God’s come in for some badgering

THE FRIDAY THING: DESPITE the unexpected prolonged spell of good weather, even spilling over into Bank Holiday weekend, it has not been a good week for everyone.

God, for instance, has had a really dodgy few days. First there was a group of cherub-faced Girl Guides deciding to drop any reference to God from their traditional oath despite more than 800 complaints from guide and guide leaders all over the country (and guide leaders are a formidable bunch to behold).

Next the reformed guides, though not their leaders, will be wearing high heels, mini-skirts and covering their young bodies with tattoos. The Brownies will be selling spliffs.

But, worse than being snubbed by groups of girls in uniform God has had to put up with the final indignity of being claimed by the Liberal Democrats as one of them.

I don’t expect that God was pleased to be cast as a Lib-Dem and may take legal action for libel, or at least defamation. After all God has enough on his plate what with women priests, women bishops, priests and vicars getting up to all kinds of naughtiness that does not figure in his rule book and, on top of that, more empty seats than full seats in the churches.

Nick Clegg, not related to God (although I suspect he claims him as a friend), is also having something of a torrid time because of his fractious disciples (I mean members). Nick has got together an Immigration Bill that includes a ban on migrants gaining access to medical treatment on the NHS to which they have contributed nothing.

And actually, for Cleggy, that sounds like an excellent idea but he is fearful that his party members (wetter than water most of them but not in high enough numbers to make a puddle) will not agree with the flagship bill and want any word of it to be kept secret until after the Lib-Dem annual conference (what an ode to joy that will be) so that they can hide from the controversy until mention of the new bill has passed into history.

But when all of the above start to moan about what a bad time they are having I would ask them to simply think of the badgers. Without any consultation or merciful gestures they are to be slaughtered.

I wonder what God, the Girl Guides and the Lib-Dems make of that.