I don’t think, in the 21st century, we should be letting superstitions sway politics. Your religion can affect the way you behave but not the way you expect others to behave. Come Judgement Day the Flying Spaghetti Monster is going to weigh your soul based upon how much good you did, not how many people you bullied into pretending to love it.

However, we still have Bush and Blair invading Iraq because their imaginary friend told them to ignore the facts and go right ahead and act on their fantasies. Every one of the US presidential candidates has to assert that they are faithy-er than the next one and the most scary of the Republican mob puts subliminal crosses in his campaign videos.

So it’s refreshing to have the new Lib Dem leader give a straightforward answer to an irrelevant question. It’s a shame he then had to go and spoil this moment of uncommon honesty from a politician by issuing a statement that he didn’t wish to offend Christians. The sort of Chrisian who’s offended that another person doesn’t believe exactly the same things they do isn’t really a Christian. They’re just someone hiding behind a convenient shield and using it as an excuse to air all their insecurities.

Take religion out of politics, and call people’s bluff every time they try to use faith to justify their prejudices, and the world will start to be a better place.