I HAVE regular correspondents on the subject of Islam; some are internet ‘trolls’ who send me emails filled with complete drivel that they have picked up from nasty right wing websites quite as ‘wacky’ as the Islamists they bang on about.

Then there are a few ‘churchy’ folk who send me considered but equally misguided stuff peppered with quotes taken out of context from the Koran and enclosing articles from evangelical publications.

I do not understand the complex reasons why, in a society where there is every opportunity to practice religion freely or to organise politically, a handful of so-called Muslims go berserk, declare war on the rest of us,and hate their co-religionists for quietly practicing their faith and getting on with their busy lives.

But blaming their religion as inherently violent and “jihadist” is to ignore the reality of the overwhelming majority of 1.6bn Muslims who live ordinary lives, and who are - by a long way - the principal victims of worldwide Islamist violence.

It is as ludicrous as blaming Roman Catholicism for republican terrorism in Northern Ireland; or Christianity for the bloodthirsty massacres of defenceless women and children that so often characterised the Crusades.

Wicked men have always sought to dignify their propensity for senseless violence with a creed or ideology.

Anyone who insults a Muslim or attacks a mosque in the wake of the disgusting murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, is nothing but a fool, and doing the very work of the terrorist. It is their desire and intent that our tolerant, easy-going, “live and let live” way of life should be extinguished. They want to see their co-religionists persecuted, humiliated and bullied, so that they can be so much more easily radicalised and controlled.

The inarticulate drivel spouted by Lee Rigby’s murderers, justifying their actions with reference to British foreign policy, ignores two fundamental truths: first, in a democracy if you don’t like the government’s policy then you organise politically to change it. Second, our military interventions have been deployed in defence of Muslims: without it, Slobodan Milosevic would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo; Saddam Hussein would have extended his murderous regime to Kuwait; Muslim men and women would still be living under the Taliban reign of terror in Afghanistan; and hundreds of thousands of Muslims would have been massacred by Col Gaddafi in Benghazi.

We ought however, to arm ourselves with the ability to keep tabs on those suspects that we need to, but changing habits driven by technology are compromising that ability. It was for this very reason that the draft Communications Data Bill was published for consultation. I hope it will be enacted because I believe that it is very important for our safety.

Currently, with proper judicial authorisation, the police can access your telephone records to see who you called, when and for how long. This information has been critical in detecting and convicting terrorists and busting organised crime and paedophile networks. The problem is that technology and habits have changed: people communicate by mobile phone, text messaging, email and social networking.

We need to update the law so that investigators, with judicial authority and oversight, are able to get the same information from these new ways of communicating as they lawfully get now from telephones. Armed with this, our stretched security services could deploy their resources more effectively to monitor a larger number of terrorists and, perhaps, spare the lives of soldiers and civilians from the shocking fate of Drummer Lee Rigby.