A Wave of Islamophobia.

If anyone doubted that Islamophobia existed in our country they should be in no doubt after reading and listening to the torrent of bigotry and prejudice pouring out of some of our national press and from our main media outlets over the last 48 hours.

Just a few examples.

The Daily Express launched its salvo with the headlines "Riots over Mosque on Queen's Doorstep." A story which also ran for 24 hours throughout the national and local television and radio news programmes.

The Evening Standard sunk to its usual depths with an almost farcical headline "Guide Dog is Banned by Muslim Driver." Almost farcical except when you know the Standard's racist track record over the years.

The Guardian, Times, and Telegraph plus the BBC and most radio news programmes ran with the story of Jack Straw requiring Muslim women to remove their veil when meeting him.

This followed hard on the heels of Cameron's comments on Muslim schools and Reid's statements about no "no go areas" at Labour Party conference.

We are clearly in the middle of one of those regular episodes, launched by the unsavoury alliance of media and politicians, of attacking the latest vulnerable minority.

The historical parallels with the persecution of the Catholic minority in this country three centuries ago and the jews even further back in our history are striking.

This week saw the commemoration of the "Battle of Cable Street," when socialists, trade unionists and people of good faith stood up to the emerging Nazi threat in this country and stood in solidarity with the Jewish community against the despicable attacks on it by Mosley's fascists.

It is now our time to stand up in solidarity with Muslim members of our community.

Whichever minority group comes under racist and bigoted attack in this way be it catholic, jew, muslim, hindu, sikh, black or ethnic minority, lesbian or gay, our role as fellow human beings is to stand with them.

That is what I am calling on every person in this country of good will to do today.

If we act now in standing together in defence of the Muslim community we can bring to a swift end this latest wave of prejudice.

If we do not act, my fear is that the islamophobia we have witnessed this week will gain the respectable cover it has been seeking and will grow unchecked.

Cameron/Blair Merger

Having listened to Cameron's party conference speech it was obvious that the Conservative strategy in the run up to the next election is to present themselves as offering the potential for electors to vote for a smooth transition from Blair to Cameron. The Conservative Party has clearly decided to offer itself as a sort of New Labour plus.

The Prime Minister seems to take this as a compliment as though Cameron has been incorporated into New Labour. The reality is that New Labour has been shifted so far to the right that it is easy to see a sizeable proportion of Conservatives now accomodated into New Labour.

Cameron's strategy though even in the crudest electoral calculations seems to have missed the point of recent elections. The most significant feature of the recent period has been the electorate's increasingly angry disillusionment with New Labour, both its policies and its style of politics. People increasingly do not like the society that is being created by the policies pursued by New Labour and now advocated by the New Conservatives.

The disllusionment therefore isn't just with Tony Blair the individual but with the concrete results of his New Labour's policies and the consequent breakdown of trust in both him and politics more generally.

Although there was no policy content to Cameron's speech he was offering virtually the same political mood music as New Labour but with a fresher face.

There is a real world test for this coterie of political consensus of the right.

In a society which is visibly fraying at the edges as a result of the most prolonged period of widening inequality in the last century what will their policies do to redistribute wealth and power in Britain?

There is no point any politician wittering on in even the most flowery conference eloquence until they demonstrate that they are willing and are capable of tackling this issue.

How can we put up with a society in which the gross inequality of distribution of wealth determines so crudely and on such a scale not just the quality of the life of our children but even their very life expectancy?

Tony Blair has had his oppportunity to tackle this issue and simply avoided the question. David Cameron hasn't even acknowledged its existence.