New Statesman – Books – Losing the plot
New Statesman – Books – Losing the plot
Brendan O’Neill
Monday 12th June 2006
Londonistan: how Britain is creating a terror state within
Melanie Phillips Gibson Square Books, 304pp, £14.99
ISBN 1903933765
From Rushdie to 7/7: the radicalisation of Islam in Britain
Anthony McRoy Social Affairs Unit, 255pp, £20
ISBN 1904863094
Claims that our civilisation is threatened by extremists are exaggerated. Atrocities such as 7/7 reflect the demise of political Islam, not its re-emergence. By Brendan O’Neill
Poor Melanie Phillips. Her new book, Londonistan, which argues that the London attacks of 7 July 2005 were the culmination of a sinister Islamist conspiracy to infiltrate Britain and bring our civilisation to its knees, has hit the shelves just a few weeks after the government’s report into the bombings revealed that, in fact, they were the work of four ordinary blokes with no clear links to al-Qaeda. What Phillips presents as the handiwork of “clerical fascism” looks increasingly like Britain’s Columbine, a murderous stunt executed by four bored and overgrown adolescents who had nothing better to do.
