Of the 65 per cent of British adults who call themselves Christians, fewer than a million go to Sunday church. When the young opt increasingly to live without God and the old to die without him, Get Relevant becomes the eleventh commandment. Fulfilling that precept demands more, however, than advice to vote for election candidates only after examining their 'personal attitudes and moral outlook'. Private credo is the most dubious criterion imaginable. You might as well choose taste in ties or density of dandruff on candidates' suit collars.
Personal faith is less a guarantor of decent public policy than a clanging contra-indicator.
Among Tories, Liam Fox's prayers to abolish abortion are eccentrically chilling, while Ann Widdecombe's sinlessness translates into a wish to incarcerate non-criminals. 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.