David Cameron's Weekend

Anyone else watch the football this weekend? Amazing matches on! And the Superbowl? The SFX Awards? Lots of stuff going on, all of it very exciting.

And what has Prime Minister David Cameron been up to this weekend?

Well.

In Munich he made a speech where he said that 'State Multiculturalism has failed'. This may have played well in Germany where Chancellor Merkel made similar comments last October, and 30% of of people believed the country was 'overrun by foreigners'.

Who else appreciates the irony that Britain and Germany have been brought closer together by xenophobia?

Both speeches stated many cultures in both countries had failed to integrate, and in both they provided cursory 'I'm not racist, but...' statements that appeared to contradict the rest of their speeches. Merkel said:

"We should not be a country either which gives the impression to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here."

I expect it's snappier in German. It either means 'We should look like we're not xenophobic, right, but that doesn't mean we can't act like it when no-one's looking', or 'I have said Multiculturalism has failed, then said that integration is the problem, and then said we should welcome foreigners'.

Cameron drew a distinction between Islamist Extremism and Islam, and said that under state multiculturalism 'different cultures have been encouraged to live separate lives'. He then said that groups, specifically Islamic ones getting public money must be ones who live according to the following principles:

'Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

So, common sense then? Good. Glad that's occurred to him. I'm sure he'll make sure that applies to all Government policy. Singling out Islamic groups, of course, is totally fine. In no way is making this speech on the day of an English Defence League (staunch adherents to the above rules) throwing fuel on the fire and - YOU'LL LAUGH WHEN YOU READ THIS - widening the divides between cultures. I mean, if multiculturalism has failed, then increasing the distance between groups does no harm. Almost like increasing a deficit really, isn't it Mr Cameron?

I can’t be the only one who wants to see the criteria by which Multiculturalism's success or failure is judged, not to mention some sort of agreement on what it actually means. The rhetoric suggests that everything has failed because once the country received all these different people we haven't bothered about the whole 'integration' thing. To my mind this seems to be included in the concept of a multicultural society along with mutual assimilation of traits and practices that benefit us. I mean, only an idiot would advocate bringing lots of different cultures into a country and then half heartedly point to the buffet table while shouting 'MINGLE'. It's going to take more than that to integrate people from different backgrounds, but attempts to do so are back-burner policies, kept in reserve to show people that some sort of effort is being made. There is no danger of any immediate progress on what is surely a constantly evolving concept.

Anyway, to sort that problem out would be, like, a total hassle for the government to sort out. Much easier to appeal to abstract concepts like 'Britishness' which is a set of values that is horrifically subjective. When adjectives are proscribed to 'Britishness' it sounds much like every other democratic country's idealised version of itself. Essentially what Cameron describes as 'muscular Liberalism' - stop sniggering, it's got nothing to do with Clegg's sphincter - means 'We believe in these freedoms. Now start believing in them too or we'll deport you.'

Multiculturalism has failed because Islam is different – or at least that's the message I'm getting. And indeed a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Britain said a lack of national identity isn't a problem caused by Multiculturalism, and neither is Islamic extremism. The actual content of his speech can be summarised as 'Don't give money to people who might encourage extremism', which is spectacularly obvious. He did nuance it with 'Don't give money to people who fail to discourage extremism and are Islamic' which is just unfair. The state funded the visit of a Religious Leader who failed to discourage the systematic cover up of child molestation, after all.

Speaking of state-funding, David doesn't see a problem with having a massive celebration for the forthcoming Royal Wedding. After all, William is "a remarkable young man - great, balanced, poised."

This was in a chat with CNN, which apparently lasted for the rest of David's weekend, where he did his best to make Britain seem like a mimsy Dickensian street urchin who would only be too happy to shine America's boots for it. We're still a world power! Oh the Queen! How quaint! Mr Cameron seems to think a Royal Wedding will make everyone in the country proud.

He seems to have forgotten that some people don't especially care about the Royal Family, whilst others actively dislike them. . Apparently nobody’s told him that there is a tiny possibility that some people – British people, not Muslims even - might be a bit annoyed that the Government is paying for the security arrangements. Because that means the money that Will's family are putting forward is partly tax-payer funded, and the money that the government is putting forward is partly tax-payer funded, partly tax-avoided by Vodafone, and not going anywhere near your Local Council as they are pressurised into cutting back on vital services. But the souvenir mug/cheap tat/ghost written banality industry will be absolutely minted, so that's nice.

Sadly, a great many people will be missing the Royal Wedding because not all Community Volunteers get public holidays. But I'm sure they'll join in with the latent happiness that the wedding will doubtlessly haemorrhage over the country. Which is a world power. Despite not having a strong national identity. And being overrun by foreigners.

"It will be a royal wedding the whole country can celebrate", he proclaimed.

Unless of course you're a Muslim, in which case you presumably don't share enough British values to join in.