Thought for the Day

 

The other topic I had thought about before Question Time last week was the Butler Sloss report on the place of religion in modern British life. This was full of all kinds of extremely sensible recommendations, widely decried by the usual suspects. These went from the idea that their might be fewer C of E bishops in the House of Lords, and the numbers made up by a sprinkling of imams and rabbis, to some serious reservations over whether 'faith schools' were the direction we wanted to travel in 21st century Britain. I haven't managed to find the full version of the report online (if anyone does, could they post a link), but it doesn't seem to have gone so far as to recommend the disestablishment of the Church of England (or to suggest for that matter that we might have NO 'faith leaders in the House of Lords), but that would surely be the obvious next step.

There was only one thing where the traditionalist in this old agnostic growled a bit -- and that was in opening up Radio Four's "Thought for the Day" to the non-religious.

 There is, I concede, something faintly ridiculous about the whole programme. And it is very wonderfully parodied on this site (go to the earliest entries; they are fuller than the more recent ones and hilarious). It doesn't take much to get into the spirit of the thing: "I much enjoyed the big match last night, and when that last almost-goal was stopped by ManU's heroic goalie, I am sure all our hearts were in our mouths . . .