The Sunday Mirror yesterday covered yet another case of a UKIP member espousing anti-Muslim attitudes.

Eric Kitson, the newly elected councillor for Stourport, Worcestershire, displayed a cartoon on his Facebook page of “a Muslim being spit-roasted on a fire fuelled by copies of the Koran” according to the paper.

The paper also notes that Kitson after winning a seat on the county council said “in a reference to Muslim women: “Hang um all first then ask questions later.””

The UK Independence Party, which ahead of the local elections last month said that it did not possess the capacity to screen all candidates, stated in relation to revelations concerning Mr Kitson:

“UKIP is investigating these accusations which, if true, would render Mr Kitson unsuitable to sit as a UKIP councillor and would lead to an immediate review of his party membership.”

The Sunday Express published a rather disturbing column by guest writer Mark Piggott, author of Out of Office, last week.

Piggott’s column is replete with a number of inaccuracies and false correlations, as he takes aim at the speech by Baroness Warsi last week on the “underlying, unfounded mistrust” that is fuelling anti-Muslim hostility in the UK.

Piggott opens with:

“It is unfortunate that Conservative peer Baroness Warsi picked last week to claim Muslims feel alienated in British society, while across London in Whitechapel arrests were made after Muslim gang members apparently filmed themselves confiscating alcohol from revellers in a pathetic attempt to impose a form of Sharia Law.”

Piggott goes on to list a number of anomalies which he feels detract from the core message of Warsi’s speech, that Britons display an alarming degree of anti-Islamic feeling.

He writes:

“Even now any newspaper which links grooming gangs with ethnicity is accused of stirring up racial violence yet although most paedophiles seem to be white, there does seem to be a problem with some Muslims and young girls.

“In such cities as Rochdale, Oxford and Rotherham, Asian men have been con­victed of passing young, vulnerable children round like toys. Warsi has nothing to say on why it is that for these men, white girls are seen as somehow subhuman. To Warsi, all Muslims are always the victims.”

Piggott seems to forget that linking grooming gangs to ethnicity is something the Deputy Children’s Commissioner has herself warned against in the interests of protecting young people whose aggressors hail from varied ethnic backgrounds.

He seems to forget too, that Baroness Warsi explicitly condemned the attitude of those who, she said, saw white women as “fair game”.

But then, Piggott in one part writes about “Asian boys” who “often drank booze and slept with white girls because they were “easy”” and then in another part refers to the “problem with some Muslims and young girls”. It would seem that drawing religion into the equation is quite deliberate and though the intent of the author may not be to stir up “racial violence,” protests and false claims circulated by the English Defence League about sex gangs would suggest that the consequences of “newspaper[s] link[ing] grooming gangs with ethnicity” are very real.

Piggott goes on to suggest those Muslims he considers more “moderate”,

“…those like Irshad Manji who advocate more moderate forms of Islam, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has written not only of Islam’s faults but also of the misguided policies adopted by Western politicians to make allowances for Muslims that no other ethnic group demands or receives.”

Hirsi Ali’s “moderate” credentials are on display in Newsweek’s cover story of last September, “Muslim Rage”.

Piggott claims that "Some Muslims do seem to revel in victimhood" and "self-imposed segregation…They struggle to find any relevance in their lives: their parents represent one culture, “Western” films, TV and music represent another and they are caught in the middle. Perhaps it’s no great surprise that some become angry… and worse.”

Much like Trevor Kavanagh’s column in The Sun last week, Piggott rehearses claims that have no bearing in facts. As Rob Ford wrote in his rejoinder to Kavanagh’s column

“Do Muslims identify with Britain? Are they proud of British democracy and institutions? Are they integrated into British political and social life? Yes, yes, and yes.”

It would seem the “knee-jerk Islamophobia” evident in Kavanagh’s article of last week is reborn in Piggott’s column in the Sunday Express. Something which merely reinforces the essence of Baroness Warsi’s argument that an “underlying, unfounded mistrust” is contributing to anti-Muslim feeling in the UK.

Local paper, Dumfries and Galloway Standard, reports on the horror expressed by a local couple whose letter of objection to the local council regarding a planning application by a Muslim group has been exploited by the Scottish Defence League.

The local paper reports that the SDL “copied a Standard story about the couple’s protest to its Facebook page” to rally support for its protest in the town this Saturday.

The SDL’s Facebook page, on which the story appears, states:

“We are going to Dumfries to support the locals who are opposing the extension and development of a local mosque to create residential accommodation for the Muslim community.”

The couple at the centre of the story told the paper: “We didn’t know who they were and we had no idea we were on this page until our neighbour told us to go online and look at it.

“We have absolutely nothing to do with this march and we don’t want to be associated to it. We want to make that clear to everyone.”

This wouldn’t be the first time that far right groups have used local grievances concerning planning applications to further their anti-Muslim agenda. The shenanigans in Leicestershire to derail the application submitted by the Al Salaam Trust to convert a disused Scouts hut into an Islamic community centre were well documented at the time.

The Scottish Sun, the best-selling daily's Scotland edition, published a feature article yesterday on Scottish Muslim convert Alana Blockley (pictured) and her journey into Islam.

Blockley, a Glaswegian, is one of five Muslim converts who will feature in a BBC3 programme to be broadcast on Wednesday, 'Make Me a Muslim'.

In an interview with the Sunday paper Alana, who wears a headscarf, speaks of her fear of being verbally abused.

"She said: “If I didn’t have my car, and I took public transport, I know for a fact something would’ve happened to me by now.

"She added: “I’m scared to walk from my work, which is on my street, to my caravan where I stay on my own across from my mum and dad.

“Recently, I heard a ned [non - educated delinquent] being racist to a taxi driver as I was walking by and I put my hood up so nobody could see my scarf. It’s not nice.”

Speaking about the perception of strangers to her attire and accent, Alana tells the paper:

“When people look at me they wonder why I’m white. And then when they hear me speak they wonder why I sound different. You know when it’s happening and folk are staring. There’s a bit of shock there.

“They’re not used to seeing a white person wearing a headscarf. So at first they’re a bit confused and wonder if I’m from this country. It happens when I go to Morocco, they think I’m French.”

You can read the feature article here.

Make Me A Muslim is on BBC3, on Wednesday 30 January at 9pm