AN Asian flavour dominated the banquet of the Mayor of Worcester, Councillor Allah Ditta.
More than 350 people packed Perdiswell Leisure Centre on Friday for the event, which included a three-course Indian meal and Asian music.
The unusual setting - chosen over the Guildhall, Coun Ditta said, because of problems fitting so many people into the 15th Century building - did not detract from the evening.
It was the first banquet held by Coun Ditta, the only Asian Mayor of Worcester in 777 years of the post.
During a speech applauding the efforts of British Muslims, Peter Luff, MP for Mid-Worcestershire - one of the guest speakers alongside Lord Ahmed of Rotherham - compared discrimination against Muslims with the criticism aimed at fox-hunting supporters.
"It's extremists that seem to get all the publicity - and that's as true of the debate of other subjects like animal welfare as it is of the much more important debate about the future relationship between Islam and the rest of the world," he said.
"Tolerance and equality of respect are not divisible concepts. Just because we disapprove of people, dislike, mistrust or misunderstand them we must never discriminate against them."
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