Before Jesus, nobody could count. Then the son of the Magic Man in the Sky came along, and suddenly everyone wanted to count everything, from commandments (10) to disciples (12) via fishes and loaves (YMMV). Most of all they wanted to count years. Unfortunately humans didn't know how many years there had been, and God lost count during the same bender that led to the creation of the cannabis plant, so they figured they'd just start again from scratch.

Of course the number zero wasn't invented until 1973, when Dennis Ritchie was looking for ways to make array-handling in C even less intuitive, so they started with '1'. That was fine, but what would they call the years before '1'? The Chinese still owned all the negative numbers, so they settled on the letters BC ('Before Christ') and AD ('Anno Domini', Latin for 'year of our Lord'). For almost two thousand years literally everyone on Earth was happy.

Then along came political correctness. Bloody political correctness gone mad. You can't innocently grope a secretary's bottom any more for fear of the politically correct brigade jumping on your back. You can't kick a sinister-looking Arab off a flight any more for fear of getting called 'racist'. You can't even celebrate Christmas any more since the gays banned it in favour of Winterval. And now, to add hideous insult to grave injury, the Daily Mail have revealed in a front-page 'scoop' that the BBC are coming for our beloved, Christian calendar.

BBC turns its back on year of Our Lord: 2,000 years of Christianity jettisoned for politically correct 'Common Era'

So reads the headline of this frothing story, written by the Mail's Chris Hastings. The Mail are of course staunch defenders of Christian values with their slavish editorial devotion to pictures of scantily-clad women. Sir Hastings is their noblest knight, his recent work including a high-brow review of "Kinky Keira's whipping yarn," and a compelling philosophical treatment of the perennial question "What does a bikini-clad WAG have to do to stop her man playing with his gadget?"

The story that the BBC have banned AD/BC turns out to be as fictional as Kinky Keira's tale, as the Mail eventually admit in the final paragraph, when they let someone sensible from the BBC get a word in edgeways:

The BBC has not issued editorial guidance on the date systems... Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams.

So the BBC haven't dropped the terms, just allowed people to go with their own preferences. Terrifying stuff.

The 'new' terms became standard in schools nearly a decade ago, with a spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority pointing out to the Evening Standard at the time that, "CE/BCE is becoming an industry standard among historians," and "pupils have to be able to recognise these terms when they come across them." Fair enough, but in spite of this Hastings seems mystified that the BBC's education sites use them, describing them variously as 'obscure' and 'alien'.

Who is behind this great blasphemy? The BBC's "politically correct, Europhile agenda" is haphazardly invoked, although it's not clear how either applies here. It's hardly 'political correctness' to tell people to use whatever words they like, and I can't even begin to work out where Europe factors in to the equation.

The biggest clue though is in the picture that features halfway down, a picture of... a Muslim!!1! Aaqil Ahmed has been the BBC's Head of Religion and Ethics since 2009, when his appointment caused a frenzy of pant-twisting among the right-wing press and their readership, but as far as I can make out he has nothing whatsoever to do with the story.

That doesn't stop some pretty dodgy innuendo about him, and the caption that originally appeared below his image seems to have gone a bit too far, as it was swiftly replaced. In the screen-grabs below you can see how it appeared when the article was first published, and how it appears now.

The original caption (left) and new version (right).

The caption was changed shortly after the article went live, from...

End of an era: BBC head of religion Aaqil Ahmed, the Corporation say, bizarrely, the change has nothing to with Mr Ahmed

to...

The website for BBC Religion and Ethics, headed by commissioning editor Aaqil Ahmed, who is a Muslim, is littered with references to Common Era and Before Common Era

The second version isn't much better. Why single out a Muslim guy who doesn't seem to have much to do with the story? Why make pointed reference to his personal faith? No satisfactory explanation is given, but the highly-charged innuendo attracts the usual parade of BNP-style nonsense in the comments.

Personally, I don't think it matters that much if we call it AD, CE, AC or DC. The Guardian's style guide, for what it's worth, sticks with the traditional AD/BC. I tend to go with that tradition as well, mostly because it's what I grew up with, but I'm happy for others to make their choice, and choice is what this is all really about.

The BBC's approach is more laissez-faire then ours, essentially saying, "both are common, so use whichever you prefer." When you realize that, you see that the Mail's article is not just wrong but actually quite sinister. The rage directed at an organization that has simply dared to allow its staff choice is a reminder of the sort of 'cosy' totalitarianism that a some Christian elements seem determined to inflict on our society.

It's not enough that the BBC allows staff to use AD, they must use it, always, or face the wrath of the crusaders. It's not enough that the BBC has a head of religious programming, that head must always be Christian, or purple-faced campaigners with an overwhelming sense of entitlement shout and stamp their feet in anger. We must all celebrate Christmas, and woe betide any public figure or authority who dares deviate from the conventions prescribed in honour of our Dear Leader Jesus.

You can't even use an innocent old term like Common Era any more for fear of offending some bloody Christian minority and ending up with the thought police on your back. It's political correctness gone mad.

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@mjrobbins | facebook.com/layscience | layscience@googlemail.com

* See also our Reality Check on the same story.