What pleases God may look less sanctified to an asylum-seeker or, indeed, to an archbishop. That wouldn't be surprising. A poll by the MSF Union before the last election suggested that only one in ten of Britain's senior clergy was a Tory, with 53 per cent backing Blair and 21 per cent the Lib Dems. The synergy between the Anglican Church and the Tory party barely survived the arrival of Thatcher, who found Archbishop Runcie's prayers for fallen Argies a sacriligious affront to Our Boys. Norman Tebbit treated church initiatives with the sensitivity of a monastery-sacker, and Widdecombe and John Gummer defected to the Catholics.
Labour remains, superficially, a dream ally for the Anglican hierarchy.
If Tony Blair parades his faith cautiously, he also follows the mantra of his Swiss theological guru, Hans Kung, that religion and politics entwine. The beliefs of Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Chris Smith and David Blunkett resonate with an age of early Christian Labourites and Keir Hardie preaching on the Sermon on the Mount. But conflating God and politics is now as curdled for the Left as for the Right. George Bush's 'Compassionate Conservatism' is more scary than Labour piety but also more miasmic. Bush's plans for faith-based welfare torpedoed early on, and William Hague, his disciple, will never have the chance to test a British model.