Back to the UK we go (yes, I know I've covered the UK a lot in the past few days, but they've had more interesting stuff than we have).

The Madani High School in Leicester is an Islamic school, but was built with 15M pounds of public funds. Which means the education department gets to force the school to accept 10% non-Islamic pupils, and the school gets to force that 10% to wear the headscarf (if they're female).

And now I'm really going to shock you all - I'm on the side of the school.

I back Catholic schools that do not allow the headscarf on their Muslim pupils, and I back this school demanding that all females wear the scarf. The headscarf is one of the main reasons that Muslims want schools of their own. They don't want to be forced one way or another.

This doesn't change my view that the whole religion of Islam is a farce and a sham, but stepping back from that for a moment and focusing only on this as a cultural issue, I back the school. The fact that the government paid money to the school should not allow them to force the school to take pupils that are not of a like mind. Would you like your child, in Catholic school, to not get her prayer lessons because it upsets the Muslim kids? No, of course not. So while we can get up in arms over that, we should also be able to stand up and say making a Muslim school accept Christian or secular students detracts from the whole purpose of the school, and should those students still wish to attend, they should be willing to adhere to the regulations of the school.

Including the headscarf. Remember, this is an Islamic school, not a public school with predominantly Muslim students. They make no secret of the fact that this is a school by Muslims, for Muslims.

Ok, all this fairness has left a bad taste in my mouth. Off to make a coffee...