“Boris Johnson and the Burqa” has turned into Britain’s surprise summer blockbuster. Two weeks have passed since the former foreign secretary, returning to his old job as a Daily Telegraph columnist, used some flippant language about Muslim veils, and pundits are still tearing frenziedly at the entrails of the story.

The offending column was actually a condemnation of Denmark’s ban on face coverings in public places. Governments, wrote Boris, had no business telling women what to wear. He personally found it “ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes”; but a total ban, quite apart from being illiberal, risked vindicating those jihadi nuts who argue that Western democracy is incompatible with Islam.