It is indeed the increasing presence of Islam, and a fear of Islamism, which more than anything else has exposed the claims of the arts apologists to be seriously at the forefront of anything. My colleague Nick Cohen pointed out, when we debated freedom of expression at a recent Standpoint Salon, that some individuals in our media are prone to a fake courage and believe themselves to be taking huge risks in what they say and write. I think the same is true of the creative sphere. Over the past decade  people in the arts have caved in and censored themselves at the prospect of Islamist reaction, sometimes out of fear of violence, other times a politically correct desire not to give offence, or because in some skewed way they feel their job is to stand up for those their dogma tells them are "victims".

When the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street by a Muslim extremist who had taken exception to Submission, a film the director had made about the treatment of women in Islam, there were few expressions of outrage from Britain's cultural establishment. On another occasion, London's Barbican Centre removed pieces from its production of Tamburlaine the Great for fear of offending Muslims. The filming of Monica Ali's bestseller Brick Lane was moved from the East End after the film company gave in to protests from activists. A reading at the Royal Court Theatre of an adaptation of Aristophanes "sex strike" play Lysistrata, set in Muslim heaven, did not go ahead. And when the BBC drama Spooks was criticised by some Muslim groups in its first series for portraying radicalisation in a mosque, it subsequently went out of its way to ensure that plotlines portrayed threats coming from just about any quarter other than Islam.

The drip-drip effect of such trimming and censorship is that the message becomes internalised. If such instances as those above appear to happen slightly less now, it is not because we have become more comfortable in our own skins, less paranoid. It is simply because we have learned what we can and cannot say, especially when it comes to Islam. Christianity of course remains the fair game it has always been. Jerry Springer: The Opera was oh-so-bravely broadcast by the BBC, in the face of thousands of telephone complaints from Christians. It could of course be done in the safe knowledge that nobody might face death as a result. But we can safely say that a country that produced the popular classic The Life of Brian must get used to the fact that it will never, ever see The Life of Iqbal.

Having set the ball rolling by asking whether art has lost its power to shock, Grayson Perry should perhaps get the last word. In 2007 he declared in a statement which some admired for its honesty but others might have seen as depressing evidence of how meek our arts had become, that when it came to his own work, he had "not gone all out attacking Islamism because I feel the real fear that someone will slit my throat". To which perhaps one can only answer: artist, heal thyself.