I have reasons for my vegetarianism, but they or my thinking behind them may be wrong = I don't attack others because they eat meat.

... although it is perfectly within your rights to attack (verbally!) anyone you like for any reason. What wouldn't be right would be for you to be treated differently by the law simply because you hold certain beliefs.

The argument is good: individualism and freedom of information benefit reason and diminish religion. Shame about the text, the graphics and the voice though.

@mmurray

So is this standard practice in the Foreign Office? The team handling a state visit are chosen especially to know nothing about the state in question?

They're not Catholics, yet I expect they know quite a lot about the Vatican. I hesitate to generalise, but Catholics tend to be a bit selective of the facts.

We've moved on from Sir Humphrey, it's Malcolm Tucker who calls the shots now.

(I mean in political sitcoms, not the Civil Service)

What a contemptible reaction.

No-one has lost their job over the memo, which was sent to Downing Street and at least three Whitehall departments, and the civil servant who authorised it has simply been moved to other duties

No-one has lost their job over the child rape, and the priest who committed it has simply been moved to other duties

Hitchens used a helpful analogy in a recent article: strip the Vatican of its fancy dress and it becomes just another multinational corporation.

Compare the Catholic church to something like GlaxoSmithKline and then imagine its senior executives defending practices of institutional perversion [of the course of justice]. Somehow I feel public opinion would be more strongly against GSK than it is now against the RCC.