Cheerful Charlie

I guess that would include them too.

CC

purple_kathryn

Thank you :P wouldnt want to feel like out of the big brotherness

Although I refuse to watch the tv tripe

Howay the Toon

There are religious and non-religious people in all three parties. Blair and Brown were certainly the most religious of recent leaders. But the labour party as a whole is not noticeably more religious than any other.

Plenty of people are indeed furious about the target driven control-freakery of the Blair government. but this isn't really seen as having much to do with religion.

Blair made no secret of his devoutness as a Christian but never really made explicit connections between that and his policies (except perhaps for favouring faith schools). On Iraq, he said he would ultimately be judged by God for his actions (which was considered to be a huge gaffe and was mostly treated with ridicule, but for a genuine christian believer is just a basic statement of faith). Whether that means he had some specifically religious motivation for his actions is not clear.

Other recent PMs and party leaders have had arange of religious views including atheists like Kinnock, who almost became PM in 1992 without his atheism being much, or indeed any, of an issue in the campaign.

Most other leaders, I don't really know what their religious positions are. It just doesn't come up much.

Mark

The prayers in Parliament happen every morning, although I don't think the UK is unique in this. If you don't want to pray, MPs and Lords have every right to not participate in it.

What I do love about it though, is how they all pray facing away from the centre, out of historical habit - in the Middle Ages MPs would have swords on their belts, and kneeling would get awkward with these, so they lean against the benches they sit on instead

The Queen has weekly meetings with the PM but also the rest of her Government, and talks frequently via telephone with her Prime Ministers in other Crowned Commonwealth countries. She has access to all State papers and keeps herself well-informed. She's known to grill her Ministers heavily on their policies and to advise and warn them of dangers, pitfalls, what to consider and what to look out for, if they want the best for the country.

She does retain the power of Royal Assent (not a veto), but this has not been denied to an Act of Parliament since the Scottish Militia Bill of 1707.

DMB

A few points in response to varied posts. First of all, it makes sense in some contexts to talk about just England rather than the rest of the UK. For example, the CofE is the state church, with QE2 as head, only in England. (BTW, I have it on good authority that she is a believer.) In other contexts, England and Wales can be treated more or less as one, and so on.

Because of the half-arsed "reforms" of the present Government, we have the ludicrous situation where England is the only one of the four constituent parts of the UK that does not have its own parliament or assembly, and the even more ridiculous (or reprehensible -- take your pick) spectacle of the government forcing through legislation that applies only in England and Wales with the support of Scottish MPs who could not vote on similar questions for Scotland.

Having bishops in the HoL is not just a pretty traditional survival. These parasites get to vote on legislation where the ordinary public are consistently refused a direct vote. For example, opinion polls consistently show about 80 % of the population supporting assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Just as consistently, it gets voted down by the HoL. The last attempt was Lord Joffe's bill that he intorduced in the HoL. I watched the debate on TV. Bishop after bishop got up and rubbished the bill. When it wasn't bishops, it was self-proclaimed xians.

That is far from being the tendency in the EU. In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, please sign the Brussels Declaration.

BTW, bhd, are you a member of the National Secular Society? You might find it rewarding. Even if you are not a member, you can sign up for Newsline, their weekly emag. But obviously, the more members they have the better, if we want the voice of secularism to be heard in the UK.

nigggle

Just addressing the issue of faith schools because i attend one at the moment. The general impression that i get is that there are equal groups of atheist and christian children but the majority of the school's children don't care about christianity and just sing and bow their heads when asked to sing or pray. The fact that it is a faith school doesn't affect the education at all, its just like any other school, they just pray and sing hymns in assembly. But i am sure that there are faith schools in which things differ.

JamesBannon

Faith schools are an anachronism and have no place in a state education system.

DMB

Faith schools certainly do differ. Some of the catholic ones are pretty strong on indoctrination and making students take part in religious ceremonies. Do any us feel comfortable with state-funded muslim school?

I think the major objection to state funding of sectarian schools is the divisiveness it fuels in the population at large.

There is also the effect of giving religion more respectability and a higher profile in public life than it merits.