Secular Thought for the Day

By Delia Ives

To use a famous phrase many politicians in the UK "don't do God". What they really mean is that they want to hedge their bets. They don't want to upset any religious group sufficiently for them to withhold their votes or otherwise create a fuss . .

We always suspected Tony Blair was religious but he didn't come clean about it until he left office. Many might call that hypocritical!

We aren't sure about the strength of Gordon Brown's religious beliefs but why on earth shouldn't we know? Why shouldn't politicians be precise about their religious position when they ask us to vote for them? Are politicians in effect saying that we don't need to know because their beliefs don't make any difference to the way they act in office? They should ask themselves if beliefs like that are worth having anyway! And if their beliefs do make a difference to the way they act, aren't we, the voters, entitled to have chapter & verse? Perhaps at the next election we should all question our candidates much more searchingly on this subject so that we know exactly what we are voting for.

Refreshingly Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has come out unequivocally as an atheist and the Lib Dems are promoting a Freedom Bill. Whether or not this is enough to persuade you to vote Lib Dem you can still help to roll back infringements of liberty by supporting the Freedom Bill.