I start this column already resigned to the tune out, to the glaze over, the click away. This is not to say that I do not have faith in you, dear reader, to keep reading and caring. But I am aware, and this is central to the problem, that it is now normal, when it comes to a certain minority in this country, to speak of them as if they were some sort of plague. Islamophobia has become so common as to be mundane in large parts of the British media. Foremost among the offenders is Britain’s oldest political magazine: the Spectator.

A large and comprehensive report from the Centre for Media Monitoring reviewed 3,733 articles published in the Spectator relating to Islam or Muslims. Released last week, it criticised the publication for “a sustained and systemic pattern of biased coverage of Muslims and Islam”, according to the CMM, “with more than half of all relevant articles rated as biased over an eight-year period”. It is grim, grim reading.

Among the conclusions reached by the report are that articles in the magazine regularly portrayed Muslims as a “problem population”, delegitimised the very notion of Islamophobia, and consistently presented Muslims as exceptional or threatening. The overall effect is of a minority that is not only sectarian and separate, but also, ironically, from within its ghetto, dangerous and aggressively colonising British society.

Articles cited refer to Muslim concerns about racist abuse as “dainty sensibilities” and “handwringing”. Presumably, this precious response includes objections to statements in the magazine panicking that “organised Islam is strong and vociferous” and, in reference to the growing population of Muslims in the country, that “there are now more than double the number of semi-literate, virgin-obsessed........

© The Guardian