Those flaws have been graphically illustrated by the appalling case of Ali Dizaei, the notoriously corrupt Iranian-born officer who was this week sent back to jail for a second time after his conviction for perverting the course of justice. Only an organisation obsessed with the creed of diversity and lacking in moral integrity would have allowed a swaggering, criminal bully like Dizaei to rise up its hierarchy and gain a senior position. He should have been drummed out long ago, not constantly rewarded with promotion.

But Dizaei is a symbol of the rot within the top ranks of the Met. Too many senior officers seem to have forgotten that their central duty is to protect the law-abiding British public. When he joined the Met as a superintendent in 1999, former colleagues in the Thames Valley Police, where he was an officer for more than a decade, warned us to beware, telling us of his enthusiasm for playing the race card to achieve his ends. But in a climate of hysteria over accusations of ‘institutionalised racism’, the Met’s top brass were desperate to recruit more ethnic minority senior officers. The warnings from Thames Valley Police were grimly fulfilled.

And, of course, political correctness was to blame for the pusillanimous way the rampaging gangs of looters and vandals — many from ethnic minorities — were dealt with during the riots last summer. Paralysed by political correctness and accusations of racism, terrified of being accountable for controversial decisions over public order, the Met’s senior officers allowed the mob to control the streets for five days before launching a crackdown. This is not the police force that the public deserves.

Naturally, it took a Muslim to mount a vocal defence of Christianity. Actually, I reckon that Lady Warsi understated the case. Mocked, marginalised and increasingly absent from people’s lives, the Church of England is on course to disappear from these isles within three generations, unless there’s a miracle.

Anyone who doubts this thesis is simply not paying enough attention. At my funeral, still a few decades away, God willing, I expect the congregation will know the prayers and the hymns that have sustained mankind for centuries and are part of the mental furniture of my own life. But at the funerals of my children when they are old or at those of my grandchildren yet to be born? I seriously doubt it. Christianity may yet return to where it began; a faith practised in secret by small, devout sects poring over illuminated iPads.

An English professor at Cambridge tells me that, for the first time, they have put the Bible on the undergraduate reading list. “We can no longer assume students will be familiar with it,” he says. So Christianity will die of ignorance because, shamefully, so many of our young people haven’t been taught the tenets of the great Judeo-Christian tradition which underpins their country’s laws, institutions and culture. Christianity will die of materialism, which measures our life in phone upgrades.

In keeping with the theme of interfaith dialogue, she also gave him a copy of the Koran which was translated by an East European Jew who converted to Islam and helped write Pakistan's constitution. "They were personal gifts from me," Baroness Warsi, the first female Muslim cabinet minister, told The Daily Telegraph at the Vatican on Wednesday. She also presented the pontiff with a letter from David Cameron, the Prime Minister, a message from the Queen and a copy of the King James Bible.

Baroness Warsi expanded on a speech she gave in Rome on Tuesday, and an article she wrote for The Daily Telegraph, that British society was under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation" and that Europe needs to be "more confident in its Christianity". Speaking after her meeting with the Pope, she said: "Secular fundamentalists are saying that people of faith shouldn't have a voice in the public sphere. I'm saying faith should be one of many voices, it should be part of the debate."

She criticised the arguments of Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist, as "false". According to a study carried out for Professor Dawkins's think tank, most people in Britain who identify themselves as Christian are "overwhelmingly secular in their attitudes on issues ranging from gay rights to religion in public life". Almost three-quarters of people interviewed agreed that religion should not influence public policy, while only 12 per cent thought it should.

Nearly half had not attended a church service in the previous 12 months, apart from on occasions such as weddings, funerals and christenings. "He thanked me for the comments I've made. He said he was glad I was making the case for faith."

Let's hope Europe is prepared for a Greek bankruptcy. That was the message delivered by former German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück during a Tuesday evening appearance at the Woman's National Democratic Club in Washington. Were he still in charge of German finances, he says, he would have ordered his experts "half a year ago" to come up with a plan B. "I would have liked to have been prepared for a Greek insolvency," he said.

Steinbrück's comments came immediately following an announcement by the Euro Group head, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, that he had cancelled a Wednesday meeting of euro-zone finance ministers because Greece had yet to meet conditions demanded by Brussels. Steinbrück called the cancellation an "escalation." The comments by Steinbrück, a senior member of Germany's opposition Social Democrats and a possible candidate for chancellor in next year's general elections, are just the latest sign that leading politicians in Europe are beginning to think seriously about a Greek insolvency. On Monday evening, current German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble indicated that Europe was much better prepared for such an eventuality than it was two years ago.

