Rolled-up Trousers

Bhutto's death

It is normal to speak well of the dead, particularly when they die in such an unacceptable fashion. No doubt the quiet season for the news media has also contributed to the wall-to-wall coverage of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. But the way that she is being portrayed as a fallen heroin is out of sync with her track record and what the prospects were for her relaunch.

She arrived back in Pakistan courtesy of a US brokered deal after around a decade out of the country dodging corruption trials. On the plane from Dubai she told the world's media that he had two priorities - to reform Islam and to help the poor.

This should have stuck in the throat. She was not some fresh faced political idealist. She had record - maybe not a criminal one, but as good as. She's twice been prime minister and had done nothing on either count, or much else of note. Had her family not already been substantially wealthy, she may have been able to argue that at least one poor person had been helped. It's estimated that she and her husband swindled tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, in kickbacks from various state deals.

Salmond hosted at Glasgow Central Mosque

A couple of weeks ago now something quite unthinkable happened. A dinner was held at Glasgow Central Mosque in honour of Alex Salmond upon his becoming First Minister.

It was put on by the Jamiat Ittihad-ul-Muslimeen, the organisation that runs the mosque. In years gone by this body has been the most pro-Labour of any Muslim organisation in the country.

The now standard praise of the First Minister is his response to the Glasgow Airport attack when he came to the mosque the day after and pledged his solidarity with the Muslim community in front of the world's waiting media. What's not spoken about anymore was that two years ago, he offered to do exactly the same thing after the July bombings, but was remarkably refused entry by the management committee.

Stop and Search kept in the news

It was very good of Tom Harris MP to keep Stop and Search in the news last week - here, here, here, here, here, and here for example.

What the Rail Minister was doing though was supporting the British Transport Police's policy of implementing the draconian Terrorism Act powers in Scotland.

None of what Harris has put out has answered the central points though - that stop and search achieves nothing, it is an erosion of basic liberties to stop people without having any suspicion against them, and that more than just being a waste of police time, it is harming relations between communities and police.

14% of stop and searches on ethnic minorities

Astounding statistics were released over the weekend showing that 14% of stop and searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in Scotland have been done on people of dark skin. This is despite them forming only 2% of the population.

The Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has come out strongly against the regime operated by the British Transport Police in the country's railway stations. Since the Glasgow Airport attacks, nearly 15,000 people have been stopped ans searched, around 100 a day.

The issue made the front page of Saturday's Scotsman, although for some reason I can't find it anywhere on their webpage. The Herald also covered it, while you can watch more 10 minutes into the latest programme from the Politics Show (worth watching for the BTP's insistence that no one had complained, but mentioning that the Muslim Council had been invited in to see them last month after complaints - and during that meeting complaints to the BTP from people stopped and searched were mentioned).

50% of Scots see Muslims as "cultural threat"

The Scottish government's Scottish Social Attitudes Survey published this week showed a growing Islamophobia in the country (see the Scotsman, Herald and Daily Record for more).

The new type pf prejudice could be seen clearly in the figures showing that while 4% of the public would object to an Asian school teacher, 21% would if that teacher was Muslim. Half the population thought that more Muslims would lead to the country losing it's identity - this was up from 38% in 2003.

This notion is of course nonsense. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that Muslims in Scotland feel themselves to be more Scottish than the population as a whole.

Interview in the Scotsman

The Scotsman today feature a Q&A with me in the wake of this week's government report into discriminatory attitudes. Here.

Newsnight rips apart Policy Exchange report

Tonight's Newsnight investigation into Policy Exchange's recent report on extremism in British mosques found major irregularities with the receipts that the think tank handed them to investigate the issue further:

• Receipts from North London mosque's bookshop, when the mosque doesn't have a bookshop. Forensic examination revealed that the receipt's heading had been printed on an inkjet printer - when usual procedure for such pieces of paper would be mass printing
• Receipts from other mosques printed entirely on inkjet printers
• A receipt for Euston Mosque with the address on it being for the mosque next door to it on North Gower Street (who would have thought that two mosques next door to each other would be an advantage one day!)
• Forensic tests that found handwriting matching on two separate receipts for different mosques
• Forensic tests showing that the writing on one receipt had been done on top of another receipt for an entirely different mosque

SNP overtake Labour - in Glasgow

A YouGov opinion poll has put the SNP ahead of Labour in voting intentions for Holyrood. This is across Glasgow, where this has never happened before. Tartan Hero has the full rundown.

While the poll is for the Scottish Parliament, it shows how the message of the SNP is resonating in areas where it never has before. It's also great news for myself and my Westminster candidate colleagues in the city.

David Cameron's "ugly stain of separatism"

Now that all the political parties have united in the view that Scotland's constitutional arrangements need updating, I am genuine when I say that I'm looking forward to hearing what the unionist parties are going to put forward - with their rationale.

