At this time, the BBC brought in a new set of young producers to oversee what was written for Thought for the Day, and the first thing that happened was that for the first time ever it was necessary for me to completely rewrite a script I was working on virtually from scratch. I ended up with what is on the right, but to let you know how things work, I include the unfinished draft that was rejected below....

Democracy enshrines the right to disagree.

In the same way, France is now somehow blamed for an ‘unreasonable’ use of its veto, the last time it did so being in 1976. Whereas since the 1970’s, the US has used its veto nearly 40 times to block any criticism of Israel, despite being the solitary opposition on each occasion, and since 1990, the US has cast more vetoes than any other country.

More recently, they have walked out of Kyoto, rejecting the ecological concerns of the rest of the world, and last year refused participation in the International Criminal Court because it “threatens US sovereignty”. This is the nation that accuses other members of the Security Council of not living up to their responsibilities when they disagree with US objectives.

Now, in many cultures throughout history, all-powerful kings have granted freedom of expression to jesters, who could ridicule the king’s decisions in the name of common sense. On Friday night, as the climax of weeks of intense efforts by clowns across the UK, Comic Relief announced that we had raised a total of £35m to use as charity.

Well, we’re into the final countdown, and any moment now we will switch from counting hours to counting our casualties. Now, admittedly we are unlikely to suffer the ½ million direct Iraqi casualties estimated by the UN and the World Health Organisation, not to mention any associated refugee crisis, with its hunger and disease, but nonetheless thousands of our young men and women are about to risk their lives.

At such times, it can be seen as unpatriotic and undermining troop morale to question the legitimacy of a war, the purpose or reasoning behind it, or the stated aims and sincerity of the political leaders who have forged it. But the democracy that we are supposedly fighting for requires freedom of expression. In our system, you can’t have a government without an opposition. Democracy enshrines the right to disagree.

Now, kings have traditionally granted freedom of expression to their jesters, who could ridicule the king’s decisions. Nowadays, however, those jesters are not part of the royal court, but comedians and clowns on our TV. On Friday night, as the climax of weeks of intense efforts by clowns across the UK, Comic Relief announced that we had raised a total of £35m to use as charity.

Muhammad, the most laughing and smiling of men, was renowned for the extent of his charity, and his community thrived as it followed his example. Giving and sharing makes us all stronger, whereas the destruction of warfare may benefit the victor but is inevitably detrimental to the majority.

With cruise missiles costing about £1million each, the efforts of all those Comic Relief clowns will be destroyed in the first few minutes of this war. Fortunately, in a democracy we have a right to look at our kings and our clowns and say whose actions we feel displays the greater intelligence.