Michael Burleigh in the Telegraph gets the proposed law against incitement to religious hatred absolutely right:

'Rarely can legislation touching on so many historic freedoms and rights have been botched up and inserted in such an inappropriate context, allegedly at the behest of "key leaders in all the major faith communities", none mentioned by name...Instead of following the American government in making all foreign aid contingent on how societies treat religious minorities, notably Christians, the Government is cravenly allowing so-called leaders of the British Muslim minority to alter our fundamental laws.

'Has it canvassed other protected "minorities", such as women or homosexuals, regarding whether Islam should be insulated from criticism of how it treats both "groups"? If such a law had existed in the 1980s, Salman Rushdie might have been prosecuted for writing Satanic Verses rather than being protected by the British state. It will soon be illegal to criticise, say, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who, on a recent trip to Britain, entertained Mayor Ken Livingstone with the chilling intelligence that homicide bombers can "legitimately" kill women and children in Israel, husbands can beat their wives everywhere and that homosexuals should be put to death.'

As Burleigh says, this proposal is being legislated in the context of the jihadi murder of the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh and the intimidation of Dutch politicians who speak out against Islamic violence -- on which not one senior British politician has expressed outrage. In this context, introducing a law which will almost certainly be used to try to shut down legitimate debate about such matters shows all too clearly what side the British government is really on in the great struggle to defend freedom against those who want to destroy it.