An offensive image

Here's an image that many Christians find offensive. It depicts the late Graham Chapman playing Brian, a spoof on our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian. It is part of a long tradition of religious satire ranging from the doddery vicar in Dad's Army to Father Ted and the Vicar of Dibley. Christians, it seems, have always been considered fair game when it comes to humour.

Sadly, Chapman is now dead. I could go out on the streets waving a placard and calling for the other perpetrators of this image - Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and John Cleese - to be executed. But I'm not going to, because I happen to believe that the ability to poke fun at religion - or anything else - is an essential democratic freedom. And because even Christians need to be able to laugh at themselves.

February 7 update: Andrew Milloy has kindly sent me some more images which you would presumably never see in Arab newspapers. To view them, click here.

Blair - Brown handover: the latest

I reckon this story by Paddy Hennessy in yesterday's Sunday Tel predicting a handover by "next summer" is about right, though my money would still be on May 2007 - technically next spring if we're being pedantic.

Hennessy also reckons Blair will sack Hilary Armstrong and try to bring back Stephen Byers in the reshuffle, both of which were also predicted in my Column published the previous day and Podcast available from today.

Other reshuffle tips I've heard: Hilary Benn to go to the Home Office and Charles Clarke to Leader of the House; David Miliband Education Secretary with Ruth Kelly moving to International Development, and Prescott man Dick Caborn to become Chief Whip - possibly as a pay-off for the DPM's rescue act on school reform.

There's also speculation about Margaret Beckett but she will not leave the Cabinet unless it's of her own volition. Blair rates her extremely highly as one of his safest pairs of hands and she is also extremely close to Brown. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that she would want to stay around for the handover.

Hilary's Finest Hour

Those of us who think Hilary Armstrong has outlived her usefulness may like to recall this famous encounter between New Labour's Chief Whip and the rebel MP Paul Marsden at the height of the controversy over the war in Afghanistan, in which La Armstrong (1) denies the existence of spin doctors, (2) claims that war is not a matter of conscience, and (3) compares opponents of the war to appeasers of Adolf Hitler.

Here's the full transcript in all its glory.

Armstrong: "Look, Paul, those that aren't with us are against us."

Marsden: "You won't even give us a free vote on whether we go to war - it is a matter of conscience."

Armstrong: "War is not a matter of conscience. Abortion and embryo research are matters of conscience, but not wars."

Marsden: "Are you seriously saying blowing people up and killing people is not a moral issue?"

Armstrong: "It is government policy that we are at war. You astound me. We can't have a trusting relationship if you keep talking to the media without permission. You must stop using the media."

Marsden: "That's a bit rich coming from people like you and Downing Street when Stephen Byers' spin doctor Jo Moore says September 11 is a good day to bury bad news."

Armstrong: "We don't have spin doctors in Number 10 - or anywhere else."

Marsden: "You aren't seriously telling me that you don't have spin doctors. You are losing it, Hilary."

Armstrong: "You wait until I really do lose it. I am not going to have a dialogue with you about that. It was people like you who appeased Hitler in 1938."

Marsden: "That's the official line now is it? We are all appeasers if we don't agree with everything you say?"