‘Why should we gain a better understanding of our Muslim neighbours?’

In a effort to counteract his record of statements antagonistic to the Muslim community, Boris “Islam is the problem” Johnson recently visited the East London Mosque to deliver a conciliatory speech, reported by the Daily Express under the headline “Let’s all be Muslim for the day says Mayor Boris“, in which he suggested that non-Muslims might fast for a day during Ramadan to help them gain a better understanding of their Muslim neighbours.

This has outraged an Express reader, one Brenda Harris, who writes:

“Has Boris Johnson completely lost the plot or is he just vote catching? Why should we gain a better understanding of our Muslim neighbours? They came to our country. The country for which our parents and grandparents fought to give us a better life. It is they who should conform to our ways. Thank God this is still a Christian country and even those of us who are not churchgoers, still have Christian ethics…. Are the Government and the Mayor of London afraid to ask the indigenous people in this country what they think or want?”

So I take it there’ll be no second preferences from BNP voters for Boris in 2012.

Update:  See also “Boris Johnson converts to Islam”, Dave Hill’s London Blog, 8 September 2009