I SEE Judas getting a bad press once again. Ben Dunne said the other day that he thought Charles Haughey made a huge mistake trying to get six or seven people together when setting up a confidential finance deal: "Christ picked 12 apostles and one of them crucified him."

It is a bit unfair that Judas Iscariot should always be the ultimate scapegoat. To start with, Judas obviously did not crucify Christ. But just how guilty was he?

Judas identified Christ with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver. Even in those days it was not a large sum. It could be seen as a small betrayal - Christ would have been identified soon enough anyway - for small money. It could also be argued (and has been) that Christ was complicit in his own betrayal in that he already knew how it would all turn out.

Towards the end of last year William Klassen published a book called Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (SCM, paperback, £12.95). This careful analysis pointed out that of the four Gospel writers, only Luke actually calls Judas "betrayer". And for John, Judas is just one more actor in the working out of God's sovereign purpose. After all, Peter denied Jesus, disciples fled, high priests arrested him, Pilate washed his hands of him and soldiers executed him.

Klassen also suggests Judas may even have acted from lofty motives: after the violent incident in the temple, Judas may have wished to see Jesus have it all out with the Jewish authorities, and simply arranged a meeting. He was then so horrified at the eventual outcome that he took his own life.

Also, until the so called betrayal (and indeed after), there is no evidence of any hostility between Jesus and Judas, who repented bitterly before his violent suicide.

Right. Judas is not the only historical figure getting a bad press these days. Other well known victims have recently included Laurel and Hardy. The British Labour Party last week took out an advertisement in the Times using the comedy duo with the faces of John Major and Kenneth Clarke and appended the caption "Another fine mess" to insult the Conservatives.

I have every confidence that this hopelessly unoriginal campaign will backfire for the Labour Party, because the place of Laurel and Hardy in the public mind is deservedly one of great affection. Their screen characters personify the inept and inadequate, but in real life they were hugely successful (though they had personal problems, Stan especially). It may well be that the British public will associate the Tories with this success and reject Labour's latest sad campaign.

Meanwhile, in this newspaper on Thursday, Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance used the images of Romeo and Juliet ("... two people, whose names will forever be linked") to advertise the merged creation of Royal & Sun Alliance.

I am not sure this was a wise move. Everyone knows the union of Romeo and Juliet was a non runner from the start, a hopeless love affair between two naive youngsters which ended in tragedy. But perhaps the new company is merely attempting to create an aura of romance around the business of insurance. If so, good luck to it. The Royal & Sun Alliance office atmosphere must be interesting.

On the same day it was reported that a florist's advertisement on St Valentine's Day was found by the Advertising Standards Authority to be offensive and degrading to women. Interflora had used the headline: "This Friday, remember that all women are made of the same thing. Putty."

There is surely no good reason why women should object to being compared to putty. The whole point of putty is that while it is soft and pliable on application, it quickly becomes firm and solid. It is an admirable invention with multiple uses.

Interflora made a valiant defence of the advertisement, saying it was "couched in language which could be understood by men". (Fairly simple language, you see). According to the Interflora research, the receipt of flowers had an emotional impact which was not fully understood by men, who rarely received floral tributes.

All this suggests that men can understand only the simplest advertising messages, and really do not know what they are doing when sending flowers, or possibly when doing anything at all which creates an emotional impact on women. Perhaps men should feel offended and degraded.