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These Tory messages show us why faith has no place in politics These Tory messages show us why faith has no place in politics
(5 months later)
Britain is a Christian country, David Cameron has taken to asserting each Easter. In terms of sheer numbers, this is not true. There are more people who identify as something other than a Christian than who tick the box marked Jesus. But the numbers are pretty tight – 51%:49% – and nobody likes a pedant.Britain is a Christian country, David Cameron has taken to asserting each Easter. In terms of sheer numbers, this is not true. There are more people who identify as something other than a Christian than who tick the box marked Jesus. But the numbers are pretty tight – 51%:49% – and nobody likes a pedant.
More problematic than the fact that Cameron’s central premise is untrue is the surrounding text of these speeches, wedged with nonsense like expanding foam round dodgy plumbing. Trying to describe Christian values, he identifies “responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion and pride in working for the common good”. Look, I would love it if the world of religion genuinely offered choice, if there were a temple I could visit to worship fecklessness, selfishness and narcissism. But until James Delingpole launches his own cult, that religion doesn’t exist.More problematic than the fact that Cameron’s central premise is untrue is the surrounding text of these speeches, wedged with nonsense like expanding foam round dodgy plumbing. Trying to describe Christian values, he identifies “responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion and pride in working for the common good”. Look, I would love it if the world of religion genuinely offered choice, if there were a temple I could visit to worship fecklessness, selfishness and narcissism. But until James Delingpole launches his own cult, that religion doesn’t exist.
All religions share the prime minister’s “Christian values”. Speaking as an atheist (since we don’t have a key text, any of us are allowed), we too share them. It’s so obvious that Cameron goes on to acknowledge it: “They are also values that speak to everyone in Britain – to people of every faith and none. And we must all stand together and defend them.”All religions share the prime minister’s “Christian values”. Speaking as an atheist (since we don’t have a key text, any of us are allowed), we too share them. It’s so obvious that Cameron goes on to acknowledge it: “They are also values that speak to everyone in Britain – to people of every faith and none. And we must all stand together and defend them.”
Even in the era of the television soundbite, when all sentences in politics have been reduced to a length from which it would be unreasonable to expect a meaning, this does not work. Either these values are Christian, or they are universal. To assert a set of values as universal but mainly Christian is no more or less than an assertion that Christianity is the superior faith; not because its components are superior, but rather because Cameron says so.Even in the era of the television soundbite, when all sentences in politics have been reduced to a length from which it would be unreasonable to expect a meaning, this does not work. Either these values are Christian, or they are universal. To assert a set of values as universal but mainly Christian is no more or less than an assertion that Christianity is the superior faith; not because its components are superior, but rather because Cameron says so.
Related: Zac Goldsmith criticised over leaflet aimed at British Indians
Having established by diktat that Christianity is more important than any other religion, the prime minister then sees it as self-evident that unbelievers and members of other faiths would want to stand together to defend it. It’s the sloppiness of the argument that’s really insulting. The casual Christian supremacy has no internal logic and no factual foundation; a serious Christian would feel as alienated and patronised by it as an atheist. But that’s no problem, since the Easter message is not really aimed at serious Christians.Having established by diktat that Christianity is more important than any other religion, the prime minister then sees it as self-evident that unbelievers and members of other faiths would want to stand together to defend it. It’s the sloppiness of the argument that’s really insulting. The casual Christian supremacy has no internal logic and no factual foundation; a serious Christian would feel as alienated and patronised by it as an atheist. But that’s no problem, since the Easter message is not really aimed at serious Christians.
Faith in political rhetoric is predominantly a proxy for ethnicity; if Cameron sounds confused and muddled, it’s because he’s finding it hard to say what he means. “You people, who are white and have lived here for generations, and have names like Edward that we can all spell and pronounce – you are this country; we should be able to stand up and declare our pride in you. We shouldn’t be intimidated by foreigners and critical thinkers. We should be able to clasp you by the shoulders and give you the lion-hearted hug of patriotic fellowship, which we’ll take care to disguise first in a threadbare cassock.”Faith in political rhetoric is predominantly a proxy for ethnicity; if Cameron sounds confused and muddled, it’s because he’s finding it hard to say what he means. “You people, who are white and have lived here for generations, and have names like Edward that we can all spell and pronounce – you are this country; we should be able to stand up and declare our pride in you. We shouldn’t be intimidated by foreigners and critical thinkers. We should be able to clasp you by the shoulders and give you the lion-hearted hug of patriotic fellowship, which we’ll take care to disguise first in a threadbare cassock.”
