Here's a first for me.... below the line

Don, having met and spoken to Keith on many occasions I would certainly not label him a racist, however he does have strong views on several topics.

Putting all that to one side, I come to this 'debate' with an open mind.   My present views are that Muslim Prejudice is rife in the UK and also that prejudice and intolerance of each other's beliefs is the problem.

As a newspaper's primary aim is to sell papers, I try to filter out their sales pitch by reading 'between the lines' using known facts, figures and experiences to make an informed judgement.   As we all do.   The recent posts regarding Muslim men committing 'On-Street Grooming' crimes certainly got me thinking.

The Times researchers have selected their data (to sell newspapers?). 'On-Street Grooming' has only been an offence since 2006 and the figure of 17 cases since 1997 includes 14 occurring in the last 3 years.   3 cases in 9yrs then 14 in 3yrs cannot be right.   On-Street Grooming is also a very narrow subset of crime and does not include Internet Grooming for example, add this to the cases being taken from only 13 cities all with high Muslim populations and value of the statistics becomes dubious.

Newsnight (7th Jan) featured the compiler of the research, Helen Brayley, clearly point out the flaws in the stereotypical media use of her data.

I do not believe the figures quoted by the Times and state the latest Ministry of Justice statistics more clearly show racial percentages of Sexual Offences throughout England & Wales as being

White 82.1%    Black 5.0%    Asian 5.3%    Other 2.1%    Unknown 5.4%

This from a source not selling newspapers.

I do believe other reports I have read of Muslim community leaders and spokes-people admitting there are issues with some Muslim men's attitude to non–Muslim women and I consider this to be a cultural issue.