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It’s a scene all too familiar. A peaceful protestor dragged from the crowd and attacked by agents loyal to the state. It could be almost anywhere, from Myanmar to Moscow. I just never imagined it in Manchester. The video footage from last Sunday, when a man was pulled into the grounds of the Chinese Consulate and beaten up, would probably have led the news bulletins in less politically febrile times. Shocking as the incident itself was, what made my blood run cold was the statement released by the consulate later. Ignoring the violence, it lashed out at the protestors, calling the display of an insulting portrait of the current Chinese president “intolerable” and “deplorable”. Fortunately, local police officers were able to rescue the victim quickly from his assailants. Not, of course, that the UK has an unblemished record of supporting the right to offend. Some of the most severe abuses of blasphemy law in the world are consequences of acts passed during the British Empire, something my Christian friends in Pakistan know to their peril. Even here, similar laws, though rarely enforced, were only repealed within living memory. Yet I turn, for my guidance, to the Jesus who was far from averse to coining a lurid turn of phrase. There is sharp humour as well as deep truth in the way he described some contemporary religious leaders as like “whitewashed gravestones”, bright and clean on the outside, full of rot and corruption within. However, as the Gospel accounts of his arrest and trial make clear, he accepted insult, as part of the price of his calling. I support that private citizens, those who neither hold nor aspire to positions of responsibility, should be afforded reasonable protection from verbal abuse. I support the right of all of us to be protected from physical attack or mental torture. Yet the recent growth of demands to live in spaces where our ideas, opinions and beliefs are shielded from sharp and robust challenge, feels deeply unhealthy. I hope that, should the perpetrators of the attack on the Manchester protestor prove to have diplomatic immunity, they will at least be rapidly expelled from the UK. But not so rapidly that they don't have time for a farewell visit to at least one exhibition of the work of the 18th century London based artist and satirist William Hogarth. As those who currently inhabit the environs of Downing Street and Westminster know all too well, offensive depictions of political, and other, leaders, are part of our life. No new invention, but a cherished freedom embedded in our heritage and culture. Long may that be so.