Melanie McDonagh

There’s a terrifically sensitive, not to say odd, hearing underway this week in which social services are seeking to prevent a man from having sex with his wife. The couple have been married for more than 20 years but her deteriorating mental health means that social services aren’t confident that she’s able to give informed consent to sex so they’ve asked a judge to consider an order barring her husband from engaging in intercourse, which seems like an extraordinary incursion by the state into a couple’s private life. But it’s not the propriety of this involvement that’s getting feminists worked up.

It would take a heart of stone – and occasionally I possess just such an organ – not to feel sympathy for Shamima Begum after she lost a third baby, her son Jarrah, barely three weeks old, in a Syrian refugee camp. But should we feel guilt as well as compassion for leaving the child – all unbeknown to him, a British citizen and possibly Dutch too – to fester in the camp occupied by IS refugees? More precisely, how responsible should the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, feel, having deprived Miss Begum of her British citizenship? The BBC news all day long has linked him to the death: criticism of Javid as child dies. That’s its line. Diane Abbott has been keen to draw a link.

Are you feeling better? Anyone who’s seen Prince Harry address the WE Day – Me into We! – gathering in London yesterday of woke young people, chiefly teenage girls, may have taken time to get over the sheer emetic quality of the performance, but I’m there now, thank you. But have you ever heard more unvarnished drivel? “You are the most engaged generation in history!” Harry told his audience. “You have the incredible opportunity to help reshape mindsets, to empower those around you to think outside the box and to work with you, not against you, to find solutions”, one cliché at a time presumably. The rumours about Meghan helping write his speeches? I believe them all.

So, what do you reckon then about the jihadi bride, Shamima Begum, unearthed by the Times’ Anthony Loyd in a refugee camp in Syria? Should she be brought back home for an NHS delivery for her imminent baby – with the cops hovering backstage – or left to stew in a Syrian refugee camp, to give birth in the same conditions as other mothers-to-be? I may be misjudging my readers here, but I fancy I can discern which way most of us would want to go. But the first thing to say about all this is that this wretched 19-year old is about the least important aspect of the Isis situation.

Today, the Pope celebrated mass in Abu Dhabi and you do know what that means? It’s a mass in the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam. And for the first time in centuries – whenever the Nestorian church last had its rites there, maybe 1300 years ago, the gospel was said in Arabic there. It was a happy, celebratory affair (way more cheerful, I may say, than the Pope’s mass in Dublin) preceded last night by a more serious affair, the signing of a joint declaration on Human Fraternity by the Pope and the grand imam of al Azhar. It’s the culmination of the Year of Tolerance proclaimed here by the rulers of the United Arab Emirates.

Surprise! Prince Harry has let it be known that he meditates daily after being presented with a copy of Eight Steps to Happiness by a Buddhist monk, Kelsang Sonam. It is of a piece with his assertively detoxed marital masculinity which reportedly involves eating kale and doing yoga, and describing himself as a feminist, which he also did yesterday. Perhaps he also uses Gillette. There’s obviously nothing wrong about meditating – Sister Wendy Beckett did it all the time – nor, I suppose, about eating kale, though I personally prefer eating pheasant.

Happy Christmas…what’s left of it. That’s right. It’s the Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, the one when my true love sent to me twelve drummers drumming, to go with the lords a leaping and ladies dancing, and the rest of the frankly inconvenient gifts for the Birth of Christ. Last night was Twelfth Night (we’re counting, remember, from the night of Christmas Eve); cue for festivities and party games chez McDonagh, and a Galette du Rois to celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings to baby Jesus, an event that looms large in more civilised Christian countries such as Spain.

Oh God. Or maybe not. There’s a letter in the Guardian today from assorted unbelievers asserting their right to a place on Radio 4’s God slot, Thought for the Day. 'It’s time for the BBC to open Thought for the Day to humanists. Religion doesn’t hold a monopoly on ethical worldviews. Humanists… make sense of the world through logic, reason and evidence, and always seek to treat others with warmth, understanding and respect…' Etc. It’s signed by Sandi Toksvig, Julian Baggini, the philosopher, agony aunt Virginia Ironside and Peter Tatchell. Plus 29 others. Consider folks. Is there a gap in your life that comes from not hearing enough of Sandi Toksvig?

GK Chesterton observed that “Blasphemy depends on belief, and is fading with it. If anyone doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.” And indeed this week began with an orgy of self-congratulation on the part of Irish pundits about the electorate doing away with a reference to blasphemy in the Irish constitution (no one would have turned out to vote, if the presidential election wasn’t happening the same day).