What's happened to the UK?

Going from the news reports I have been reading, I really don't know what's going on in the UK at the moment. An Imam attacked in his own mosque. A woman suspended for wearing a veil. Another woman suspended for refusing to remove the cross pendant she was wearing. Politicians telling us what people should wear based on what they feel comfortable with.

What happened to acceptance of the individual? What happened to it being okay to be different? And what are we teaching children if we are saying that non-violent, personal statements about belief are so wrong? That people that make these displays aren't fit to represent our companies or teach in our schools?

What about targeting the paranoid attitudes of people who use the way someone dresses as an excuse to discriminate against them instead?

Are we, as a society, saying that it is unacceptable to dress in a certain way? In which case, are we not as bad as the oppressive regimes who force people to dress according to their rules?

Which is worse - telling a woman she has to wear a veil, or telling her she can't?

What's next? Ban t-shirts with slogans? Football colours worn in public? Anyone who is against being told what to wear by a politician (and have you seen what they wear?) should be worried about what's going on here.

I just don't get it. This isn't the UK I left 6 months ago. Is this really the country I want to return home to?