automatically want to change British society to reflect their customs and faith.
And more to the point - and this is the essential difference between my view and a lot of others on here - I do not believe that the British people are ready to lie down and 'allow' Islam to roll on top of them, as though they have no say in what goes on. Incoming Muslims remain a small minority of the population as a whole, which is busy ensuring that the UK remains as 'British' as it has ever been - which means accepting incomers, but never ever letting them take over in any shape or form.
//That is why you and, perhaps more especially, SP should be as worried by it as I am.//
And that is why I - and I cannot speak for SP - am not worried about it.
I lived through the '70's and '80's when the Russians were going to bomb us all to kingdom come - it never happened, but not for want of scaremongering my the media of the day.
I prefer to ignore the hysterics of columnists who make a living out of frightening people, and trust to the inherent goodness of people - and I have no reason to really believe that that goodness is seriously being undermined by anyone.