Bogus arguments employing faith are often trussed up in nostalgic imagery. But in fact their roots aren’t in bucolic British yesteryear, these tactics are American-tinged and distinctively 21st century. The key concept is that we have passed through the era of political sophistication – in which deference died and people listened instead to arguments – and come out the other side. No points are awarded for complication, because most people aren’t listening. Likewise, there is no penalty for laziness or inconsistency or mendacity, as Boris Johnson has discovered to his delight. In the pact of indolence between elected and electorate, people don’t keep tallies. It is far easier to vacuum up the vote of an entire “community”, via its “community leaders”, with coded messages about God, man and Mammon than it is to put forward anything of subtlety or substance.Bogus arguments employing faith are often trussed up in nostalgic imagery. But in fact their roots aren’t in bucolic British yesteryear, these tactics are American-tinged and distinctively 21st century. The key concept is that we have passed through the era of political sophistication – in which deference died and people listened instead to arguments – and come out the other side. No points are awarded for complication, because most people aren’t listening. Likewise, there is no penalty for laziness or inconsistency or mendacity, as Boris Johnson has discovered to his delight. In the pact of indolence between elected and electorate, people don’t keep tallies. It is far easier to vacuum up the vote of an entire “community”, via its “community leaders”, with coded messages about God, man and Mammon than it is to put forward anything of subtlety or substance.
Last week Zac Goldsmith illustrated this to even uglier effect than Cameron, when he produced a leaflet for his mayoral campaign aimed at Indian voters, in which he said that their jewellery would be at risk under a Sadiq Khan mayoralty, since he supported a wealth tax on trinkets. A separate letter, signed by Cameron, featured a series of less incendiary but bizarrely unguarded meanderings, in which it declared Goldsmith and the prime minister as friends of the Punjabi and Sikh “community”.Last week Zac Goldsmith illustrated this to even uglier effect than Cameron, when he produced a leaflet for his mayoral campaign aimed at Indian voters, in which he said that their jewellery would be at risk under a Sadiq Khan mayoralty, since he supported a wealth tax on trinkets. A separate letter, signed by Cameron, featured a series of less incendiary but bizarrely unguarded meanderings, in which it declared Goldsmith and the prime minister as friends of the Punjabi and Sikh “community”.
Labour supporters have lit upon this as a dirty tricks campaign, but the insult to the Indian voter is so much greater: even the word “community” in this context assumes that, sharing an ethnicity, they must share one single volition. There is no room in this vision for you to be a leftwing Indian or a rightwing Indian. There is no need for you to worry your pretty head about anything except what is under your mattress.Labour supporters have lit upon this as a dirty tricks campaign, but the insult to the Indian voter is so much greater: even the word “community” in this context assumes that, sharing an ethnicity, they must share one single volition. There is no room in this vision for you to be a leftwing Indian or a rightwing Indian. There is no need for you to worry your pretty head about anything except what is under your mattress.
Goldsmith’s leaflet offers an extremely primitive programme of materialism and fear, and seems distant – insultingly so – from Cameron’s appeal to Christians and their bedrock of profound values. Yet the methodology is the same: this is profiling not politics, voters wooed en bloc by faith, creed or race. Persuasion, coherence, consistency are all unnecessary in this terrain, since the people in it vote not with their minds but with their tribes.Goldsmith’s leaflet offers an extremely primitive programme of materialism and fear, and seems distant – insultingly so – from Cameron’s appeal to Christians and their bedrock of profound values. Yet the methodology is the same: this is profiling not politics, voters wooed en bloc by faith, creed or race. Persuasion, coherence, consistency are all unnecessary in this terrain, since the people in it vote not with their minds but with their tribes.
This is why faith has no place in politics, and a prime minister has no place to tell us whether our country is or isn’t Christian. It is not because religion is civically irrelevant – it isn’t. Nor is it because politics has some superior rational grounding to religion – it often doesn’t. It is not even because atheists get a distinctly raw deal from such a political culture, even though we do. Rather, it is because, when politicians perceive us by creed or ethnicity, we become a different kind of entity for them. We are no longer their equals, who can think for ourselves but are open to persuasion, whose interests must be represented to the state. We are a congregation who, tickled the right way, will listen to our leader, since he is the state’s representative on Earth.This is why faith has no place in politics, and a prime minister has no place to tell us whether our country is or isn’t Christian. It is not because religion is civically irrelevant – it isn’t. Nor is it because politics has some superior rational grounding to religion – it often doesn’t. It is not even because atheists get a distinctly raw deal from such a political culture, even though we do. Rather, it is because, when politicians perceive us by creed or ethnicity, we become a different kind of entity for them. We are no longer their equals, who can think for ourselves but are open to persuasion, whose interests must be represented to the state. We are a congregation who, tickled the right way, will listen to our leader, since he is the state’s representative on Earth.