The BA row is about fair play

First it was peanuts; now Jesus Christ has been banished from the cabins of British Airways aeroplanes. What will be next to fall victim to the apparently arbitrary scythe of censorship of the BA executives?

The airline — which once enraged Margaret Thatcher by replacing the Union flag on the tail fins of its fleet with representations of radical mullahs invoking intifada, single mums taking smack, colourful gypsies and homosexuals, or something — has aroused British public opprobrium once again. It has decided that one of its employees, Nadia Eweida, must not be allowed to wear a crucifix advertising her love of Jesus Christ while she is at work. Nadia, who is of Egyptian extraction, was in the habit of wearing a little silver cross on a chain around her neck, over the top of her uniform; but not any more she won’t. As far as the Daily Mail is concerned — which this week cleared its front pages of stories about cancer, gypsies and house-prices so as to accommodate Nadia’s tale — she is a sort of hybrid of Lech Walesa and William Tyndale, a brave Christian martyr, implacable in her faith and resolve, persecuted by a politically correct, authoritarian and yet faceless corporate entity.