Both Sides Of The Street

The paid Lebanese supporters of our dear friends in Saudi Arabia, in the same position as the Bushes and the Clintons, have been demonstrating against the Holy Father's visit. Whereas that visit is warmly welcomed by Hezbollah, coalition partner of Christian parties (under a Sunni Prime Minister, as the Constitution requires) and recognised by them as the last line of defence.

Exactly the same people who have burnt down a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Lebanese Tripoli because they do not like the Pope have also stormed Camp Bastion. But that is only because we are stupid enough to be there in the first place. Pull out. Now.

And this country's largest-circulation newspaper, still being published despite the impending imprisonment both of its recent senior staff over phone hacking and of its old stagers over Hillsborough, features a picture of a topless woman every day. Yet this country expresses not unjustified outrage over the publication of a picture of a topless woman in France. But vigorously defends the abuse of Muhammad in a film condemned by the Coptic Church on which an attempt had been made to pin the blame for it, an attempt which echoed the use of the Christians in Iraq as bait for jihadis in a hideous Straussian game of cat and mouse.