Talking about Tony Blair’s conversion to Rome, I’ve just heard Alastair Campbell on BBC News 24 saying he didn’t know whether constitutionally a catholic could be Prime Minister, his tentative implication being that that might have been one reason why Blair didn’t http://www.gooakley.com/ convert while in office. Amazing. Are people as politically savvy as Campbell really that ignorant about the constitution?
A catholic can’t succeed to the throne, because of the Act of Settlement – an obviously anachronistic law that should be done away with. But Nick Clegg is safe: there’s freedom of religion for the PM.
As you say, amazing – and he advised Blair?
Then again, what does Alastair Campbell know….?
Unless he said that deliberately, so that Blair doesn’t look cowardly for failing to convert during his time in office.
This is completely off topic, but Benezir Bhuto is dead, killed by some idiotic fool of a suicide bomber. What chance now of democracy and the rule of law? None whatsoever, I’d say. So much for religion…..
@ law minx
Yes, but.
In the eyes of his or her peers the action was heroic, a martyrdom. It was carried out with the highest motives, the best of intentions.
Until the West begins to properly understand what motivates these fanatics and what their personal values, hopes and aspirations may be, it can only deal with them in a superficial, unsubtle, manner.
Simply, that will not do. David Miliband’s platitudinous response to this incident is a measure of how incompetent he and his Ministry really are.
And while we are at it, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate of Pakistan is well worth examination. This is a body which has always regarded itself as wholly above the law.
Minx, be as off-topic as you like. Thanks for posting about Benazir’s death here while I was away.
Too many coplmimetns too little space, thanks!