Angel Gurria, the head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), agreed with Schäuble on Tuesday, though he warned that a Greek bankruptcy could be messy. "Although we are better off today than we were two years ago for that kind of a scenario, we really don't know which unexpected consequences may happen," he said, according to the Associated Press.

NC Pre-K (before this year known as More at Four) is a state-funded education program designed to “enhance school readiness” for four year-olds. The mother says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.

The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn’t eat a vegetable. The mother says her daughter doesn’t like vegetables and – like most four year olds – will only eat them at home under close supervision. In an interview with the Civitas Institute the mother said “I can’t put vegetables in her lunchbox. I’m not a millionaire and I’m not going to put something in there that my daughter doesn’t eat and I’ve done gone round and round with the teacher about that and I’ve told her that. I put fruit in there every day because she is a fruit eater. Vegetables, let me take care of my business at home and at night and that’s when I see she’s eating vegetables. I either have to smash it or tell her if you don’t eat your vegetables you’re going to go to bed.”

The mother added, “It’s just a headache to keep arguing and fighting. I’ve even wrote a note to her teachers and said do not give my daughter anything else unless it comes out of her lunchbox and they are still going against me and putting a milk in front of her every day. Friday she came home and said ‘Mom, they give me vegetable soup and a milk,’” said the mother. The mother, who lives in Fayetteville, sent a statement to state Representative GL Pridgen (Republican for Robeson) detailing her complaint. Pridgen says he was shocked to hear it. Pridgen has since learned this is a nationwide practice based on federal guidelines. An assistant to Pridgen says the girl’s grandmother was also upset and asked, “This isn’t China, is it?”

In these anxious times anti-German sentiments are not unusual in Greece. Locked in a struggle to avoid economic ruin and exit from the eurozone, Greece is confronting the potential collapse of its self-image as a country with a secure place in Europe’s family of nations. To blame Germany draws on deep wells of national suffering endured during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation of Greece. It is not the only response: Greek economic mismanagement, public sector corruption and dysfunctional politics inspire much self-criticism. Animosity towards Germany is not sweeping through all levels of Greek society.

However, a steady drumbeat of resentful attacks on Germany’s policies in the eurozone debt crisis, and on German popular views of Greece, rumbles week after week through television talk shows and the press. As the economic emergency intensifies, it resonates in stormy debates among Greece’s political classes.

The left wing of the socialist Pasok party, and the right wing of the conservative New Democracy party, each contain a self-styled “patriotic” element for which national sovereignty is a badge of pride. In both of Greece’s largest parties a block of pro-European modernisers, mindful of the need for sustained external financial support, is doing battle with malcontents that dabble with anti-German and anti-European Union rhetoric.

Anti-German populism finds its mirror in the impression among the German public that Greeks are lazy, unreliable and responsible for their own woes. German business people are losing patience: Franz Fehrenbach, head of Bosch, the world’s leading car parts supplier, called this week for Greece to leave the eurozone. In all these ways the economic costs and political strains of the debt crisis are producing a certain “renationalisation” of public opinion across Europe. An unmistakable discomfort accompanies the realisation that Germany’s economic pre-eminence entitles it to the leading role in tackling the emergency.

Even the most modest option now under consideration would be an historic and politically bold disarmament step in a presidential election year, although the plan is in line with President Barack Obama's 2009 pledge to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons. No final decision has been made, but the administration is considering at least three options for lower total numbers of deployed strategic nuclear weapons cutting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400, according to a former government official and a congressional staffer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal internal administration deliberations.

The potential cuts would be from a current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. A level of 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons would take the US back to levels not seen since 1950 when the nation was ramping up production in an arms race with the Soviet Union. The US numbers peaked at above 12,000 in the late 1980s and first dropped below 5,000 in 2003. Obama has often cited his desire to seek lower levels of nuclear weapons, but specific options for a further round of cuts had been kept under wraps until the AP learned of the three options now on the table.

Nuclear stockpile numbers are closely guarded secrets in most states that possess them, but private nuclear policy experts say no countries other than the US and Russia are thought to have more than 300. The Federation of American Scientists estimates that France has about 300, China about 240, Britain about 225, and Israel, India and Pakistan roughly 100 each.

Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, used for a third of the world's seaborne oil trade, if Western moves to ban Iranian crude exports cripple its energy sector. Tuesday aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln - part of the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet - sailed through the strait of Hormuz with the Cape St George destroyer cruising behind.

