“LET us be quite clear: this appalling, brutal and cowardly scene recently played out in Nairobi is not done in the name of a religion – not in the name of Islam – but in the name of terrorism.” That’s what David Cameron said the other day, so solemnly. He generally speaks solemnly, except when he’s speaking fatuously and, being a man of such oratorical gifts, he is when the occasion demands it, able to be both solemn and fatuous at the same time. As indeed he was the other day. The BBC won’t even go so far as to call these murderous thugs by their correct name: terrorists.

Every day non-Muslims – Christians in particular – are slaughtered by these Islamic barbarians. And yet, though all the perpetrators are Muslims, we are asked to believe that these atrocities have nothing to do with Islam. Not even, presumably, when a bearded monster with an AK47 points it at your head and asks you to recite a Muslim prayer; and if you can’t you’re dead.

Corrupted by sentimentality and politically- correct fantasies about so-called Islamophobia, governments have looked squarely at the reality of the terrorist threat – but then looked away. The word “Islamophobia” is a nonsense anyhow. A phobia is an irrational fear.

Is it irrational to be afraid of terrorist attacks performed in the name of Islam? Or, as a nation, are we so far descended into euphemism and evasions that we are going to die of our political correctness while our fatuous archbishops and bishops operate a useless everlasting talking shop with “moderate Muslims”?

It is ten years since Professor Marcello Pera, a philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate warned: “Is there a war? I answer, yes there is a war and I believe the responsible thing is to recognise it and to say so, regardless of whether the politically-correct thing to do is to keep our mouths shut.

“In Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Morocco and much of the Islamic and Arab world, large groups of fundamentalists, radicals, extremists – the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brothers, Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Armed Group and many more have declared a holy war on the West. This is not my imagination.

It is a message they have proclaimed, written, preached, communicated and circulated in black and white. Why should I not take note of it?”

May I draw your attention to the deeds and writings of two outstandingly courageous men? Bishop Michael Nazir Ali, perhaps the one Anglican bishop with any backbone, and Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, who runs The Barnabas Foundation? These men spend their lives going into the world’s most dangerous places in order to bring us news of the widespread persecution of Christians on three continents by fanatical Muslims. And yet they are all but ignored by the media and, even more disgracefully, by the Church of England establishment.

Just glance at Michael’s and Pat’s regular reports for a truer picture of the worldwide victimisation and persecution of Christian people.

Unfortunately, the British have got form when it comes to evasiveness and appeasing our enemies. Throughout the 1930s it was thought morally upright to appease Hitler.

A pity then that Mr Cameron is only the heir to Tony Blair and not the heir to Winston Churchill.