There have been many examples of David Cameron ‘doing God’
in recent times, from his speech celebrating the 400th anniversary
of the King James Bible last December to him hosting a reception for Christian
leaders at Downing Street to celebrate
Easter (not Holy Week in his words
but Easter week, though let us not quibble).
Keen to burnish his Christian credentials, this
self-professed ‘committed’ but ‘vaguely practicing’ Anglican stated during his
Easter reception that “I think there is something of a Christian fight-back
going on in Britain and I think that’s a thoroughly good thing”. Unfortunately, Dave appears to have neglected
to mention this to James Eadie QC, the barrister representing the Government in
landmark cases currently being heard before the European Court of Human Rights.
Amongst the human rights challenges being considered,
Shirley Chaplin and Nadia Eweida – a nurse and a British Airways worker
respectively – argue that their employers’ refusal to allow them to openly wear
crucifixes at work contravened Articles 9 and 14 of the European Convention on
Human Rights, which prohibit discrimination on grounds of religion.
However, speaking for the Government, James Eadie QC
countered that wearing a cross was not a “generally recognised” act of
Christian worship as “a great many Christians do not insist on wearing crosses,
still less visibly”. More ridiculously,
he claimed that neither Chaplin nor Eadie had been discriminated against by their
employers as they were free to “resign and move to another job”.
So how closely do the Government’s words in Court marry to
Cameron’s recent proclamations on faith? Well, not remotely so; not even close.
During his Easter reception, Cameron said, “I think we see
this fight-back in this very strong stance that I’ve taken and others have
taken in terms of the right to wear a crucifix. I think this is important.”
Such a strong stance in fact that his Government’s lawyers
are currently arguing that as there is no ostensible obligation for Christians
to wear a crucifix then their ‘rights’ could not have been impinged.
With poll after poll, decade after decade, supporting the 18th
century perception of the Church of England being the ‘Tory Party at prayer’, then Cameron has problems.
Without a party co-Chairman who he can any longer instruct to ‘do
Allah’ on the Government’s behalf, Cameron’s ability to ‘do God’ is undoubtedly
going to be of more importance come the next general election than it was a week ago.
Based on his, and his Government’s, record so far, he’s in
trouble…
