HELMETED bank robbers. Clown-mask rapists. IRA paramilitaries. The Ku Klux Klan.

Surgeons aside, face-covering has never had very positive connotations in the Western world, has it? So this may be the reason why, in our culture, the covered face may be regarded as something negative and sinister and for many people that’s the reason they feel uncomfortable with the full-face veil.

While those with vested interests have been trumpeting that women should dress how they please (funny how they never talk about men being able to do this) they seem to forget that we have always abided by dress codes of one sort or another.

Try wearing a micro-mini or a crop top and see how far that gets you into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.

Try entering a mosque as a woman or a synagogue as a man where - quite rightly in my view - you will be asked to respectfully cover your head.

And try, like the Naked Rambler who believes with a fervour bordering on the religious, that he should be allowed to walk round Britain in the buff and see what happens to you.

Because of recent events the government wants us to have a debate about face-covering in public because, I suspect, it wants to ban the practice but is fearful of being jumped on by the human rights lobby.

And ministers are right to be wary. Because what will actually happen is this: anyone calling for a ban will be branded as racist. Extremist politicians will cynically exploit the debate for their own ends. And religious face-covering will not only stay but grow in popularity.

But none of this will change the quiet and private view held by most ordinary citizens, that covering up your face when you’re in the company of others is a little bit rude and they will continue to subconsciously avoid situations, organisations and businesses where they may have to encounter this. And not even the law can do anything about that.