It would nice to be able to say (a bit like one of those people who write in to Private Eye to cancel their subcription), that I will not be booking myself in to the Holiday Inn in future - but the fact is that I have not stayed in this chain of hotels for years.
Anyway, those of you who do still have to treck round the country staying in these boring places in order to earn the dosh to carry on with your way of life, might be interested to know that the chain recently allowed one of their hotels to host some of the vilest people currently not in jail in the UK.
At a press conference facilitated at the Holiday Inn, Walthamstow Avenue, Chingford, Sheikh Omar Bakri, spoke by telephone to a meeting about the “very big hole” that British people are digging themselves in and warned that ‘a war of Islam’ will be waged against those who try to silence Muslims.
“When you say something they don’t like, they will use violence against you. They don’t want to hear the truth.
“You will always condemn Muslims who want to help their brothers and sisters abroad.”
“The 1.5billion Muslims around the world don’t accept the society of masters and slaves. We will not accept that you are our masters and we are your slaves. If we are subservient to God and living with you and you guarantee sanctity for life, we guarantee it back.
“But the minute you start to fight against us you are digging a hole, and it is going to be a very big hole.
“Be careful. The moment we hear you are touching our brothers and sisters in the name of freedom of speech and you declare war against us, we will declare Islam against you.”
The rant probably went on longer than that, but who gives a damn. These people are nutters. At the meeting, Anjem Choudary, like Bakri, a former member of al-Muhajiroun, also condemned the Iraq and Afganastan invasions and said the reaction to the Luton protesters proves that “freedom of democracy does not apply when it comes to Muslims”.
He then declared that “Islam is the solution to the credit crunch”.
He said: “Think about a system where food and clothing is provided for people. That is surely a system you want to live under?
“We cut off the hand of thieves and punish those who drink alcohol, but if you look at Islamic states, there are few reports of rape and crime is low.
“It is a very dangerous thing to grow up in the UK. Under Sharia law, people will be educated about the harm and evils of alcohol, promiscuity, homosexuality.”
There is, of course, very little the average person can do about fools like Chaudhury, a man who would himself have had his back flayed to bits if he'd grown up under Sharia law, as he is a bit of an ex-boozer himself, by all accounts. Except of course to vote for a government which will take its duties to defend the public from these lunatics a tad more seriously. But one thing people can do immediately is to bear in mind the contribution the Holiday Inn has been making to upholdng your way of life in taking bookings from these idiots. In my view the chain does not deserve decent people's business if they are happy taking bookings from people who do not adhere to the values of the vast majority of the long-suffering British public.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/4220440.CHINGFORD__Radical_Muslims_warn_of_violence/
SeasideMan
Pro 
Can't really tell them to move us to another hotel...I wonder if the hotel realized what was going to happen when the booking was made...probably not...and were not in a position to stop it after the guests had arrived...I do boycott some things produced by countries I have problems with but a hotel chain is rather different...can they actually refuse a booking without being accused of racism? There are fanatics in all religions unfortunately but still hope they're a real minority...pretty certain the majority of Moslems don't think like this...just as the majority of Christians don't think like the far right extremists in the USA for example...the world is changing rapidly now and all sorts of extremists are coming out of the woodwork, who believe they have the answers to all its ills...of course they don't, and no sane person believes they have, but better out in the open than pushed underground so we are, at least, prepared for them should their extreme views go beyond words...
Taking a stand against businesses with things to be ashamed of is laudable, and I have done it myself many times in the past: I still can't buy Nestle products, I wouldn't even use the toilet in a McDonald's even though they now do a veggie burger, and there was a time when I wouldn't wear Nike shoes even if you gave them to me.
Some years ago I had a huge argument with one of my friends about this which, in the end, he won. His point was that most businesses are as bad as each other. All the trainer manufacturers exploit workers in 3rd and 2nd world countries, all the burger companies are indirectly responsible for the loss of rain forest in Brazil, and so on and so on. It's the profit motive that makes them all greedy.
If you boycotted all the bad companies, there would be hardly any left at all and you're only recourse would be to live on a Deep Green commune somewhere very rural. Even The Body Shop can't guarantee that their products aren't tested on animals (I used to live with one of their managers).
So, what can we do? All each of us can do is vote with our pockets for the things that bother us most but ultimately we need to be aware that this won't make a blind bit of difference. If you want to boycott Holiday Inn, go for it. Personally I hardly ever stay in hotels anyway but if I did I would probably just go for the cheapest, which is unlikely to be an HI anyway. But if HI were the cheapest I'd probably stay there because I don't, objectively, see them as any worse than any of the others. If HI hadn't hosted this event, it would have been held somewhere else, and I bet they'd argue that it's all perfectly legal and above board.
Tom.