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Telegraph - British Muslims should protest teddy lunacy. By Boris Johnson

Here is an innocent British citizen, a good and patently well-meaning 54-year-old British teacher. She has decided to make a new life for herself by giving instruction to children in one of the poorest countries on Earth. She has got herself into a muddle over the name of a teddy bear - and now she is facing 40 lashes or six months in jail.

There was a time when Britain would have sent a gunboat to rescue her. There was a time when MPs would have been holding furious debates on the matter, and bandying phrases such as “civis Britannicus sum”.

In the old days there would have been démarche from Britain to Sudan, warning that His Majesty’s government would not suffer a hair on her head to be disturbed.

Well, folks, that time is past. We must accept that the world has changed, and our place in the world has changed, too.

Yeah. No kidding.

(So, what do we think? Is he keeping tabs on us, keeping abreast of the mood of the right-thinking world community? Or is his eery parallel to our own thinking strictly coincidence?)

A latter-day British naval blockade:

Telegraph Blogs - ‘Moderate’ Muslims speak out, by Damian Thompson

A wholly innocent British teacher is facing a disgusting assault from the Sudanese authorities for naming a teddy “Mohammed”. Muslims in this country must be so ashamed that 54-year-old Gillian Gibbons could be whipped to within an inch of her life in the name of Islam. Aren’t they? Over to you, Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic Studies at Glasgow University.

“This is more about the Sudanese government making an example of someone once in a while,” she says. “It’s like saying to the West: take our Sharia laws seriously.”

Did I read that right? Never mind, perhaps the Muslim Council of Britain will register outrage. Here’s their spokesman: “This appears to be a horrible misunderstanding. We hope the Sudanese authorities will move swiftly to end this unfortunate incident by releasing this woman.”

Misunderstanding? Unfortunate? The MCB, may I remind you, is the voice of “moderate” Islam in Britain. Well, they’re certainly very moderate in their defence of a middle-aged lady who faces 40 lashes for doing nothing wrong. Funny, that.

Woo-ee! Be nice to have them on your side, eh?!

Western Standard (March 27, 2006) - Sensitive to a fault, by Mark Steyn

In 1847, a man called Don Pacifico, a Portuguese Jew living in Greece, had his house burned in an anti-Semitic riot. He appealed to the Greek government for redress (the sons of some ministers had been involved) and got nowhere. But he chanced to have been born on Gibraltar and thus was, technically, a British subject. And so he turned to the British government. And, though to most Englishmen’s eyes a century and a half ago no one could have seemed less English than this greasy dago Jew moneylender, Lord Palmerston began a naval blockade of Greece–on the grounds that Don Pacifico was a British subject like any other–until the government in Athens backed down. In Palmerston’s words to the House of Commons, “As the Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say Civis Romanus sum, so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.” Civis Britannicus sum: that was all Don Pacifico had to say.

Times Online - British teacher faces lashes in Sudan after class teddy bear is named ‘Muhammad’

A British primary school teacher arrested in Sudan faces up to 40 lashes for blasphemy after letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad.