UK - Media "a superficial deal with extremism"

So says the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

He's only partly right - there's nothing superficial about it.

Mr Blair also launched a broadside on sections of the media who he accused of sitting back and arguing that stability in the world would be promoted by doing nothing.

He claimed they were guilty of "a superficial deal with extremism", adding that such behaviour must "be confronted and uprooted".

And the PM is finally calling a spade a spade.

He told the audience at a Reuters event that religious extremism - including the term Islamist extremism - should be labelled as such.

"It will give offence. It is true. It will," he said.

But he said Muslims who committed acts of terrorism were no more true to their faith than the "Protestant bigot" who murdered Catholics in Northern Ireland.

"But unfortunately he is still a Protestant bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it."

But that is exactly what the media are doing.
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