Very sensible article in the Spectator

And you don't have to pay to read it. A Tory MP says 'Many moderate Muslims believe that much of Britain is decadent. They are right.' It is rare to hear the word 'decadent' used in any meaningful sense - one usually comes across it in nineteenth-century unthinking condemnations of the later middle ages.

'So, with little understanding of the past, little thought for the future, little respect for others and virtually no guidance from those appointed or elected to give it, many modern Britons - each with their wonderful, unique God-given potential - are condemned to be selfish, lonely creatures in a soulless society where little is worshipped beyond money and sex.

The roots of this brutal hedonism are in soulless liberalism. Against all the evidence, the liberal elite - who run much of Britain's politically correct new establishment - continue to preach their creed of freedom without duty, and rights without obligations. Pope John Paul II - perhaps the greatest figure of our age - said 'only the freedom which submits to the truth leads the human person to his true good'. Freedom without purpose is the seed corn of social decay. It is through the constraints on self-interest and the restraint that good Muslims revere that we can rebuild civil society. The most fitting response to the terrorist outrages would be the kind of moral and cultural renaissance that would make Britons of all backgrounds feel more proud of their country.'

He doesn't get round to saying - as Aelianus did below - that this is going to involve the Church spreading the Gospel, so the that 'the freedom which submits to the truth' can be discovered. This is nonetheless the best commentary on 'British values' that I have yet seen in the press, I think. Please come and be my MP, Mr Hayes... (just hope he's not a mad free market capitalist sort of Tory - I presume there isn't yet an All-Party Distributist Group in the Commons...)