The Tory faithful

With the election less than a month away, the race is on for the keys to 10 Downing Street. Our series about the parties’ relationship with Christianity begins with the Conservatives and their record leading the Coalition Government since 2010

It is perhaps a sign of the drift towards secularism in Westminster that, of the seven political party leaders in the ITV general election debate on Maundy Thursday, David Cameron was the only one who is a practising Christian.

Cameron, who as leader of the Opposition said his faith came and went “like the London radio station Magic FM in the Chilterns”, has grown in faith during his premiership.

He grew up in an old rectory in Berkshire next to a church where his father Ian, whom Cameron idolised, was a warden. His belief is said to have deepened following the deaths of both his son Ivan in 2009, and his father in 2010. He can now sometimes be spotted attending weekday Eucharist at St Mary Abbots Anglican church on Kensington High Street, next to the school attended by his daughter Nancy. Conor Burns, the Catholic MP for Bournemouth West since 2010, tells me: “The Prime Minister has a faith. I don’t think it’s a preachy faith; I don’t think it’s a judgemental faith.”

Politically, Cameron’s Conservatives are at once traditionalist (by definition) and socially liberal. Cameron has not changed his party’s approach to areas that appeal to its core vote, such as the economy, Europe and immigration. But he has upset some grassroots Tories with his symbolically significant support for same-sex marriage.

Which brings us to the mistake that some make in trying to label Christianity or the churches as either right-wing or left-wing, or belonging to one party or the other. The Church of England can no longer be described as “the Tory party at prayer” and Labour can hardly be said to have its Christian and Methodist roots at the forefront of its agenda. The Daily Mail recently welcomed the Catholic bishops’ letter to voters, saying it “focuses firmly on the great moral questions of our time”, while dismissing the Church of England’s equivalent, saying it “could have been dictated by Labour HQ”.

But this is surely an example of the misguided attempts by some partisans to lay claim to Christian “values”. After all, the Mail does not normally echo the Catholic Church’s instruction that: “Government policies should be assessed on the ways in which they impact those most in need, including those who are homeless or hungry.”

Most Conservative MPs, including, of course, the handful who are Catholics, would agree with the Church on “life issues”. Yet the biggest row between the Church and the Government in the last Parliament came when Archbishop Vincent Nichols, now a cardinal, last year told The Daily Telegraph that welfare cuts and reforms were “a disgrace”. Meanwhile, Bishop Patrick Lynch, the auxiliary in Southwark who is responsible for migrants, has attacked and will continue to attack the tone of the immigration debate in Westminster, for which the Tories’ hard-line approach must take considerable responsibility.

Damian Green, the Conservative MP for Ashford, who describes himself to me as both a “social liberal” and a “birth Catholic” explains: “There are always going to be areas on which the Church and a party overlap, and areas where they don’t overlap.”

Green, an MP since 1997 and a former Immigration Minister who has been notable for his unconventionally positive position on the issue, adds: “The interaction between the Church and any political party ought to be difficult and I would intensely oppose the idea of political parties being representative of a religion.”

On his own approach, Green says of his faith: “It is so much a part of me that I don’t consciously think, ‘Is this a way to approach a particular political issue?’ This has been a socially liberal government and I don’t agree with the Church on equal marriage.” But he points to Cameron’s totemic concept, the Big Society, which is arguably the first political idea with an even vaguely Christian theme since John Major’s doomed Back to Basics. Green says: “The Big Society ought to be in line with Catholic Social Teaching. The idea that we as individuals flourish as part of a community, and we have mutual obligations to each other, is part of my philosophy.”

So how far have the Church and the Conservatives worked together in this parliament? The Catholic Church is more independent from Government than the Church of England, which is established and whose current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, enjoys networking in the House of Lords. Catholic bishops meet with MPs and peers from all the major political parties on a range of issues including education, prisons and foreign affairs.

But three areas of collaboration between the Tory-led coalition and the Catholic Church in this Parliament stand out. The first was the papal visit of Benedict XVI in 2010, which Lord Patten led on behalf of the Government. The second was the largest-ever ministerial visit abroad in 2012, when seven ministers went to the Vatican for bilateral talks about overseas development and aid, culture and art, as well as other areas of common interest.

Finally, there is the close collaboration between Theresa May, the Home Secretary, and Cardinal Nichols on human trafficking. This relationship was sealed with a joint article for The Daily Telegraph last April calling for a renewed drive to abolish slavery. Cardinal Nichols also addressed a conference on sexual violence in war, promoted by William Hague, the outgoing Leader of the House and Tory veteran.

In this context, the welfare row sparked by Cardinal Nichols’ comments was perhaps overblown by the secular media, which reported it as effectively coming out of the blue.

In fact, the cardinal did not attack the intention of reforming the welfare budget, but he did draw attention to what was happening on the ground as reported by parish priests and Catholic charities. Crucial to this was the rise in the number of food banks, on which Cameron was hazy in his election interview with Jeremy Paxman last month. (The Trussell Trust, the main provider of food banks in the UK, say they gave three days’ worth of food to more than 900,000 people in 2013 and 2014, up from 347,000 in the years before.)

Like Damian Green, Conor Burns welcomes interventions from the Church in politics “as long as it is a two-way street” and hits back: “Cardinal Nichols’ intervention on welfare wasn’t as soundly based as it could have been.” However, he says that “the document put out by the bishops’ conference was a masterclass in how the Church can act as an agent of thought provocation. I reflected on it as an MP coming to the end of the parliamentary term and if I found it thought-provoking, then I’m sure others will.”

But will “others” in the Government reflect on the position of the Church and indeed Christianity, amid the fever of the general election in May? There aren’t many practising Christians in the upper ranks of the Government. It may surprise some that Michael Gove, the Chief Whip who also attends St Mary Abbots, has come out very strongly as one. Writing the cover feature of The Spectator’s Easter issue, he praises the work of Christians around the world and for his own part, confesses to being “selfish, lazy, greedy, hypocritical, confused, self-deceiving, impatient and weak”.

Whether his libertarian, free-market and neo-conservative politics are in line with what are called “Christian values” is for others to judge. But he and Cameron, and Catholic MPs such as Burns, Green and the Catholic Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith, are in a small minority in the Tory party, let alone in the increasingly secular Westminster world.

Describing a rare moment when the godly and the political spheres collided, the Catholic journalist Daniel Johnson has a telling anecdote about Benedict XVI’s speech in Westminster Hall in 2010. The assembled politicians were bored and distracted during Benedict’s speech, according to Johnson, but in mid-flow the Pope paused and looked up, pointing at the wooden angels holding up the medieval roof: “‘Look at those angels!’ he said. ‘God is watching what we do here.’ A frisson passed through the vast hall and even the most cynical politicians woke up. When the Pope finished, he processed out of the great doors that swung open to reveal a huge crowd cheering outside. The politicians were left behind, with an invisible thought bubble above their heads: ‘Why aren’t we as popular as that?’”

James Macintyre is a biographer of Ed Miliband. Next week he looks at the relationship between Labour and Christianity.