Obviously I haven't got any 'proof', Teribus. And you don't have any 'proof' to support your position, either. You have only opinion. But can show you some of the things have contributed to my opinion on this matter. This one, for instance...


The arts and media committee that proposed him for a knighthood is one of eight similar committees that make recommendations to the main committee, which then forwards the final names to the prime minister...

..."Very properly, we were concerned only with merit in relation to the level of the award," Mr Whittam Smith said yesterday.

He added that it would be for the main committee to assess any other aspects of the honour. The Foreign Office is represented on the main committee by the permanent secretary, whose job it would be to raise any potential international ramifications. A Foreign Office spokesman said he was not aware of any request by the honours committee to gauge likely Muslim reaction to the knighthood before the decision was taken...

Pakistan's foreign minister, Kurshid Kasuri, said on a visit to Washington that Britain could not have been surprised by the outrage.

The chairman of the all-party group on Pakistan, the Conservative MP Stewart Jackson, also attacked the decision to knight Rushdie. "We do not need a situation where we are gratuitously offending our allies in the fight against terror," he told the ePolitix website. "I think the prime minister's office should think very carefully about that decision."


This is an honour that could have waited. There is no reason why they couldn't have waited to bestow it at a time when it would have had less potential for stirring up more hatred during a time when there is already more of that sort of thing than we really need. They could have and should have waited.