Robust

Rob Flello has asked me to point out that it was a clerking error, and that he did in fact vote in favour of the anti-gendercide amendment. I am delighted to do so.

It was not the only clerking error. That'll teach them to leave these things to the American Religious Right trying, however ridiculously, to establish itself as a force in this country of which it knows nothing.

(Of course, nor is it any longer a force in its country, of which it also knows nothing. Mitt Romney, anyone?)

Mercifully, an amendment worded identically, apart from the one little thing that made all the difference, will be back very soon, when it will receive the negligible opposition that gestures in this cause have encountered in the past.

This is a job for Rob Flello and for the rest of the one to two dozen Labour MPs who are practically Bishops' Conference members.

As for the Bishops' Conference, this very day, straight after last night's vote, it is also keeping things in the family. A religious duty to vote for "a robust National Health Service," indeed.

Yes, that is a link to the Catholic Herald. Just to rub it in. And while we still can. For when the Telegraph goes down, then the Herald will go down with it.