OPINION – PAUL BALDWIN: The decline in Britain’s moral courage and leadership against antediluvian cultural practices has rarely been more accurately exposed
Archbishop of Canterbury Dame Sarah Mullally hands interfaith award to Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi (Image: Neil Turner/Lambeth Palace)
To all decent, right-thinking liberals with even a passing interest in gender equality, can there be a more depressing image of Britain’s moral collapse than this one? Look at it. Go on.
On the right stands Dame Sarah Mullally, the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, grinning gormlessly as she presents an award for “reconciliation and interfaith co-operation” to Pakistani cleric Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi – admirer of mass murdering terrorist Osama bin Laden.
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In between them is… well, we’ll never know, because the nation’s appointed moral and religious guardian, the woman at the very, very top this nation’s actual church, didn’t skip a beat when a demeaned, dehumanised and utterly marginalised woman was paraded in front of her. She could have said something like: “This ceremony goes no further until that woman is allowed to remove that dehumanising, male-imposed, face covering”. But she didn’t.
She could have taken the moral lead in at least trying to rid Britain of this horrible rampant misogyny hiding in plain sight. But she didn’t. She could have helped kick back against this medieval symbol of unchecked male ownership of females, which is growing on Britain’s streets every day. But she didn’t.
Dame Sarah, a woman who by definition (as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury) has taken full advantage of the rights bestowed on her by a load of brave, brilliant women who refused to accept second-class lives, stood by and – you may think – betrayed her sisters. We are told, by the way the woman in the burka is “Ashrafi’s wife” – her name is apparently lost to history.
Blimey Balders, that all sounds a bit racist, I hear some of you cry. No, no, no and no! It is NOT racist to highlight a hideous aspect of some peoples’ foreign culture which flies in the face of everything, everything, Brits are brought up (thankfully) to believe. The burka and niqab are expressly designed to marginalise women, to stop them from fully participating in society, and to show they are fully owned and fully controlled by men.
Accepting the burka doesn’t just take feminism and equality back decades, it takes it back centuries.
Unfortunately the burka is the white, woke, virtue-signaller’s worst nightmare. If you accept it, you look sexist, if you attack it you look racist. But, as we know, fear of looking racist trumps absolutely everything else, so we look away and allow the marginalisation and dehumanisation of millions of women to flourish openly in our midst without saying a dickie bird.
Shame on the lot of us.
But, in this particular case, special shame on on the Church. As Greg Stafford, Tory MP for Farnham and Bordon, so pithily pointed out: “There are some great parish priests but for too many senior clergy faith has been replaced by virtue signalling, doctrine by fashionable causes and the truth by whatever the bien-pensant in north London currently think is nice.”
Of course, the immediate response of the terminally woke is that Muslim women choose to wear the burka. No they don’t.
I was speaking to a friend about this issue – a friend who happens to be a survivor of horrific male violence and coercive control. She said: “That is exactly what I would have said when I was a victim of male control. And even worse, I would have meant it. That’s how coercive control works.”
For the record, Ashrafi says us journos have all taken his words about Bin Laden out of context. ‘Course we have.
So let’s have a look at those words shall we – the first lot spoken when Ashrafi was getting his knickers in a twist over Tony Blair’s decision to give Salman Rushdie a knighthood for writing a book which is so dense and difficult almost no-one has ever read.
Pledging to bestow an honorary title on Bin Laden Ashrafi said: “If a blasphemer can be given the title ‘Sir’ by the West … then a mujahid who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah.”
Saifullah is an honorific originally awarded for military prowess and is an Islamic name that means “Sword of God”. Why the god of the religion of peace needs a sword-wielding ambassador on earth I shall leave you to ponder.
Anyway, Ashrafi went on tell AFP: “We are pleased to award the title of Saifullah to Osama bin Laden after the British government decides to bestow the title of ‘Sir’ on blasphemer Rushdie. This is the highest title for a Muslim warrior.”
Oddly Lambeth Palace’s own award was given for “Imam Ashrafi’s longstanding support for religious minorities in Pakistan, particularly the Christian community – support that is valued by many Christians in Pakistan including its Anglican Church.” Although this was rather undermined one sentence later when they withdrew the award in question.
With masterly understatement I think the Rev Dr Ian Paul, an Anglican theologian and member of the General Synod, caught the mood of the nation when he said: “I understand that, in Pakistan, Ashrafi has contributed to reconciliation. But I think members of the Church of England will struggle to make sense of this in the light of his past statements about blasphemy, the death penalty, and suicide bombings, and how he is accompanied by a woman in a niqab.
“It will do harm both to the confidence of Anglicans in their own church and to the reputation of the Church of England among both its critics and its supporters.”
A spokesman for Mr Ashrafi said: “Our position against terrorism, extremism, suicide attacks and the killing of innocent people is clear and unequivocal. We have consistently worked for peace, moderation and interfaith harmony.”
BBC icon Jon Sopel breaks silence on Charles Spencer bombshell – and it’s scathing
The former BBC News star has had his say on bombshell claims made in Earl Spencer’s new book.
Jon Sopel has broken his silence (Image: Getty)
Former BBC chief political correspondent Jon Sopel has broken his silence on Earl Charles Spencer’s King Charles bombshell with a scathing comment. Over the past week, Spencer has been releasing excerpts from his new memoir Swan Song about his late sister Princess Diana, including allegations that the monarch was “giddily elated” when he talking about Diana’s death.
The palace has denied those claims and said “recollections may vary”, and Spencer has been accused of profiting off his sister’s passing. This weekend, a clip dating back to a 1998 interview with Spencer went viral on social media, in which Spencer said he would “never” dream of making money off his sister.
He said in an interview at the time: “People have lost track of this. Can you imagine anybody making a profit out of their brother or sister’s death? It’s so low it’s inconceivable. I don’t know anyone who would.
“But because the press can present Diana as a public figure, rather than as my sister, they can make it sort of a possible accusation, whereas of course it’s completely out of the question. I would never profit from Diana’s death.”
Now Sopel has shared that clip on X, tweeting: “1998: ‘I will never profit from Diana’s death’. 2026: book serialisation in Daily Mail, publication next week.” He included a shrugging emoji with his scathing response.
Charles Spencer said he would ‘never’ profit off Diana’s death (Image: Getty)
Fans were quick to respond on social media, with one writing: “Earl Spencer has made me agree with Jon Sopel. Wonders will never cease.”
Another said: “The Spencer family were never working in the interests of Diana. They’re still not.”
And a third penned: “Such a shame he’s done this now. What possible motivation does he have to create waves when none were forecast. A rather sad plea for help?”