A debate on whether to ban the wannabe US president Donald Trump from entering the UK is to be held on 18 January in the British House of Commons after a petition was signed by more than 560,000 people. Trump called for Muslims to be barred from entering the US and said that parts of London are “so radicalised that police are afraid for their own lives”. (The Week)

Anyone who knows what happened in Italy during the inter-war years will feel a shiver go down the back, listening to Trump. Americans can do little about him, except not vote for him, but for the sake of happiness and peace of mind he should be made aware how difficult it would be to deal with civilised nations such as the UK were he to become President. No one would have any respect for him. Actually banning him, however, is not the right thing to do. He is a deeply ignorant man and needs to know something about the real world. A little European “education” might get him to moderate his language. (Yes, I doubt it, too!).

By the way, Trump unfortunately has the kernel of a point. In the Spitalfields area, just on the eastern edge of the City of London, the population is overwhelmingly Bangladeshi. This is where many of the immigrant groups – Huguenot, Jewish etc first came, but then dispersed. The Bangladeshis are not dispersing. On the contrary, it is a Bengali-speaking, (and children learn it in school), it’s businesses are mainly Bangladeshi, and it has what some people think is the highest density of mosques in Europe. No one is saying that the police are afraid to go there, but someone (who knows the area) told me that nonetheless they don’t (go there). It seems to be ignored. Trump’s crude exaggeration does have a point. Such laagers or ghettos have no place in a modern country. It’s bad for London and it’s bad for the immigrants, who should be dispersed and integrated. Let’s not be too politically correct.

Such concentrations of poor people and mosques could be a problem in the making. Back in September the prime minister of Bangladesh warned David Cameron that he needed to do more to combat radicalism spread by British jihadis, notably Jamaat-e-Islam, which is recruiting islamists in Bangladesh itself, where political exclusion and lack of government services are causing disaffection. This disaffection has been noticed by the Islamic Sate and by al-Qaida, and there have been a number of horrific incidents of religious terror that haven’t been reported in the West. The radicalization is coming from Britain, but nothing is being done about it. When, not if, there is an atrocity in London this could be the source.