choirstalls

It hasn't been a good week if you're a dead soldier, because the new God, Retail, isn't interested in you, for obvious reasons, you being dead and no longer spending. The people who are unfortunate enough to have to work in Retail still have minds and consciences, however, and occasionally one of them does something highly offensive to this god, and wears a poppy at work to say that dead soldiers will never be forgotten, despite their failure to contribute to the corporate coffers

Causing offence to anybody is, of course, the new sin, and this new god is a jealous god, whose minions are instructed to seek out all infidels who threaten to reduce the annual profits by wickedly demonstrating their loyalty to a cause, whether that cause be Greenpeace, Michael Jackson, the Conservative Party or dead soldiers.

People don't give offence - offence is something which other people take because they happen not to live by the same set of values. The danger of trying not to "cause" offence is that you end up hiding your own beliefs instead of proclaiming them and letting them be tested in open debate.

It is for these reasons that I find quite repellent the squirming volte-face of a retail chain which found its profits threatened by a hostile public reaction when it banned one of its staff from wearing a poppy at work.

"We are happy to change our policy and allow our members of staff to continue wearing their poppies. As our policy has always been intended to ensure that we do not cause offence to anyone, we hope we have not done so and sincerely apologise if that has been the unintended effect."

So that's that, then, Bodycare. You can sit back now and watch the shekels rolling in, as before.

Or, of course, not.