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Back to Radio 4.What a transformation! Today has become the best place for those of us who love it when politicians are forced on to the back foot No wonder the Government and the Opposition fear the BBC No wonder that election turn-outs get lower and lower. They were only readmitted to communion on application to the bishop.The 19th-century church argued against divorce for many of the reasons conservative Christians are now advancing against homosexuality. I would suggest that the reason why Professor Frost should feel able to remain in communion with gay bishops (and his homosexual friends) is simple. It is no different from the reason he feels able to receive Holy Communion in the Church of England today, or in the Orthodox or Roman Catholic Church tomorrow.The Rev SIMON TATTON-BROWN Chippenham, Wiltshire Politicians exposed Sir: If Stephen Pollard (Opinion, 20 October) wonders whether anyone wants to listen to John Humphrys on Today then I will put him right.About five years ago, after becoming sick to death of politicians being allowed to get away with windy, self-serving speeches, I switched to Five Live for breakfast radio. He is “not able by his life to witness sufficiently to the ideal of Christian conduct” (letters, 17 October).None of us can.

As an ordained priest, I wouldn’t claim my life witnesses to anything more than the forgiving love of God in Christ. If divorce and remarriage are contrary to God’s will (as a superficial reading of the New Testament says they are) the question remains: Why should I remain in communion with Professor Frost? Only a generation ago divorcees were automatically excommunicated when they remarried. In recent years in Saudi Arabia the mass has demonstrated: thousands of Saudis have taken part in marches protesting about the treatment of the Palestinian people living on occupied territories on the West Bank. This is something we all feel strongly about.This is not to say that we in Saudi Arabia don’t have our problems like every other society. Since our country was united 70 years ago we have gone through dramatic changes and we have a continually evolving and developing government and country.

But Hari doesn’t see that of course – he prefers to insult the Shura Council by suggesting they are puppets.He grudgingly acknowledges that council elections are now to be held. Evolution, not revolution, is the desire of the people of the Kingdom.TURKI AL FAISAL Ambassador Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia London W1 Gay bishops Sir: Professor David Frost says he is prevented from accepting the offer of ordination because he is divorced and remarried. It is usually only when a real mass appears that you can gauge a national drive. He also forgets that this demonstration by 150 people had been called for by a Saudi dissident living in London. Perhaps he would have been better to note – as we did – how little support this demonstration actually attracted.People protest all over the world about everything from flight paths to fox hunting. The question is not how much wildlife we are prepared to pay for, but how long we can afford to go on ignoring the wellbeing of those other inhabitants, from soil micro-organisms upwards, who are essential to our own welfare.The problem lies not with scientists but with economists, who by ignoring the factors they cannot measure have convinced us all that it makes sense to pay people not to work and farmers not to cultivate their land, and that it is logical to fly poultry from the Far East instead of rearing it in our own back gardens.SARAH THURSFIELD Oswestry, Shropshire What Saudis want Sir: Who does Johann Hari think he is? He certainly knows nothing about Saudi Arabia and yet has strong opinions about us and the way he thinks we live.