Pat Condell on the 'Teddy Bear Crisis'

GOD bless Gillian Gibbons. Her slightest of errors and the harshest of reactions makes it quite clear we should shut the door very firmly on the huge donations we make to Sudan and to the idea that Turkey’s 73million Muslims should enter the European Union.
Let’s take the money we send to Sudan. I take my hat off to the BBC TV news producer who allowed the camera to stay for more than five seconds on the Sudan ambassador’s luxury Mercedes car when it drew up outside the Foreign Office as the teddy bear row heated up.
So that’s where our money goes, does it? On a lovely new Mercedes.
But it’s only a very small part of the story and the money. Last year we sent £100million to the Sudan.
It was the second largest donation from any country in the world. That’s little old Britain for you.
It was meant for all the people but this is what they do in the Sudan. In the south are the Christians and the Islamic government in Khartoum simply tells them that unless they adopt Islam they won’t get any of the money. If you are starving, with little sign of work, that’s a powerful piece of blackmail and the people do convert.
Supposing we adopted the same attitude here, ie, the Government say to Muslim enclaves – like the one in Middlesbrough – that unless they adopt Christianity they won’t receive any benefits.
What on earth do you think would happen? Not quite World War III but there would be a massive and possibly violent row.
What emerges in the teddy bear case is that there are Muslim nutters out there who would have had Gillian face a far more severe and painful sentence.
Which is why Turkey should not be allowed into the EU. At the moment it’s a secular state, ie, although the population is 98 per cent Muslim the military makes pretty sure mosque and state are separate.
But will it always be like that? Europe is currently three per cent Muslim. If the Turks get in it will become 20 per cent Muslim. How can we be sure that the teddy bear brigade won’t all come to the United Kingdom? We are enormously popular because of our economy, liberal nature and benefits system.
That idiot Jack Straw who never knows which cheek to kiss when he sees Gordon Brown is in favour of opening the door. But I support, as I do with most of his attitudes, French President Sarkozy (how I wish he were our Tory leader).
He says: “I do not believe that Turkey belongs in Europe, and for a simple reason, which is that it is in Asia minor.”
Hear, hear! As Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch UK, says: “Do we really want a border with Syria, Iran, Iraq?”
Before we open our wallets or hearts to the Muslims around the world they must prove they do not condone extremism in any form.
Until that day the door should remain firmly shut.