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Bishop regrets Blair’s silence
by Pat Ashworth
 Gazing heavenwards: Tony Blair, a Middle East Quartet envoy, tours the Church of the Nativity during his visit to Bethlehem on Thursday 6 September |
| IF TONY BLAIR had been able openly to acknowledge his faith when he was Prime Minister, Britain’s policies might have been very different, says the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.
The Bishop’s comments followed the screening of the second part of The Blair Years on BBC1 last Sunday. Mr Blair confessed that he had been reluctant to discuss his Christian faith while in office, for fear of being branded a “nutter”. Mr Blair contrasted British reticence with the willingness of politicians in the United States to speak openly about religion. “It’s difficult to talk about religion in our political system. If you are in the American political system or others, then you can talk about religious faith and people say, ‘Yes, fair enough,’ and it is something they respond to quite naturally,” he said. “I happen to have religious conviction; I don’t actually think there is anything wrong in having religious conviction — on the contrary, I think it is a strength for people.” He described his faith as having been “hugely important” during his tenure. He also said that, “To do this, the Prime Minister’s job, properly, you need to be able to separate yourself somewhat from the magnitude of the consequences you are taking the whole time . . . if you don’t have that strength, it’s difficult to do the job, which is why the job is as much about character and temperament as it is about anything else. For me, having faith was an important part of being able to do that.” Mr Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell, once responded to a reporter from Vanity Fair: “We don’t do God.” Mr Campbell revealed in the programme that not only did Mr Blair “do God — in quite a big way”, but that, “wherever you were in the world on a Sunday, you had to find a church.” Peter Mandelson, the former Northern Ireland secretary, said that Mr Blair was “a man who takes a Bible with him wherever he goes”. Dr Nazir-Ali told the BBC: “I am sorry that Tony Blair feels he could not talk about his faith in case people thought he was a nutter. Christian vision underlies all that is important about Britain: its laws, institutions, and values. If Blair had been able to relate his vision to his policies, we would have had a much more constructive social policy at home and principled policies abroad.” Should Tony Blair have been more open about his faith? Vote here |
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