Today in the Sunday Telegraph, the Immigration Minister, Damian Green, vows there will no ban on the burka.

Common sense, I'd say.

Yet the pollsters tell us this will disappoint 67% of the British population, many of whom will rarely, if ever, see someone in the full veil.

However, here in East Lancashire it is by no means unusual to see a woman (we must presume) in a veil. People just get used to it.

It is a bit like hearing the amplified call to prayer warbling out from the minarets on Pendle mosques. The first time, it is a bit disorientating. Then you get used to it.

For me, the full veil is a signal that the wearer is not in any employment which involves face to face contact with people other than their co-religionists.

And since I want to see many more Muslim women in work rather than be trapped at home, I suppose I'd be unhappy if the veil took off in a big way.

But it won't. Not even a remote possibility.

In France, where there is a Muslim population of over 5 million, the number wearing the full veil is estimated at around 2,000.

The storm over the burka reminds me of the convulsions in Quebec in 2007 where a debate raged on precisely how far Quebeckers should be expected to go to accommodate recent arrivals whose lifestyles and practices they believe are inimical to their own.

Canada has a long standing policy of multi-culturalism. It is a nation of mosaics rather than the melting pot of its southern neighbour.

But within the Canadian federation sits the ever restless Quebec, desperate to protect its francophone identity and keep intact its cultural heritage which it fears is constantly threatened with dilution by incomers.

A special commission of eminent academics was set up to explore the concept of “reasonable accommodation” and where the boundaries should lie.

The debate was very polarised. Strident in rural areas and small towns but it took on a more measured tone in Montreal which is home to 87% of new immigrants to Quebec.

After a huge kerfuffle, the controversy seems to have blown itself out.

People are getting on with their lives.