I've just read a ludicrous piece in the New Statesman by Ziauddin Sardar, the thesis of which is to suggest that Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan are "in the vanguard of British literary neoconservatives, or if you like, the 'Blitcons'."

Never mind Planet Blitcon (the sort of ludicrous acronym a self-important international bureacrat might dream up), Planet Sardar is barely on any intellectual radar I'd care to consult. The suggestion that these three novelists, who would (I think) be surprised to hear that they "dominate" the English literary landscape, have a "clear global political agenda" is as bizarre as it is misconceived. Further, to describe their shared opinions as "the Blitcon project" is simply nuts.

Analysing commissioner Sardar's "three one-dimensional conceits" we find - surprise surprise - that our three villains share a belief in the "absolute supremacy of American culture", something even Mr Sardar would have to concede in his more lucid moments. To go on from that to assert that their joint work argues that "American ideas of freedom and democracy... should be imposed on the rest of the world" is a wilfull misrepresentation.

Messrs Amis and Rushdie have, in their time, found themselves, willy-nilly, at odds with aspects of Islam, but McEwan certainly has not, and it is mischievous and stupid to try to manipulate his work into the straitjacket of Sardar's argument. First and last, these writers are contemporary novelists addressing contemporary themes. It's a sad commentary on the world we live in that their work should be hi-jacked by commissioner Sardar.