Sour Grapes ?

Tomorrow the National Secular Society's Irwin Prize for Secularist of the Year 2010 award will be given to an 'individual who has contributed significantly to the cause of secularism'. One of those nominated for the award is Peter Hearty for his 'hilarious and telling' blog, Platitude of the Day, which is a parody of the Thought for the Day early morning slot on BBC Radio 4. The problem with Hearty's attempted parody is that everyone who contributes to Thought for the Day is 'satirised', no matter what they say. The indiscriminate nature of this makes Hearty's agenda seem more like petty spite than biting satire. Now, one need not be a fan of the Thought for the Day programme to wonder why something which attempts to provide some brief edification among the daily horror of news stories and political events would be targeted at all (aside from the simple fact that it has religious content, of course). One might be forgiven for concluding that this is petty revenge for the fact that the secularist/humanist/atheist cabal were unsuccessful in their attempt to hijack the programme for their own ends. Looks to me like a nasty case of sour grapes.