Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Who, until the recent atrocities, would have supposed that Andy Burnham – he of the plucked eyebrows and permatan –  was an authority on Islamic Theology? And yet the recently elected Mayor of Manchester feels entitled to assure the citizens of that city that Islam is a religion of peace. What, we are entitled to ask, does he know that we do not?

But Mr Burnham, alas, is no different in this from other politicians. One tires of people who could scarcely pass a Sunday School test on Christian theology pontificating on the essential nature of a religion which is to them  largely a closed book.

Copies of the Qur’an are available in every public library. The time has surely come to start reading them.