Three-way Boris

An interesting exercise in comparing A with A and with A again and finding that they’re all rather different, and thus finding out just what mendacity goes to make up a politician, is carried out in the Guardian this week by Dave Hill on his blog.

We reported a few days ago how Boris (“Gosh!”) Johnson urged non-Muslims to (“Gosh!”) jolly well go into a mosque after fasting for a day during Ramadan and (“Gosh!”) jolly well find out what it was like to be a Muslim.

Not only has Anne Widdecombe (well-known poof hater but occasional talker of common sense) taken issue with him in the Daily Express, saying such an act would just be patronising tokenism, but Hill has taken three quotes from Johnson: one just after 7/7, one later, and one the other day when he became all mosque-friendly.

It makes for sobering reading. Well, it ought to be sobering reading for Mr (“Gosh!”) Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

One of the earliest quotes says, among other things, of Islam, “Judged purely on its scripture – to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques – it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers . . .”

A later one – in April 2008, as May’s mayoral election day approached – has him saying, “The problem is people who wrench out of context quotes from the holy book of Islam, the Koran, and use it to inspire evil in men's hearts. That is a fact that few serious people would deny and we need to tackle the extremists.”

Now he wants us to be a Muslim for a day. Gosh!