BURKHA AND HER

“DEATH”, STATED SHELLEY, IN PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, “IS THE VEIL which those who live call life: They sleep, and it is lifted.” If even a rum chap like Percy Bysshe Shelley, occasionally nicknamed “Mad” at Eton, “Atheist” at Oxford and “Blaspheming” in London, all before he was mysteriously drowned in Italy and then had his body burned on the beach, could see the connection between death and the veil, then one imagines that nowadays he would be supporting prim and proper Nicolas Sarkozy in his crusade against the inevitable rise of Islam to take control of Europe by banning the Burkha and forcing Muslim women to stay indoors while their menfolk learn to do the shopping.

EVEN SO, IT SURPRISES ME TO SEE that the issue of the week in British “politics” has to do with whether women should be allowed to wear veils or not when they are going about their business, whatever that may be, in the course of the day. It is perhaps a sign of the dullness surrounding our coalition government that such a debate can manage to grab headlines for so long in most of our papers

HOWEVER, JUST WHEN MOST OF US HAVE more or less become used to the idea that, beyond the squirming of the Camelegg, there is not much exciting going on in the Coalition Government by way of interesting politicians, step forward millionaire politician Caroline Spelman (pictured above), Coalition Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and sometime foot-in-it spokesperson for the Conservatives on whatever journalists deem it fair game to tempt her with. On television this morning she compared the “right” to wear the Burkha with women’s rights to decide what to wear. She tells us that when she gets up in the morning she feels “empowered” by being able to “stand in front of the mirror” and choose what to wear. She also states that “taking away the right” to wear the Burkha would be taking away “freedom” for all those women who respect their own individuality and "know" what they "like to wear".