Why do I always squirm when I hear the words: "the Bishop of Rochester" ?

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Azir-Ali was the only bishop able to name all the Spice Girls, when a newspaper phoned round with the question. He was born in Pakistan and has Muslim and Christian members in his family. He is one of three bishops who are Presidents of the worldwide Anglican "Network for inter-faith concerns", whose job it is to manage relations between the Anglican church and other faiths, such as Islam.

So why do I squirm every time I listen to the news and hear the words "The Bishop of Rochester has said..."?

Well, it's mainly because we hear little from Church of England spokespeople and then all of sudden Bish Roch pipes up and seems to be laying into the poor old Muslims. He never seems to be saying anything except carping on about Muslims and going "Woe is us" (or should that be "Woe R us"?), on behalf of the Church of England.

In his latest pronouncement he was bleating on about "'no-go' areas" for non-Muslims in Britain. And one particular thing that caught my attention in that statement was his complaint about the amplification of the Adhan - the Muslim call to prayer. Well, if we have church bells going off 104 times a day where there are precious few committed Christians, why not the odd amplified Adhan going off five times a day where are many committed Muslims?

Mind you, I don't live anywhere near loud church bells or an amplified Adhan, so that's easy for me to say.

So, that heartfelt rant out of the way, I settled down to look up the Bishop of Rochester's profile and actually read the statement he made which caused all the furore, plus his response.

As usual (and, indeed, this was always the case with the dear old Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins) when you read the full statement and his response to media comment, and read of Dr Nazir-Ali's good works on inter-faith relations, he comes across as considered, authoritative and rational.

In particular, he points out that his "'no-go' areas" remark was not new and reflected views already expressed by the Cantle report about disturbances in Northern cities and by Trevor Phillips.

Indeed, Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has supported the Bishop of Rochester's remarks, although re-stating them in a much more even-handed way:

He said the Bishop was right to raise the issue because white families were moving out of areas with high ethnic minority populations.

Interviewed on Radio Four's Today programme, he said: ''There are areas in which there is no contact or very little contact between different ethnic and cultural groups.

"Nobody is putting up walls and gates but we all know that in virtually every big city there are places where different kinds of people feel uncomfortable, whether that is Asians in so-called white areas or white people in so-called black areas."

If only the Bishop of Rochester had said something about "Asians in so-called white areas" as well as talking about "'no-go' areas" of "Islamic extremism", then his remarks would have been a little more even-handed and a little easier to stomach. Admittedly he did mention that "in many ways, this is the other side of the coin to far right intimidation", but that wasn't emphatic enough for me.

It's just that I think the Bishop of Rochester, well meaning and thoughtful though he is, could learn a few lessons in even-handed expression from the likes of Trevor Phillips.

Next time I hear from the Bish, I'd like to hear him saying something positive about Muslims. (And I acknowledge that it's not necessarily his fault that it's only his critical comments about Islam that we seem to hear.)