Going postal at Boris

Re: “Can Jones and Johnson be the face of ‘new politics’?”, (Opinion, Aug 13).

John Lloyd writes about Boris Johnson (the former British foreign secretary) and the recent comment that he made about the burka. It’s an item of clothing which is worn by some Muslim women despite there being no requirement in their book to do so.

Mr Johnson has been labelled a racist and an Islamophobe for his remark in which he said that women in burkas looked like “letterboxes” or “bank robbers” and for this he is now under investigation by the Conservative Party. He did not attack any race and did not attack Islam, and he didn’t even call for a ban on the wearing of the burqa, but his crime it seems, was to make a corny joke about it.

To those who called Mr Johnson a racist, as he was not attacking any person or race, how on earth can anyone find the comment he made to be racist? As for that nonsense word “Islamophobia”, can anyone define exactly what it is?

There have been demands that Mr Johnson apologise for his comments but he has nothing to apologise for. If he had made a similar comment about the clothing worn by nuns or about the frocks worn by priests nobody would have taken any notice.

In the UK it is perfectly acceptable to mock and poke fun at Christianity and comedians have (rightly so, in my opinion) been doing it for years. But for some reason anyone making the slightest attempt to poke fun at Islam or to criticise it is immediately denounced by so-called liberal left-wing progressives as well as by Muslims who claim that not only is their religion under attack but that they are grossly offended.

Though the burka is not banned in the UK, France and a few other European countries have already banned it, as have a handful of countries in central Africa including Muslim-majority countries Chad and Niger. And recently Angela Merkel (the German chancellor) called for a ban in Germany. Though Boris Johnson is against a ban, if you look at all the polls in the UK as did Channel 4 News just a few days ago, they concluded that “every poll we’ve seen suggests more Brits would support a burqa ban than oppose it”.

Some people argue that the government should not be involved in dictating what you are allowed and not allowed to wear in public, but there is already a ban in some countries, including the UK, against the wearing of political uniforms.

As for Alex Jones (the US radio show host), let him keep his microphone and let the listener decide for himself if he wants to listen to him. No one is forced to listen to him. There are already laws in place to protect against crimes such as incitement to violence, and libel or slander, and in a free and open society Jones should be free to voice his opinions just as his critics are free to either criticise him or ignore him. If they can silence Alex Jones, they can silence you as well.

Free speech, either you have it, or you don’t. If you start chipping away at it, a little bit here and a little bit there, before you know it, it’s gone.

PETER ATKINSON