Dear Lady Warsi,

You are an experienced politician. You know that people expect political parties to follow, at least to some extent, their manifestos. Indeed, broken manifesto promises are a main reason for disenchantment with a party.

You must also surely realise that faiths have their manifestos. These manifestos are their holy books and scriptures. We know that some faiths have a poor record of following these documents. Indeed, some Christians' view of the Bible can be rather like New Labour members singing 'The Red Flag' - they generally feel it's a good thing, but often forget the words. However, the Islamic view is that their manifesto promises must be kept. Some of those policies certainly aren't compatible with our society and its values. An example is the death penalty for apostasy.

Do you believe that a Tory who defects to Labour should be executed? Would you be happy for that policy to be in your party's manifesto even if you had no intention of implementing it? I assume you would say no to both questions. Then why do you expect people not to be biased against Islam? Why do you expect people not to be biased against you?

Regards

Steve Zara