[Acrylic-bob]

I was born and brought up as a Catholic in the fifties and sixties of the last century and never once was it explained to me that Bonfire night was intended by protestants as a slap in the face to catholicism and it's adherants. It was explained that Guy Fawkes and his companions were so upset with the government of the day that they tried to blow parliament up and as good English boys and girls we should all regard that as a sufficient reason to be happy in commemorating the foiling of the gunpowder plot every year. It was only in later years, when I learnt how to think for myself that I discovered the deeper historical reasons for, and significance of, Bonfire Night. I must admit that I am a little surprised to discover that there are still some towns in England who insist on burning the Pope in effigy and reciting the prayer formulated for this occaision "a halfpenny loaf to feed the pope and a farthing of cheese to choke him". Bonfire Night is now largely shorn of any partisan religious or political significance, and that is all to the good. The use of this quaintly ridiculous English tradition to further the cause of multiculturalism is, by any yardstick, to be seen as deepening the divide between immigrant and host communities.

Speaking as a lapsed Catholic and an Englishman, I have to say I rather like the idea that in this country the pope may be burned in effigy without the whole Catholic population taking to the streets in outraged protest and without this annual celebration of the supremacy of Parliament giving rise to waves of suicide bombers and a host of actions in the courts for infringement of human rights and incitement to religious hatred.

I, for one, will continue to burn both Guy Fawkes and the Pope in effigy every year, until it becomes illegal, under climate change legislation, to hold public bonfires.