EVERYBODY down here in London is saying that the best farce in town is the Morecambe and Wise spoof The Play What I Wrote.

We took the kids to see it and I must say it is really very funny; but I can't agree that it's the best farce going. Surely the prize for the most stupendous farce must be the UN weapons inspections in Iraq? As if they're going to find anything! Are we to suppose that Saddam Hussein will reveal his poison gas canisters, botulism plants and nuclear bomb factories?

I have been talking to someone in the Ministry of Defence and I must say she was extremely candid. She told me: "There's no way we can inspect every site potentially storing weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is a vast country and it would take years to survey it all. Besides, the germ warfare ingredients are being stored on hundreds of small farms in remote areas. And by the way, because these substances are so volatile, they present a terrible risk to the life and health of the Iraqi farmers who have no choice, of course, except to do as Saddam tells them."

There is no point in the inspections. Everyone knows that Saddam possesses these evil weapons by the cartload. He has used them on his own people and on the Kurds. And he is still in defiance of 27 United Nations' resolutions. The only question is not whether Britain and the United States should depose his regime by force, but when. And for the improved security of the world, it should be done sooner rather than later.

Talking about farces, I nearly swallowed my toothbrush laughing last Sunday morning when a caller on the Radio Four programme Broadcasting House said that the terrorists are killing us because they don't like "our decadent way of life in the West". Blimey! You don't get much more decadent than driving vans into holiday hotels and blowing them up. Of course, our way of life in the West is not perfect: no civilisation is or ever has been. But ask yourself, would you rather live here with all our perceived problems or in say Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Nigeria and a dozen other Muslim states where imprisonment without trial is routine, where torture is widely practised and where the punishment for theft is amputation and for adultery (for women) stoning to death?

I know the traffic is bad in England, the weather is not too good at the moment and we do have to suffer relentless pop music and Celebrity Big Brother. But would you rather live here or in a Muslim state such as Saudi Arabia where you can be thrown into prison for carrying a Bible or wearing a crucifix? In this country we allow Muslims to practise their religion openly. We permit the building of luxurious mosques in such prime positions as Regent's Park. We allow free entry to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens - some of whom desire to destroy us.

Hang on a minute, what am I saying? Strewth! Perhaps we are decadent after all? How else to account for such suicidal folly?

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange