The dicretionary funding between ministerial level of government and the leadership of a religious group is without precent as far as I am aware. This money is not for schools, nor for social welfare but rather to pay for opinions it wishes to cultivate and that is a worrying precedent.

Ironically It is more common of the corrupt third world country and influnce peddling in Asia then in a western liberal democracy.

In a secular state Government must not fund opinion.

The issue with government funding is that it encourages rent seeking and it naturally leads to a situation where organisations are more committed to pleasing the government than the community they represent.

This is exactly the same a priori generalisation that was (and is) made about government-funded universities – and it ain’t necessarily so. It depends on the – for want of a better term – “institutional ethos”. Government-funded universities generally maintain a very high standard of quality research (rather than being shirkers), and indeed have ben most critical of government s when they are most dependent on them for funding! Ironically, as universities are increasingly de-funded, having to rely increasingly on competing for “external” funds, researchers and lecturers are now actually becoming more obsequious, uncritical rent-seekers than ever before – exactly the opposite to the simplistic pronouncements of economics textbooks.

It is almost farcical if it wasn’t so depressing.

As for your comment about Muslims paying taxes, then that is, of course, true. However, the tax isn’t paid voluntarily to the government but seized forcefully so we have, to begin with, a degree of injustice. The government then takes all of this money that it has confiscated and decides how to spend it. However, when it comes to spending on religious and cultural projects, the question is who is best able and most qualified to decide how one’s money is spent? Is it the person who earned that money and whose sweat was expended in acquiring it or is it some person who is far removed from you, your community and your thoughts on the matter? The government thinks the latter but I think it is the former: that individuals should make their own decisions on what organisations they want to support and what religious ideas they want to promote with their money.

I’m sure they will do a good job, perhaps its the quality of people which is more important than the source of funding.

Muslims in england pay taxes too, so why cant they be supported by the government?

(I also believe the British united Muslim Forum’s is more correctly abbreviated to “BuMF”)