At Michael Gove’s Department for Education, there is a more pessimistic conviction, that if we do not intervene to stop religious extremism, it will flourish and create communities that reproduce values utterly inimical to British ideas of toleration and individual freedom. Mr Gove’s supporters note that radically conservative Muslims already see themselves as locked in a battle with secular culture, one they have to win if their own religion is not to wither away. The allegations about a “Trojan horse” plot in Birmingham by Islamic extremists to take over schools so as to make them more “Islamic” are simply an attempt to insulate their children against the “corrupting” effects of British society – which they see as characterised by not much more than sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.