I think he’s wrong on this one. I believe abortion is a terrible thing, but sometimes a necessary terrible thing; there’s a deal of difference between hating the sin, not the sinner.

Does that make me a worse Catholic? Absolutely. A worse human being? Moot point.

But the MP for North East Somerset is perfectly entitled to hold those views. The biggest shock is that anyone is shocked. His stance is entirely predictable if you know anything about Catholicism, or have clapped eyes on him, with his singular dress sense, owlish air of desiccated propriety and six peculiarly named children.

Our (entirely creditable) embrace of multicuturalism has led, I fear, to a creeping and shameful intolerance for Christianity. Whatever happened to our democratic concenus that we might disapprove of what someone says but will, nonetheless, defend to the death their right to say it?