"If you listen to the (Iranian) rhetoric ... you might think that there are some tensions," Admiral Troy Shoemaker, commander of the carrier strike group nine, told Reuters. "We obviously pay attention to that as we go through but I think we are conducting the transit as part of our normal business ... Our intention is to keep it professional and routine."

The commander of US naval forces in the Gulf region said Sunday Iran had built up its naval forces in the Gulf and prepared boats that could be used in suicide attacks, but the US Navy could prevent it from blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Military experts say the US Navy's Fifth Fleet patrolling the Gulf - which always has at least one giant supercarrier accompanied by scores of jets and a fleet of frigates and destroyers - is overwhelmingly more powerful than Iran's navy.

Shanghai's Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Company late last month launched the fourth of China's new 071 amphibious landing ships according to reports carried by Chinese military web sites and the state-controlled media. While most attention has been drawn to the ongoing sea trials of China's first aircraft carrier, military analysts say the expanding fleet of 20,000 tonne landing ships, the biggest domestically designed and built vessels in the Chinese navy, delivers a far more immediate boost to Beijing's global influence.

"Having a significant fleet of large amphibious assault vessels clearly suggests a desire for power projection," says Christian Le Miere, a maritime security researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "If you want the surgical insertion of forces, for a range of reasons, then you need amphibious response ships."

China's naval buildup comes amid mounting maritime tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, which is likely to be one of the main geopolitical stress points in the coming decade. Military planners previously had focused mainly on a potential conflict in the Taiwan strait. More recently, however, Japan and China have locked horns over islands each claims in the East China Sea; Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations are disputing territorial claims with China over parts of the South China Sea thought to be rich in oil and gas.

The US Navy has announced it will deploy its own new amphibious assault vessels, the Littoral Combat Ships, to the "maritime crossroads" of the Asia-Pacific theater, stationing them in Singapore and perhaps the Philippines.

But this is little more than wishful thinking. European leaders are sighing with cowardly relief, hoping that they have finally insulated themselves from the Greek problem. In a way they have. The Greek vote capped a few weeks of gradual easing of tensions in the euro zone’s other fiscally-challenged countries. Yields on Spanish and Italian debt have come down to almost bearable levels. Even Portuguese yields, which spiked at the end of January on fears the country was headed down the Greek path, have dropped by 3 percentage points this month.

But Greece and Europe are still a long way from safety. Athens is rioting while the country’s political leaders are devoting their energy to expelling from their ranks the MPs who dared vote against the austerity plan. This lays bare Greece’s main problem: the inability of any government to implement its decisions. There is something pathetic in the creditors’ insistence on new government programmes and reforms while they acknowledge the absence of a properly functioning state machine to implement them.

If there is no contagion, the conventional wisdom is that the euro zone could take the pain of a disorderly Greek default or a unilateral exit from the euro zone. The Greek economy is tiny, private creditors won’t have much more to lose after the current deal, and banks are being restructured. But there will still be some 150 billion euros worth of public loans and, if Athens were to leave the zone, the eurosystem’s 109 billion euro exposure to the Greek central bank. That’s without counting the adverse impact of the latest austerity plans. The euro zone, as always, is buying time. It should make sure it uses that time to help pull Greece out of its current death spiral.

Euro zone finance ministers had cancelled face-to-face talks on the 130-billion-euro ($170 billion) deal on Wednesday, saying they had yet to receive written pledges from Greek political party leaders to stick to punishing spending cuts, or clarification of all the savings. "The letter will be dispatched within the day," a New Democracy party source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Doubt has focused on Samaras, Greece's likely next prime minister and a strong critic of the austerity measures.

Ministers of the Eurogroup downgraded the Brussels meeting - originally planned for 1700 GMT - to a conference call. Greece needs the funds by next month to avoid a messy bankruptcy. The Eurogroup is next due to meet on Monday, but Greece has said it must initiate a debt swap deal with private sector bondholders by Friday if it is to meet a March 20 deadline for 14.5 billion euros in debt repayments. The Eurogroup had asked Greece to clarify how it would fill a 325-million-euro gap in budget cuts promised for 2012 and to persuade all party leaders to sign a commitment to implement austerity measures after an election expected in April.

"It's true we are asking the Greeks for some extremely painful sacrifices and I understand their anger, but Greece has made many errors in its past," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told France Info radio on Wednesday. "It (the bailout) must be concluded because if Greece went bankrupt and left the euro zone, the chaos would be even worse for the Greek people and very bad news for the euro zone."

