Sed Angeli?

Monarchs in the Islamic world are religious as well as civic figures; indeed, all monarchs are, really. When the King of Saudi Arabia, or the Emir (a specifically religious title) of Kuwait, or the King of Thailand, or the Emperor of Japan, or for that matter the Queen of the Netherlands or the Queen of Denmark, comes to Britain at our Government's invitation and therefore at our expense, do the National Secular Society and others of like mind object as they are doing about the impending visit of the Pope?

To those complaining about "foreign interference" in recent days, what did the Pope actually do? Not "what did he say?", but what did he do? Compare and contrast the real power exercised over this country by the European Union, the United States, the State of Israel, the Gulf monarchs, and the forces of global capital.

On which note, I have been critical of the English law of libel, and would wish to see the burden of proof in such actions reversed as the price of giving statutory authority to the existing judge-made privacy law. I do not see how English libel law has ever been enforceable in the American Republic rather than in what preceded it. But any change must be because we wish it, and must be on our terms, not simply because certain people find it intolerable that anywhere on earth dares to have a law different from that of the United States, and even more so that Americans may under any circumstance be subject to that different law.