I am puzzling why anyone would smile at the thought of anyone being persecuted by anyone else. mg

The smile is one of wry & bitter irony at the sky-high rhetoric that holds that Xtians are in any way persecuted for their beliefs, in the the west in general, and in the UK in particular. I hope (and suspect) that this is a minority view, and that people in general (Xtian or otherwise) don't regard the increased and essential secularisation as persecution, just a move towards a wider accomodation of cultural diversity as we have in the UK presently, and in my lifetime.