We have become somewhat used to Ian Duncan Smith spouting his religious mumbo-jumbo while giving the unemployed and disabled a good kicking. It's part of his "personality" and his self-image as a Victorian era "you have to be cruel to be kind" evangelist. Religion has played only a peripheral role in modern British politics following several centuries when the English spent far too much time murdering each other over schisms in the Christian fairy tale. Following the reforms of the last 150 years its grip has gradually slipped - until now that is. Religion is once again on the agenda as new cultures have taken root in the country and sparked off another round of "my invisible friend in the sky is better than yours" idiocy. Now, in the wake of Ian Duncan Smith's vile brand of self-justification, we have David Cameron spouting things such as "Jesus is the light of the world" to give himself cover for being the most divisive, vicious and prejudiced Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher had a go. It works in the United States so why not in the UK? Unfortunately his attempt to harness IDS's vacuous religious underpinnings for kicking the vulnerable and rewarding the already smug and self-satisfied has rung hollow in the Church of England because of Cameron's conversion to gay marriage. A throw-away line designed to augment his "liberal" credentials it had the unintended effect of annoying many in the CofE who have nasty little prejuduces of their own. So this Christmas religion, if not exactly centre-stage, has been given a completely unwarrented walk-on part in the Parliamentary pantomine we call politics. Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has welcomed Cameron's overtly Christian Christmas message this year concluding that the PM is "a good man and he deserves our encouragement." No he isn't and no amount of insincere religious claptrap will make him one.
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