The night before Remembrance Day, an imam recited the Muslim call to prayer to a 400-strong congregation in Blackburn Cathedral.

From a raised platform, the incongruous figure in desert garb caterwauled in Arabic: 'Allah is the greatest, I bear witness that there is no other God but Allah'.

This, in a Christian place of worship!

The dean of Blackburn Cathedral, Peter Howell-Jones, claims not to have known the call to prayer was in the programme until the service began, and 'didn't want to cause upset by removing it'.

Upset to whom? Muslims, presumably. Because no Christian would be upset by the banning of such sacrilege.

A group called Darwen Interfaith Forum recommended the imam. They claim to promote 'community cohesion', but their clumsy intervention seems to have antagonised many in the local community.

Sacrilege is what happens when an established Church is infiltrated by atheists and socialists, people who care more for virtue signalling than spreading the gospel, who would sooner insult Christians than risk upsetting a Mohammedan.

Blackburn may be one of the most tense and divided towns in Britain, but craven submission to Islam (which is what 'interfaith' usually means, in practice) cannot be the answer.

The answer, for most Christians at least, would be a Church of England aggressively promoting the faith and values that made Britain the greatest nation on earth.

Ironically, that is the one thing that would win respect from Muslims, who understand only too well the language of power and dominance.