Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

Islam neo-puritan trends 'barbaric' says ABC at HMD

Interviewed for BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme, the Archbishop of Canterbury covered a range of topics, including the Anglican Communion and Lambeth, and his full comments are below. But speaking about Islam, he spoke of 'neo-puritan Salafi, Wahhabi trends which wipe out Islamic history and make Islam something rather barbaric.' He was saying this at Holocaust Memorial Day in Liverpool, where the Muslim Council of Britain had a representative, assistant gen sec Tahir Alam, for the first time. My own contribution to HMD was to interview Yona Metzter, Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel. (Irene's linked to it on her blog.) If you go to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website, you can virtually light this candle. (HT to little green footballs.)

Proud not to be 'part of the union'.

  How many readers of this blog are old enough, like me, to remember the Strawbs song, 'You can't get me I'm part of the Union'? This was released in 1973, just as I was starting to gear up for 'O' levels. By the time I was sitting mocks and other exams, through a series of cold winters, there were periods when we went for months with no heating in our draughty Staffordshire vicarage because there was no coal. We had little hot food or drink because there was no coke for the Rayburn. Stinking rubbish piled up, uncollected.