Four legs good - two legs...

They might not like George Bush very much, but most Britons now believe the Muslim faith is a threat to Western democracy, according to a new survey.

Apparently increasing numbers think "a large proportion" of British Muslims feel no loyalty to the UK and are ready to condone or even carry out terrorist atrocities, while far more people feel threatened by Islam itself than was the case five years ago.

According to the Daily Mail report, the survey asked almost 1,800 people across Britain for their views on terrorism and the "Muslim connection", and compared the findings with identical surveys taken in 2001 after the September 11 attacks, and immediately after last year's July 7 bombings in London.

The starkest finding was that 53 per cent of people now agreed that Islam itself - not just fundamentalist groups - posed a threat to Western liberal democracy, while only 34 per cent disagreed.

Britain’s Communities Secretary, Ruth Kelly, believes that the country is becoming polarised between Muslims and the rest of the population, which is suspicious of them, and that a belief in "a clash of civilisations" has taken root.