Blasphemy laws 'to be scrapped'

David Blunkett is looking at scrapping ancient blasphemy laws, it emerged today.

The Home Secretary wants to replace them with a new offence of incitement to religious hatred.

The changes are designed to protect religious groups from racist attacks while preserving the right of freedom of speech.

A previous attempt to introduced the offence of incitement to religious hatred was criticised by comedians, including Rowan Atkinson, who said it could be used to bar jokes and cartoons about priests and religion.

Mr Blunkett hopes the repeal of the blasphemy laws would head off such criticism. The new package of laws would make clear the distinction between offending someone's sensibilities and actually putting someone in danger through incitement to hatred.

The last high-profile case involving the laws was in 1979, when the late Mary Whitehouse won an action against Gay News for publishing a blasphemous poem about Jesus Christ.