Eurozone chiefs cancelled a meeting with Greek officials earlier, demanding further cuts and reassurances. International lenders have told Greece to make huge cuts in return for a 130 billion euros ($170 billion, £109 billion) bailout package. The Greek parliament approved an austerity package on the weekend, despite violent protests sweeping the country. But eurozone ministers have demanded a further 325 million euros of cuts. They have also insisted that all major Greek parties give an assurance that the cuts will be enacted regardless of who wins a general election scheduled for April.

Mark Lowen, BBC News, Athens, writes: "There is now huge mistrust between eurozone leaders and Greece. Despite Athens passing its austerity package in parliament last Sunday, Brussels has set two more conditions for Greece's international bailout: that an extra 325 million euros of savings are found and that the Greek government sign a pledge to implement the cuts.

The EU has grown exasperated with a perceived lack of commitment by Greece and there is now immense pressure on Athens to quicken the pace of change. But there is real anger in Greece. Athens saw the worst rioting for years when the austerity package was passed by parliament. Greece is now in a worrying situation. Its economy contracted by 7% in the last quarter. Eurozone finance ministers will now meet on Monday instead - perhaps the bailout will come then, but this game of brinkmanship could be very dangerous indeed.

Moody's actions can be summarised as follows:

- Austria: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative

- France: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative

- Italy: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook

- Malta: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook

- Portugal: downgraded to Ba3 from Ba2, negative outlook

- Slovakia: downgraded to A2 from A1, negative outlook

- Slovenia: downgraded to A2 from A1, negative outlook

- Spain: downgraded to A3 from A1, negative outlook

- United Kingdom: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative

The implications of these actions for directly and indirectly related ratings will be reported through separate press releases. The main drivers of today's actions are:

- The uncertainty over (i) the euro area's prospects for institutional reform of its fiscal and economic framework and (ii) the resources that will be made available to deal with the crisis.

- Europe's increasingly weak macroeconomic prospects, which threaten the implementation of domestic austerity programmes and the structural reforms that are needed to promote competitiveness.

Well I'm still waiting, George. We all are. But I do recognise that the problem is not totally the Chancellor's fault. For one thing he has to carry round his neck the rotting albatross of his Lib Dem coalition partners and for another he has the BBC – as he wittily hinted this morning in a sprightly ad lib on BBC Radio 4's Today programme in an interview with John Humphrys.

Humphrys was accusing Osborne's government of being "anti-growth". While perfectly true, this is the equivalent of King Herod rebuking parents for being insufficiently caring of the rights of first-born male children. After being prodded by Humphrys one time too many about his banker-bashing (Humphrys suggested that the Coalition seemed to relish taking them to the tumbrils), Osborne replied:

"And the BBC is often in the front row of these tumbrils, knitting as they happen."

Osborne said it in a mild, good-humoured tone but even so, coming from so senior a politician this is pretty strong stuff. There is an unspoken rule that whenever people of a vaguely Right-wing persuasion appear on BBC programmes like Today they're not supposed to mention how incorrigibly, poisonously Left-wing it is. The BBC doesn't get really angry or refuse to invite you back or anything like that. Rather, it comes over all hurt: a bit like you would if you were a leper and you had half your nose eaten away, and instead of politely ignoring it someone were to say: "That missing nose of yours isn't going to win you many beauty contests, is it?"

I do hope that Osborne's remark is a taste of even stronger things to come. The BBC is not a benign organisation. Indeed, it probably bears greater responsibility than any other institution for Britain's cultural, moral, intellectual and economic decline. Even if you were just to consider its outrageous, misleading propagandising over climate change, you would have more than reason enough to scrap the licence fee. Osborne has fired his warning shot across the bows; what we need next is a torpedo amidships – preferably straight into the magazine.

"The objective is to identify and help correct risky and harmful imbalances that have built up over the years," said Olli Rehn, the EU's economic and monetary affairs commissioner. The commission expressed fears that high levels of private borrowing in Britain, driven by high property prices, is "strongly linked" to public debt via bank bail-outs and "feedback effects".

"The high level of private debt is a concern in a context of a weak public finance situation with high and increasing public debt. The household debt largely reflects mortgages in a context of high accumulated increases in house prices," it warned. "While both the level of household debt and real house prices has been reduced, they still remain high which suggests that the unwinding of these imbalances has further to go."

A Government spokesman said: "This report simply reinforces the unsustainable imbalances that built up over the past decade and underlines why the government is right to be getting a grip of the country's debt." Britain was also warned that its declining share of exports was the worst in the EU, down 24.3 percent over the last five years. But while Britain was praised for "stabilising" its export decline, the EU is concerned that France's continued slide in global market share is damaging French business.