You have to hand it to Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister: he’s good value for money. He doesn’t realise that there are some subjects that ministers should leave well alone. There’s a reason why he’s not on Question Time tonight. Immediately after being appointed, he opened up the Pandora’s box that is the Government’s immigration policy.
In the same interview with The Times he declared that the Church of England would end up being disestablished: “Disestablishment – I think it will happen… once you open debate about the House of Lords you open up debate about the make-up… It will probably take 50 years but a modern society is multifaith.” Hang on, Mr W. The assumption that a multifaith society can’t accommodate a privileged position for one religion, Anglicanism, can’t be taken as given.
[i]I think, why most people don’t mind establishment, insofar as they think about it at all, is that it’s a reassuring reminder that there is some sort of moral touchstone within the political structure. It allows non-churchgoers to identify themselves, at several removes, with Christianity in its most benign and unthreatening form.[/i]
The best argument for disestablishment one could hope to find. One has a wonderful illustration of the benign irrelevance of the Church of England in the long-running British radio soap opera – now well over fifty years old, though it ain’t what it used to be – the Archers. The vicars of Ambridge have always been notoriously bland characters.
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