Boris Johnson only got it wrong because he made the burka row about Boris

RUTH DAVIDSON, leader of the Scottish Tories and widely tipped as a future PM, says a Muslim woman wearing a burka is no different from a Christian wearing a crucifix.

Ruth is a very intelligent woman and I find it hard to believe she can’t spot the obvious difference.

Male and female Christians wear a crucifix, Ruth. But only women wear a burka.

In this scorchio summer, women in burkas have walked beside their menfolk wearing baseball caps, T-shirts and shorts.

That is why millions in this country struggle to see the burka as anything more than a means of subordinating women in a man’s world.

Racism doesn’t come into it. Islamophobia doesn’t come into it. The burka is an affront to a society that believes the same standards should apply to men and women, boys and girls. And that is why the vast majority of the British public would like to see the burka banned.

The exquisite irony is that Boris Johnson is NOT one of the people who wants the burka banned.

And there are plenty of us who dislike the burka, who struggle to see how it can have any place in a society that believes men and women are equal, who do NOT want the burka outlawed.

Yes, the burka pushes our benign Western tolerance of other cultures to breaking point. Yes, the burka seems to actively and aggressively contradict all our notions of integration, sexual equality and an open society. But how can you believe in freedom yet tell people what they can and cannot wear?

And how can you believe in religious tolerance yet forbid an item of covering that is unique to one faith?

I don’t want the burka banned but, at the same time, I can’t condone it.

How could I? As the father of a 16-year-old daughter who is being raised to believe she is the equal of any man or boy, I shudder when I see women or girls with nothing showing but their eyes.

The burka is a hostile symbol of separation from everything I believe in and everything my country stands for.

What troubles me most about the burka is the element of choice, the danger of coercion, the nagging feeling that — with our Western belief in personal freedom — we are tolerating the intolerant.

Is EVERY woman and girl who wears the burka doing it of their own free will? Or are some of them wearing it because a community dominated by men requires them to do so?

And neither does anyone else because there is no way of ever knowing. So there is a serious, grown-up, respectful debate to be had about the place of the burka in modern Britain.

But frankly, we will never have it when Boris Johnson chucks around insults about “bank robbers” and “letterboxes”. When discussing the burka and why he does not believe it should be banned, Boris should have used the language of a statesman.

That’s what he got wrong. He has made the current debate less about the burka and more about Boris Johnson. And that is a real tragedy because there are brave Muslim women currently risking their lives on the streets of Iran to free themselves of the burka.

But if Boris got it wrong with his intemperate use of language, his hysterical opponents have also got it badly wrong. Those Remainers who would see love to see Johnson’s career crash and burn have picked the wrong fight to attempt to destroy him. His popularity is suddenly soaring.

At the very worst, Boris is guilty of poor taste. You would have to be a very sensitive snowflake indeed to believe his remarks make him guilty of any kind of hate crime.

Met police commissioner Cressida Dick, the most powerful cop in the country, confirmed that while some people undoubtedly found Boris’ words offensive, he was “engaging in a legitimate debate”. Dick stated that, after consulting senior officers who deal in hate crime, “what Mr Johnson said would not reach the bar for a criminal offence”.

You would never know it from the reaction of Johnson’s political opponents, though many of them feel EXACTLY the same way about the burka.

“I wouldn’t want my four-year-old looked after by somebody wearing a burka,” one said.

“I wouldn’t want my elderly Mum looked after by somebody wearing a burka. They need to be able to show their face.”

The words of Johnson inciting the racist rabble in a cynical bid to grab the keys to 10 Downing Street? The blonde bombshell playing the populist card to whip up Islamophobia?

No: The thoughts of Labour’s Emily Thornberry, speaking on Question Time in 2013, shortly after Tory Ken Clarke had compared the burka to “a bag” — which is surely just as gratuitously offensive as Johnson comparing the burka to a letterbox.

The shrieks of outrage about Johnson’s comments have less to do with religious sensitivities and more to do using any weapon available to block Brexit.

But the Remainers have picked the wrong fight this time, just as the Tory high command have made themselves look pathetic by launching an investigation into Johnson’s remarks. Because the vast majority of British people would be very happy to never see a burka again in their lives.

I thought we had seen peak Boris.

Defending Johnson’s remarks as “a pretty good joke”, comic actor Rowan Atkinson insists: “All jokes about religion cause offence, so it’s pointless apologising for them. You should only really apologise for a bad joke. On that basis, no apology is required.”

Mr Bean himself could surely not make a bigger mess of running this country than Theresa May — the Mrs Bean of British politics. But when Mr Bean has got your back, 10 Downing Street surely beckons.

London's crime needs to stop

LONDON’S crime wave – 90 murdered and 1,300 stabbed in 2018 – is tolerated because there is an unspoken belief it is just gang thugs killing other thugs.

The death of seven-year-old Joel Uhrie shatters that myth for ever.

The truly innocent are dying too.

BBC views go down

VIEWING figures for BBC drama have been rather disappointing.

Troy – a £16million sword-and-sandals damp squib that aspired to be a very poor man’s Game Of Thrones – drew an average of just 2.3million viewers.

Hard Sun, a thriller with zero thrills about two detectives discovering the world is about to end – described by one critic as “almost impressively bad” – scraped an audience of just 2.9million.

Perhaps the fortunes of the BBC drama department will all change with Wanderlust.

Hollywood sex bomb Toni Collette, 45, plays a sexually frustrated therapist who wants an open marriage and gets through some serious romping and masturbation in the first seven minutes. Toni is also stimulated by a policeman, the naughty thing.

“Is that a truncheon in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me, officer?”

BBC drama boss, Piers Wenger, says he is “terrified” by the potential response. I bet you are, Piers.

Terrified that Auntie is getting all her kit off and still nobody is going to watch!