New York, Madrid, London, the burkini

Following the news that a French swimming pool had banned a woman wearing a 'burkini', Telegraph blogger James Delingpole wrote a column on his website, on his Telegraph page, and in the Express in opposition to the item of swimwear.

The level of rhetoric is quite extraordinary. He considers it as part of an:

aggressive prodding from an alien culture which seeks to destroy ours. Make no mistake, though, that’s exactly what the burkini represents.

And he goes on to compare the burkini to:

9/11, of home-grown suicide bombers on London buses, of the flower of British youth being blown up in Basra and Helmand.

He says Islamists are fighting a war on two fronts - one by 'poison or the sword' and the other by 'stealth' or 'honey' depending on which article you read.

So now you know - a head-to-toe swimming costume is as dangerous and important as 9/11 in the 'battle against the west'.

Rather than just being a swimming costume.

He refers to it as

spreading like a rash across Muslim communities

as if it is like a disease.

Left out of the Express version is this statement:

Why should we care if women want to dress up in burkinis? Well we shouldn’t. It’s a free country.

So eventhough it's part of a Islamist war against the West, we shouldn't care if people want to wear it? Hmmm.

He also says it represents an:

insidious menace...to community relations

although from a man who lists 'war' among 'his likes' that may sound a little strange.

It's hard to believe that burkinis are so widely used that they should be taken as seriously as Delingpole seems to do. But any anti-Islam rhetoric is lapped up by the Express and so we all get the 'benefit' of his views.

And as he claims on his Twitter page, he's

lovely and right about everything

And modest too.