"bizarre, mainly racist, conclusions"

Clive Davis (on his blog at the Spectator) flags up an interview with Canon Michael Ainsworth, the cleric attacked by Asian youths outside his church in east London earlier this month.

Evidence of jihad and attempts to set up no-go areas?

"We must respond calmly, and not jump to conclusions..." Coping with the hysteria from "wild" national press coverage had been "almost worse than being attacked." He felt helpless as his church was besieged by cameramen and reporters after the story broke last Friday.

"They have their own agendas," said Mr Ainsworth, "as do the bloggers, both professional and amateur, who are using the story for their own ends and drawing bizarre, mainly racist, conclusions."

Bizarre, mainly racist conclusions. Just who can he be thinking about?

Incidentally, here's Melanie Phillips, posting on her blog at the.. uh.. Spectator.. last week:

Jihad in east Londistan

From the rather fuller stories about this incident in today’s papers, it is clear that this is far from the first such attack in the area. Indeed, there appear to have been many attacks on vicars or churches by Muslims who are clearly intent on turning east London into a no-go area for Christians (and, given the stoning of the Jewish group visiting the area on Holocaust Remembrance Day, for Jews as well.

The mosque in the picture, by the way, was once St Sophia cathedral which was converted into a mosque on the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fate of innumerable churches under Islamic conquest).

The jihadi nature of the attack on of the attack on Canon Ainsworth [...] is unmistakeable.

Hmm.