News - I am seething with mild irritation this morning as I wake to find that the tax return I have just filed will be used to fund a visit by the Pope in September. It will reportedly cost £20m to bring Pope Benedict the whatever over to our fair shores, all so he can attack our morals.

Does he use this opportunity to bring a message of peace, or help the disadvantaged? Nope. He says that our proposed Equality Bill "violates the natural law". Speaking from the Vatican, the Pope addressed visiting Catholic Bishops of England and Wales and encouraged them to resist the laws with "missionary zeal".

The Poop said: "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal [of equality] has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

There's the old chestnut of homosexuality being "unnatural" being used for the millionth time. We can either choose to regard a translation of an interpretation of a text from a few hundred years ago written by some guy, or we could observe the natural world and discover that homosexuality unquestionably exists in every single species under the Sun - sounds pretty natural to me.

So what will happen in September? Protests, probably. Mobs waving little Pope dolls who really just want to see a 'celebrity' and don't care much about what he's saying. Some Bishops will use his visit as an excuse to vent their hatred. Stephen Fry will make some witty observation. Then hopefully it will all go away. That is if we still have a government willing to abide by law and EU human rights, and not coerced by religious pressure. There is an election coming up apparently.