IN THIS week's print column, I look at the fuss—still rumbling on—caused by David Cameron when he gave a speech on multiculturalism and British Islam at the Munich Security Conference on February 5th. The column argues that the speech is not as ferocious as either its critics or cheerleaders seem to think. From the left, the prime minister stands accused of "writing propaganda" for the far right. Voices on the right claimed Mr Cameron had declared the end of multiculturalism, full stop, with the Daily Telegraph headlining its report: "Muslims must embrace British values".

The bad news is, I think the speech was seriously muddled and as a result unconvincing, for reasons set out below.

I also think something else, though, which did not fit in the print column. I think that Mr Cameron, a man of strikingly good manners most of the time, forgot his natural courtesy. For starters, I agree with critics who say it was clumsy to give what was essentially a domestic speech about Muslims in Britain at an international security conference, as if implying that the presence of Muslims on British soil was essentially a question of national security and counter-terrorism.

Speaking to one MP last night, he suggested that Mr Cameron was trying rather crudely to position himself as an ally of the German chancellor Angela Merkel (who was at the Munich conference) and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, both of whom have come out swinging against multiculturalism in recent months. I think there is a lot to that. Indeed, in a sort of inter-governmental relay race, on Thursday evening Mr Sarkozy told French television he agreed with Mr Cameron that multiculturalism had "failed".

Read in full, Mr Cameron's speech was actually more subtle than the rather crude rhetoric of either Mrs Merkel or Mr Sarkozy. He was at pains to say that piety and extremism were two separate things, and that to talk about the idea of an inclusive British national identity open to all.

At one point on TF1 last night, Mr Sarkozy seemed to suggest that French Muslims questioned the idea of young girls going to school, as if they were the Taliban. Not for the first time, he also echoed complaints first made by the far-right National Front, in this case the idea that it is un-French to pray in the street. Marine Le Pen, the new leader of the National Front (who also opportunistically praised Mr Cameron's speech this week, to Downing Street's dismay) recently compared Muslims praying in French streets with German occupiers. Mr Sarkozy avoided that degree of bone-headed bad taste, but did say: "We don't want people praying ostentatiously in the street in France," though mosques, he conceded were a "normal" part of life.

The problem for Mr Cameron is that very few people read speeches in full, as he well knows. And this is where his manners failed him. Because lots and lots of people who read only the media reports of his speech came away with the impression that he had said multiculturalism had failed. In fact he was more careful/tricksy than that, talking about the "failed policies of the past" at one point, and at another point talking about the problems with what he mysteriously called "the doctrine of state multiculturalism".

And among the people who came away with that impression were some of the moderate Muslims working in Britain to try to promote the good thing that they consider to be multiculturalism: meaning, simply, a mutual respect between different cultures.

Researching the column, I came across a fascinating 2010 report on preventing extremism by the all-party House of Commons select committee on communities and local government, which took evidence from a huge number of different people (it is 300 pages long, but I recommend a look). My curiosity was piqued by one of the witnesses, a Birmingham historian, Jahan Mahmood, who works with young Muslims, especially those in trouble with the law. Mr Mahmood's passion is the remarkable and largely-forgotten history of the Indian troops who volunteered to fight for the British in the second world war, many of them with extraordinary courage. There was no conscription in India, though it was part of the British Empire. More than 600,000 Muslims volunteered to serve. Many of them were from tribal regions of modern-day Pakistan: areas which had supplied warriors to empires and dynasties for centuries, and many of their descendants now live in Britain. Given that Mr Cameron's main complaint was that young Muslims felt rootless and unable to connect with any form of British identity, this project sounded like just the sort of thing of which Downing Street might approve.

So I telephoned Mr Mahmood, to ask about his project, and his own reaction to the Munich speech. Now, this is only one anecdote, but with that health warning given, here is what he said.

In Birmingham, he told me, whites and young Muslims too often feel that very little connects them. Describing his work with young offenders, he gave the example of some young Muslim men from Sparkbrook, "getting into all sorts of madness", and who—he discovered—had downloaded videos of a British hostage being beheaded in Iraq on their mobile telephones. "I said, why have you got these downloads, and they said: Britain hates us, Britain hates all Muslims, so we hate them," he told me.

While trying to persuade them that they were wrong, Mr Mahmood told them about his own uncle, a Pakistani who fought with the British in Burma. One of the young men later asked his own grandfather about this, and found out the old man had a Burma Star campaign medal at home: it was a link that had never been discussed before.

Mr Mahmood's presentation, which he has given many times at community centres, describes the gallantry of these Indian Army units, the medals they won, and how some of the youngest soldiers in the war were 15 year old volunteers from the sub-continent. Does it work? Well, Mr Mahmood makes no wild claims for his project. It makes a difference for some, he says: he is proud of having brought together Muslim and white youths, and showing them how their grandfathers had fought and died together. Others respond less well, he concedes, angrily telling him that he is just describing colonial exploitation.

But the point is, Mr Mahmood is surely the kind of community volunteer that Mr Cameron would like to encourage: his work is precisely aimed at showing Muslims how they have been proud actors in British history for a long time. And yet, Mr Mahmood was discouraged by reports of the prime minister's speech.

