In response to the latest Islamist terrorist plot, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee makes the following recommendation:

A new Commission on Integration and Cohesion, launching this month, will be worthless unless its first recommendation is to end religious and ethnic segregation in schools. That means no Church of England or Catholic schools, no Muslim or Jewish schools.

Ah yes, social cohesion through religious tyranny, a winning strategy down through the centuries. Nyet.

A nation that fought a number of civil wars over (among other things) the repression of religious freedom should have learned that compulsion in matters of faith does not breed social harmony. I would have thought Ms. Toynbee particularly well equipped to pass along that historical pearl, given that she is the descendant of not one but two well known British historians. Apparently the nut does sometimes fall far from the tree.