>>>Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Ballet Company, The Rep Theatre, NIA, Symphony Hall, Hippodrome, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The Ikon Gallery, The Barber Institue, The Custard Factory, German Christmas Market, St Patrick's Day Parade... Need I continue?<<< Detroit used to have a similar array of attractions.

anonymous, jan 4, and jan 8th, tell it like it is. the most pertinent thing may be that they have to be anonymous to tell the truth. FScarn, jan 14, as another from usa, i wish to warn you that your superior attitude towards the cowardly shortsighted, politically correct, suicidal british way of dealing with muslim immigration is not justified. in the usa, we are ruled by the same cowardly, politically correct suicidal traitors that have destroyed britain, only we are a few years behind in achieving the necessary critical mass of muslims. our demise is as inevitable as that of europe. once a nation descends into the hellhole of islam, there is no reprieve. our children will cry out in their misery, rattle the chains of their slavery, and curse the fools that traded freedom from islam for freedom to not be called islamophobic, and got neither.

Sounds a bit like Coventry Road to me - or maybe Sparkbrook.

We got history in the making here: Britainistan will soon be set up, and it'll be tough **** on you all. It boggles the mind how a powerful nation like the UK can shoot itself in the foot, like that!

Yes but since you have left this area why is your article written anonymously. You are presumably not now physically afraid but you are unwilling to be seen to be non politically correct.

Perhaps I am more sensitised to it, but it seems to me that Jack Straw's frank and very true statement about the culpability of the Muslim culture for some Pakistanis believing that they have the right to groom under age white girls for sex purposes has given heart to those of us who have seen this coming for decades. Multiculturalism is not synonymous with the privileging of one culture over others, but in the hands of successive and spineless UK governments it is akin to cowardice. I agree that everyone needs to be able to talk about what they see, and to this end I would recommend the articles at the following links: http://cifwatch.com/2011/01/14/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night%E2%... http://www.faithfreedom.org/articles/free-thought/how-islam-fascinates-t... It's time for us all to wake up and naming spineless capitulation to Islam exactly for what it is, rather than dressing it up in "mutliculti", warm and fuzzy mindless acceptance, is a vital prerequisite.

If the day comes that the BNP gains power in the UK,will anyone really be surprised? Look back at history.Remember Adolf Hitler and how he came to power quite legally.Be very sure,if popitical opinion in the UK crystalises,it will swing hard right not left.

A very good article, and one I understand very well. I lived in Birmingham (Edgbaston) and in Walsall, and despite being a black, Englishman (born in Peterborough), living in Brum was hellish, as it was constantly a case of feeling like I was the "outsider", versus so many Muslim and other immigrants. At least the Polish immigrants try to integrate with others. Muslims, in general, just seem to want to all live together, work together, socialise together, but not with anyone outside of their own little group. Then, when people don't want to be around them, use their services, work with them, or live within their "communities" (that they themselves have created), they get angry and claim everyone in Britain is racist and anti-Muslim! I have no problem with anyone from any nation. I only ask that you treat me as you wish to be treated yourself. Sadly, whilst living in Norfolk, it's the same here. Muslims don't want to integrate with others, and create their own "ghettoised" communities, and complain when British people who work and live here, don't want an unused building turned into a mosque, Muslim meeting area, etc. It frustrates me, that many Muslism seem to think that integration is a one-way-street: that others have to integrate with them, even though they are the immigrants, and not us. Also, people all over the world, are fed-up of Muslims taking over areas of their country, areas they've lived in all of their lives, and see them being turned into mini-Muslim towns, with Muslim stores, Muslim businesses, mosques, etc, etc. People also loathe the idea that we should be tolerant of Muslims, but it is acceptable for Muslim's to not tolerate others! Why is this? Muslim rhetoric comes across as "You're either with us or against us." That "Islam is the only truth, and everything else is rubbish." I'm sorry, but that's not how I see the world, and the people in it. There is no one, individual truth, or way. Muslims need to accept that integration is a two-way street, and they need to accept certain Western cultural ideals, if they want us to accept certain Muslim ideals! This is not an anti-Muslim post, nor a denonuncement of all Muslims or followers of Islam. It's simply my view that Britain is becoming segregated and ghettoised by vast Muslim immigration, which then refuses to integrate with the people already living in places like Birmingham, Manchester, London, Norfolk, etc.

I have a Sikh friend who is currently caring for an elderly relative in an area that used to be mixed but is now almost totally Muslim. Because they are Sikh they receive low level harassment from local Muslim men. They have had anti-Sikh graffiti scrawled on their property. Their car has been urinated on, scratched, had milk bottles placed under the front wheels concealed under newspapers. He has almost been beaten up on a couple of occasions when going to the cornershop to buy a pint of milk. He does not wear a turban, but when his cousin visits, who does wear a turban, he is subjected to obscenities and taunts about his religion - Sikh sister-f**ker, and his turban is mocked. My friend experienced the worst of the NF and the skinheads in the 1970's and 1980's. So he knows what he is talking about. He now feels as I do, totally accepted and respected in Britain amongst white people. Islam is triumphalist in Birmingham. He is now planning to sell the house and move his elderly relative to a safe area as soon as he can.

As a secularist atheist I have only respect for this writer and her husband keeping their civil role under such circumstances. They both have the right to express their beliefs and to be offered protection by the police, and I am deeply depressed that neither they, nor their elderly and poor neighbours (nor law abiding Muslims) could be sure of safety. It is time for people of all beliefs and none to recognise that these are cultural and subcultural issues - and nothing to do with any beliefs 'considered sacred' - just confident bullies who will bully any group whom they can, going un-policed and unpunished. Reclaim the country - keep the flame of the Enlightenment burning bright.