Tickets for a head-to-head between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens go on sale today. The drawback is that the event is in Toronto. The newly converted Catholic former prime minister and the trenchant polemicist and atheist will debate the motion: "Be it resolved, religion is a force of good in the world." Here's how it might go . . .
Hitchens: Do you think it's curious we're meeting somewhere neither of us live?
Blair: Not at all. God told me to go forth and spread the word among the heathen.
Hitchens: Did he also mention you'd probably be lynched if you went back to the UK, and that the Canadians aren't that bothered by the situation in the Middle East?
Blair: A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.
Hitchens: Chill out. I don't give a toss about Iraq. I was up for nuking the place from the start.
Blair: It is sometimes hard to perform God's work.
Hitchens: You're sounding like the Taliban now. Look, there was an Islamic dictator and a load of wacko fundamentalists running the place and you went in and took them all apart. Top job. Apart from the fact you failed, but I guess we'd both sooner forget about that.
Blair: God moves in mysterious ways . . .
Hitchens: He sure does. How do you square away your Church covering up widespread child abuse by its own priests . . .
Blair: Suffer the little children . . .
Hitchens: And how! And what about the Church's attitude towards condoms?
Blair: The Lord said, "Go forth and multiply" . . .
Hitchens: . . . the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. OK wiseguy, here's another one for you. If God was a human, would he arrest the Pope?
Blair: La, la, la. I'm not listening.
Hitchens: Neither is God. I've got cancer. But I blame the fags.
Blair: Would you like me to pray for you?
Hitchens: I'd rather be left in peace.