"This country is built on multiculturalism. It means appreciating and respecting other people's traditions," he said. He cited stories about British servicemen defending Afro-Caribbean comrades in British pubs during the war, when American soldiers refused to drink alongside them. "There were punch-ups between the Americans and the British over it," noted Mr Mahmood. He agrees with Mr Cameron that Britain had not done enough to ensure its different communities met and knew each other. "I wouldn't have started my work if there weren't a gap," he said.

But he thought he had heard that Mr Cameron thought multiculturalism had failed, and that hurt. "For him to say what he said, it put me on the backfoot."

Here is this week' print column:

ON FEBRUARY 5th David Cameron gave a speech about Islamism and British values at a conference in Munich. Back home, the rows have not stopped since. Much of the fuss has a distinctly synthetic tang. Absurdly, Sadiq Khan, the Labour shadow justice secretary, accused the prime minister of “writing propaganda” for a far-right group that held a rally on the same day. Conservatives chortled that Mr Cameron had hailed the end of multiculturalism. What he actually said was that a doctrine of “state multiculturalism” had encouraged Britons to live segregated lives. In its stead, he proposed a “muscular liberalism” that confronts extremism and promotes a British identity open to all.

In short, Mr Cameron’s big speech was not as ferocious as his critics charge or some of his fans hope. The bad news is, large parts were an unconvincing muddle.

Much of it was not new. A year after the London bombings of July 2005 Ruth Kelly, then the Labour minister in charge of community policies, asked whether—in its anxiety to avoid imposing a single British identity on diverse communities—multiculturalism had encouraged “separateness”. In December 2006 Tony Blair gave a speech on multiculturalism that reads like a list of Mr Cameron’s talking points. Both prime ministers called for tighter controls on Muslim groups receiving public funds, an entry ban on foreign preachers with sulphurous views, a tougher line on forced marriages and an expectation that all British citizens support common values, from the rule of law to a rejection of discrimination. As for identity, under Mr Blair and his successor Gordon Brown the government was obsessed with “Britishness” (Mr Brown briefly floated plans for an annual “Britain Day”).

Why, then, did Mr Cameron bother to give a speech that was greeted by one weary official with the lament, “here we go again”? Politics, partly. Few prime ministers can resist denouncing what Mr Cameron dubbed the “failed policies of the past”. But mostly, Mr Cameron’s intention was to weigh in on one side of a debate that has gripped Whitehall for a decade: should the government fight terrorism by working with ideological extremists who claim to oppose violent acts in Britain (if not elsewhere)?

In its final counter-terrorist strategy in office, Labour plumped for challenging such “non-violent extremists”. Mr Cameron is intervening because he thinks that decision has not been followed through, says a Whitehall source. The prime minister, says the source, has been persuaded by the “conveyor belt” theory—the belief that non-violent extremism is often a “way point” on the road to lethal radicalism. Mr Cameron thinks multiculturalism has drifted from a tolerance of other cultures towards a tolerance of other value systems, some of them hostile to Britain.

That stress on values raises some daunting problems. First, there is a tension between values and tactics. The most coherent critics of dangerous preachers are often imams who hold “pretty unpleasant views” themselves, argues a senior official. Groups beloved by ministers—such as the Quilliam Foundation, which backs calls for sweeping curbs on radical preachers—have “no credibility” among ordinary Muslims, another official says. Mr Cameron calls it “nonsense” that extremists help keep vulnerable Muslims away from violence. But he cannot wish away the trade-off between liberal values and street credibility.

Next, a lot of people outside the secular British mainstream reject at least some of Mr Cameron’s list of non-negotiable British values: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law and equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality. That sits awkwardly with his “Big Society” plans to deliver public services through community bodies, and especially his enthusiasm for faith schools. Many of these are essentially selective state schools in disguise, barely troubling the happy hypocrisies of British live-and-let-live agnosticism. But others offer a sharper challenge: evangelical Christian schools, Hindu academies, Orthodox Jewish schools or private Muslim ones that—quite legally—devote half the day to theology and Koranic studies and shun all arts and humanities subjects apart from religious education. This points up another muddle. For all Mr Cameron’s talk of failed policies, something like state multiculturalism (ie, offering public support while ignoring tricky differences in values) remains the British default response to religions other than Islam, whose angriest fringe has overwhelmed unmuscular liberalism.

Good diagnosis, dodgy prescription

One final muddle. At the Munich conference, Mr Cameron correctly observed that some on the left think Islamist terrorism might be fixed by addressing grievances such as poverty or Western foreign policy. This, he noted, ignores the fact that many terrorists are middle class, and that lots of people loathe Western foreign policy without resorting to violence. He might have added that tackling poverty and changing foreign policy are anyway pleasing prospects to the left. Politicians are always tempted by the idea that something they already favour might be a magic solution to a problem.

But the prime minister then fell into the same trap, suggesting that some young Muslim men find it hard to identify with Britain “because we have allowed the weakening of our collective identity.” That is catnip to Tories who want to teach children patriotic history. But that “because” is a logical stretch. True, young Muslims cannot identify with a vacuum. But filling it with assertive Britishness is no guarantee of winning hearts and minds.

Mr Cameron has committed Britain to a national contest of values with radical Islamism. That would be ambitious even without the muddle that underpins his challenge. Ignore his hysterical critics, and swooning cheerleaders. Mr Cameron has much more persuading to do.