And so it was left to two members of the Muslim laity to defend the motion. And they tried. They argued that the violence of Muhammad and the Koran was not there. Then they argued that the violent commands cited were being mistranslated. Then they claimed that they were there but had been taken out of context. Finally, they claimed that whatever the facts it was rude and unhelpful to say so anyway.

The argument that our side made was nuanced. We argued that Islam itself had a problem. That its core texts and its founder were violent. That the leaders of the religion over the last 1,400 years have been no liberals. But that there was a hope, which lay in the fact that most Muslims in the world today, thank goodness, do not follow the strictures of their religion. In this lacuna — this crucial gap between page and action, between precedent and reality — lies our hope. But, we argued, there is no point in pretending away Islam's problems. The worst way to get to mutual understanding and peace was to engage in a lie.

Surprisingly, the audience ended up swinging behind us and voted against their initial idea that Islam is a religion of peace. The turning-point perhaps came when, in response to Hirsi Ali's mention of her own security fears, Nawaz attempted to rebut her point by claiming that he too was under death threat from his co-religionists of peace. It was put by our side, as politely as possible, that rather than countering our argument, this somewhat proved our point.

In any case, as so often the really interesting bit came not at the debate itself but afterwards. As is the way with these things in America, at the dinner afterwards, when barely a mouthful of food had been consumed, our host pinged his glass with his knife and began the debate again.

The taxpayer-paid "reformer" Nawaz immediately seized the opportunity to set out his UK government sales-pitch to the Americans. He would be going to Pakistan again the next day, we were told again, and votes like the evening's made his job much more difficult. By voting against the motion, this pesky New York audience had refused to take part in the official UK government-approved narrative.

Fortunately, some quick-witted people had joined us. "Is it not the case," one posited, "that though radical Islam might not be the best interpretation of Islam or even the most popular, it nevertheless is at least a plausible interpretation of the texts before us?" Not at all — the line, and the lie, must be upheld. There were things about Islam that should not be denied, as well as things that must not be said and which when they were said made everyone's job harder.

Another guest tried again. "If you tried to put a toaster together from scratch and, following the instruction manual, ended up with a rocket-launcher, would you not at least question the manual you'd used?" Things reached a pitch. "Are you saying I'm lying?" the "reformer" demanded. "Are you saying I'm lying?"

Taking the question head-on, the American questioner uttered the facts starkly. "No. But you're asking us to allow you to go out and tell what we believe to be lies and we  just have to sit here and hope that it works."