Britain's Home Secretary, David Blunkett is facing a growing revolt from over plans to make incitement to religious hatred a crime with a seven-year jail term. Not just from MPs, but from comedians like Rowan Atkinson, who fear that they will not in future be able to tell jokes lampooning people's religious attitudes.

Blunkett himself says: "The offence will not criminalise material that just stirs up ridicule... Or which simply causes offence."

Atkinson's right, Blunkett is wrong. None of us want to see religious hatred prosper - nor racial hatred or any other sort. But laws are introduced with one purpose and before long they start being used for others. In the US, draconian laws and penalties against racketeering are now used to frighten minor criminals into pleading guilty to lesser crimes. In Britain, police prosecute householders who dare to raise a knife or a rolling-pin against a burglar. Emergency powers against terrorism are used to stop and search anyone the police don't like the look of.

If you're a comedian, you don't know where the authorities will draw the line, until you feel a hand on your collar. But the law will eventually want to test where the line between ridicule and racism stands, and one day that hand will indeed fall. So despite Mr Blunkett's fine words and intentions, under this law, comedians will simply avoid all such humour, and we will be the poorer for it. And we won't even be able to take the heat out of bigotry by lampooning it any more.