What choice, Mrs Spelman?

It must be the necessity to have a first class degree that makes you utter such stupid comments.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, a first in European Studies from Queen Mary, University of London, says that banning the burka would infringe a woman's right to "choose each morning when you wake up what you wear".

What choice does a woman have if she wears a burka? "Hmm, shall I pick the black one or the black one?"

Last year, I drove past a mosque with my wife and sister-in-law, both practising Muslims, and we saw a woman in a burka reading a fashion magazine. I said, "What's the point of her looking? She will never be able to wear anything in it."

My sister-in-law replied, "That's just what I was thinking."

The burka is not a symbol or religious freedom or intolerance. It is a social garment. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that women must cover their faces when they leave the house or are among men to whom they are not related. It calls for women to dress modestly.

The burka has no place in civilised society.