If blaming journalists for selling papers is like blaming rain, why isn’t blaming priests for getting bums on pews also like blaming rain?

Or if everybody is under commercial pressure, does that mean nobody is at fault?

No. All the commercial pressure angle tells us is that assigning fault doesn’t achieve much, and the solution is for us to be more savvy consumers.

Anyway, while I would like to think that Conservative journalism is just another kind of quackery, I’m not quite convinced yet.

It’s not often that I disagree with your analyses James, but this is one of those occasions. First off, Dawkins has many times had a go at media coverage which he regards as batty bordering on the irresponsible. But blaming the media rarely gets us very far. The BBC is one thing because we pay for it to some extent, but criticising newspaper hacks who are in the business of selling as much copy as they possibly can in a free market is like blaming rain. That particular problem is not going to go away unless we further regulate the media which I don’t think we should.

In my view, the problem lies with that great conspiracy of unreason – religion, alternative medicine, astrology, etc. – all of these things essentially operate in an unspoken unholy alliance. Criticise one, and you have to criticise them all; shield one from criticism and all are protected. But of all those idiocies, religion is surely the major culprit. We don’t have astrology schools, but we do have faith schools – thousands of the buggers. And how can we keep homeopathy out of the NHS when we have Bishops in the House of Lords?

There’s a reason why Rowan Williams has not attacked homeopathy as a false medical treatment which lifts money out of the pockets of vulnerable people. Apart from the fact that it would look like an attack on Prince Charles (who is far more culpable than Dacre), it would inevitably lead to an entirely justified accusation of gross hypocrisy. As long as we continue to accord religion the singular treatment and respect it has enjoyed for centuries, we are going to find ourselves awash with all manner of foolishness and unable to do very much about it.

So what is to be done? Well I do have one practical suggestion which I made on the Sue Blackmore thread. How about compulsory warnings such as we have on cigarette packets? The warnings should be entirely factual and neutral in tone. For homeopathic remedies, something like this: “Repeated medical trials have failed to prove the efficacy of this remedy.” And how about this for children’s Bible story books? “Many people would say that some of the stories contained in this book could not possibly be true.”

I, for one, would certainly enjoy watching the charlatans squeal in mock indignation.

Where it is free at the point of use, perhaps healthcare has to be impersonal and a fairly technical service. Yes, people benefit from a bit of chat and grooming, which they should be getting from their friends and hairdressers. Please lets not expect highly trained people to do it.