As he demonstrated so spectacularly with Monty Python’s Life of Brian, John Cleese has never suffered from a fear of offending religious sensibilities. None the less, some people do tend to take offence rather more deeply than others. Which is why it’s brave of him to defend so stoutly the right to criticise Islam.
“Any criticism of Islam is labelled ‘Islamophobia’,” he recently lamented on social media. “A better word would be ‘Islamosceptic’. A difference of opinion is not a phobia.”
In a follow-up post on Tuesday, he wrote: “A phobia is irrational. There is nothing irrational about criticising aspects of Islam.”
