It is to be hoped that the ridiculous ravings of a Right-wing extremist commentator looking to make a name for herself in America do not impact too much on One Direction star Zayn Malik.

The young Bradford teenager, still only 19, has become one of the biggest stars in the world, and the city can rightly be proud of his achievements.

But Debbie Schlussel, an American talk show host and blogger, has launched a vicious attack on Zayn which it is hard to see as anything other than racist, telling parents to keep their children away from him and suggesting he is ‘pimping Islam on your kids’.

The attack is completely unfounded and has no credibility but, sadly, because Schlussel is herself an extremely popular blogger with a huge audience in Right-wing America, it has created a massive stir. Inevitably, some of her audience will unfortunately allow themselves to believe the rubbish she has written and that will make life more difficult for the young star.

Zayn Malik has been a fantastic ambassador for Bradford and for Britain and is rightly seen here as a role model for young people of all races and religions. Rather than foisting Islam onto people, he has helped to demystify some of the myths that surround it by becoming such a high profile star.

So it is extremely sad that a loud-mouthed reactionary like this can, with a few extremely ill-chosen words, create such a storm for him. And it would be even sadder if, as a result of Schlussel’s rants, fans of One Direction in America are denied the opportunity of seeing Zayn perform with his bandmates.