Rod Liddle comes clean

From the Sunday Times:

"I also believe we are engaged in a struggle with Islam. Since the collapse of communism, Islam presents the only coherent challenge to our way of life.

But it is primarily an ideological war and I do not believe, as Tony Blair and George W Bush seem to, that it can be won by imposing western democratic institutions upon Islamic countries with bombs and troops.

It might be won, however, by smothering Islamic countries with the accoutrements of western affluence, such as affordable white goods, television and the other gentle vices of western civilisation. The ordinary adherents of all ascetic creeds, of which Marxism and Islam are but two, tend to be susceptible to the softening temptations of avarice.

If we can buy off Islam in such a way then Turkish membership of the EU will have been a success and we might extend the invitation to other Muslim countries."