David Cameron has been first up with his stab at it. I was, some would say unsurprisingly, left very disappointed. The Tories and their stablemates need to find reasons for the Union. Here's what Cameron came up with:

Miliband denies visiting West Bank settler relatives

I was very surprised to read that Foreign Secretary David Miliband has family who live in one of the illegal West Bank settlements. According to the Jewish Chronicle, he was forced into denying he visited them on his recent visit to the region.

The obvious serious implication of this is that if he's to have a part to play in achieving a just peace there, it does represent somewhat of a conflict of interest if he has family living in what are arguably the biggest stumbling blocks to that very peace. It's very important that a full disclosure is made on this issue.

Muslim Friends of Labour - the Sunday Times have done a bit of digging since I blogged on this last week

Triangulating independence

The three unionist parties at Holyrood have launched their own commission looking into Scotland's constitutional future.

They refuse to take part in the government's National Conversation. This is because that has independence on the table, while their commission is limited. The commission though is part of the national conversation whether they like it or not - because it's in response to it.

The result will be more powers to the Scottish Parliament. When launching the National Conversation, the First Minister challenged the other parties to join it and justify where our powers should end. And now they have risen to this. It will be fascinating to see what they conclude.

Muslims in teddy conspiracy

Geoffrey Alderman has posted up the most miserable of conspiracy theories today at CIF.

The regular Jewish Chronicle columnist has averred that Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi rushed over to Sudan to help Gillian Gibbons in a plot which was hatched by the Sudanese government in concert with the FCO. Omar Al-Bashir couldn't be seen handing over the school teacher to Britain, so suggested the Muslim peers be seen to mediate in order for them to save face, with the House of Lords members were willing patsies in an episode that would leave them as heroes. In a twist of coordinated "media management" Muslims look great again.

Alderman seems uncomfortable with Muslims being the rescuers as opposed to only persecutors. He is suspicious of the affair now being seen as "very kindly Muslim response to a very kindly Muslim approach". Al-Bashir may have seen an out from the situation with the presence of the Muslim peers. Undoubtedly he would not have pardoned her had there been no benefit for him. This doesn't mean that Gillian Gibbons should have been left in prison. By mentioning how well she was being treated and the fact she was going to be out Monday coming, this is exactly what Alderman is getting at though.

His cynical eye overlooks that this Muslim-on-Muslim "kindliness" doesn't extend to the Muslim-on-Muslim extreme violence in Darfur. This is not a regime that cares too much about coreligionists and this is not something they would have thought up.

Muslim beds to face Mecca

The Daily Express and Daily Star have claimed that nurses have been ordered by the NHS to turn the beds of Muslim patients towards Mecca. It's caused "havoc", "chaos" and is "political correctness gone mad". Except it's not true.

The pro-Israeli role in donorgate

One of the angles on the recent troubles afflicting the British Labour Party is the role played by pro-Israelis.

The Jewish Chronicle highlights the faith element of this rather than the politics. They worry about an anti-Semitic backlash. Andrew Dismore MP is even of the opinion that the Labour Party breaking the law would not be considered a scandal at all if it weren't Jewish donors involved.

Their concern is that people are going to make comment about David Abrahams formerly being a member of Labour Friends of Israel till he was chucked out by Jon Mendelsohn who was the organisation's head before becoming Labour's fundraiser in chief. The previous occupant of that latter key role was his friend Michael Levy who was also LFI and has been described as a "leading international Zionist" (but was still remarkably appointed by Blair as the PM's personal envoy to the Middle East). Levy in particular brought many pro-Israelis to donate to the Labour Party cause.

Police officer: efforts to stop terrorist nuclear attack "bound to fail"

John Mayer - advocate, author, and activist - has hit out at the person responsible at ACPOS for protecting Scotland from nuclear or chemical attack.

Ian Dickinson, also Assistant Chief Constable with Lothian and Borders, last week said a nuclear attack was inevitable:

"These materials are undoubtedly out there, and undoubtedly will end up in terrorists' hands, and undoubtedly will be used by terrorists some time soon," he declared. "We must plan for failure and prepare for absolute terror."

However, Mayer took issue with this in a letter to the Sunday Herald:

Brass Crescent Awards

The annual gongs for the Muslim blogosphere are under way. Nominations for the various categories have been announced. Rolled-up Trousers is in the running for "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition". You can vote for me or not here.

Not too sure this can strictly be categorised as a Muslim blog anymore. Bit of everything here now. Depends how it's defined.

I missed the nomination process otherwise I would have added to the excellent blogs that did actually get on the final list. I have to confess that despite running a blog, I'm not the best at keeping up with what's new in the blogosphere. There are a number of omissions though - Suhaib Webb and Blogistan. Islamophobia Watch on the 'blog run by non-Muslims' categoryBradford Muslim when he posts is always worth a read, the Tasneem Project, and Gabriele Marranci. Best series must be The Islamicist which was just hilarious - for some reason it's not in that section though and is competing against me!