Mon 27 March - Muslim dress

"Now that the Lords have seen fit to uphold the school in regards the wearing of certain 'cultural' types of clothing, surely it is time to re-assess the whole matter of dress code in general without the sidetracking issue of whether it should apply solely to schools.

"There is a place for certain types of dress, and the wearing of so called Muslim attire in this country is totally inappropriate at the best of times.

"The dress code, set in cultural terms, that the Muslim women (in particular) and, on occasion, by some Muslim men, abide by, is not suited to our climate, that is a matter of simple fact.

"They tend to be seen wearing clothing that is specific to the more middle eastern areas of the world, with the climate that exists in those regions.

"The loose clothing, usually of thin materials, cannot ever hope to achieve any sort of protection to our northern climate, and although the women tend to dress in a semi western fashion beneath certain garments, quite often I see young children moving about the place without real protective clothing, that is, clothing suited to living in Britain.

"I have witnessed aged menfolk walking along, apparentlty oblivious to the cold and wet weather, in little more than a light suit made from white cotton cloth.

"How they can tolerate the climate hereabouts, dressed so unsuitably, is baffling, but more to the point I fear for their general health as they approach middle and later years.

"Then will they be forced to fall back onto the welfare system of this country to seek help and succour when their arthritic bones are giving them hell for the way they dressed unsuitably to meet our weather and climate.

"That they may contribute via taxation and NHS insurance payments is besides the point, in dressing in the way they do, they, effectively, are storing up medical problems just as much as smokers do, in fact many of these males also tend to be heavy smokers to boot.

"The fact of all this dress code business is that it is 'cultural' rather than religion specific, Muslims come to the fore in many types of garb, so they cannot claim that it is as decreed by the Koran, or any other edict decreed by some ancient hadith or scribe.

"If they can say in all truth that there is a dress code for Muslims to follow, then why do they not ALL dress to that code, instead of some wearing little more than a head covering, whilst others drape themselves in more cover than the windows of Buckingham Palace.

"As with that young lady who was refused allowance by the Lords, it is very obvious that the male side of the Muslim community are the ones who decide how a woman shall dress, and woe betide her if she wishes to become more westernised.

"She will only do so at her peril, maybe not all would be subjected to serious abuse, but recent cases have shown that there is an element of fear presented to Muslim females that is based on some untenable argument that shame will be brought to 'the family' if she steps beyond the line set and laid by both her cultural codex and members of her family and no doubt, mosque.

"It is actually hilarious to see the lengths that some women go to cover virtually the whole of themselves when in the public domain.

"Why they should think that Mohammed meant that they should do so, when many Muslim scholars have told me that it is only required that a women should be discrete and not make a show of her femininity in public, is beyond reason.

"I do know that some Muslim men have also told me that it is they, the men, who DEMAND that a woman should 'cover up' almost totally when in the street.

"To me that shows a degree of insecurity in the male Muslim, in that he cannot be sure his females, wives, sisters, even mothers, can be trusted, to which I can only comment, they must lead a very sorry existence, one that is not suited to this secular western world.

"Maybe it would better for all concerned that they take themselves and their families to live in a country structured to exist under Sharia law. There I am sure their sense of dress, and paranoid fear of losing their females would be appreciated.

"There is no call that Muslim women should all show themselves as page 3 girls, but it certainly would not be in any way out of place to adopt the basic dress styles of their UK counterparts, that is, those who do dress with a great degree of propriety.

"Sooner or later the bindings will weaken and be broken, and all the demands for a Sharia legal system within the UK will never come to anything, depite the current demands for such an event to come about.

"As time passes, so will the need for adhering to such outdated, and in all truth, silly mannerisms as practised today by these early generations of recent incomers and their expanding family groupings here in the UK."

Note - Morgan's views are not necessarily shared by the BBC