A new report says that those who identify as having “no religion” (“Nones”) outnumber Christians in England and Wales. While Christians (Anglicans, Catholics and others) made up 43.8% of the population, the Nones represented 48.5%, almost double the 25% describing themselves this way in the 2011 census.

While obviously there are also other religions, the report (“Contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales” by Stephen Bullivant, due to be launched in the House of Commons next week) focuses on the rising indifference towards Christianity, and the failure of the churches to retain people who were brought up as Christians – a switch also reflected in statistics from Scotland and, to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland.

All interesting to someone like me who’s never been religious – heavily lapsed CofE at best. Nor have I ever been aggressively atheist: unless the way a belief system is practised becomes extreme, unfair and affects others, it seems entirely people’s own business. Now it seems I am something, even if that carries the unlovely tag of a None. Otherwise, where Christianity is concerned, I flip-flop all over the place: one minute, cheered by Justin Welby speaking up for the poor; the next, frustrated by Catholicism’s ongoing stance on Aids and condoms. But that’s just me. What’s interesting is that so many others seem to have arrived at None in their own way, for their own reasons, even, as this report says, after childhoods far more formally religious than mine. What are they moving towards – or moving away from?

Perhaps the oft-cited arguments in favour of Christianity – that it encourages a sense of community – seem a tad overplayed in modern times. However people police their behaviour these days, it’s more likely to be secularist/humanist-tinged – a basic respect for others – than actively religious. Moreover, even the most isolated individual is likely to have access to the “community” of television, phone and internet – far from ideal, but, if you’re not religious, neither is sitting in a draughty hall with a Bible group and a digestive biscuit.

I wonder if these statistics could be even lower. While I know some genuine churchgoers, in my experience there’s also a thriving subculture of parents mysteriously “finding religion” to get their children into superior church schools. I’m not judging these parents (so far as I’m concerned, anything goes in the school crapshoot), but the point must be made that the only thing they truly “believe” in is getting their children through their GCSEs.

Then there are those thankfully rare types whose behaviour could put people off Christianity altogether. Recently, the late Christopher Hitchens was accused (by a US religious opponent) of having undergone a deathbed conversion, with doubts about his own atheist stance. This claim (swiftly rebuffed by his widow) could be said to have undermined Hitchens’s credibility. Let’s hope that it was an honest mistake – it would be disappointing if certain religious people, usually the first to demand respect and civility, were perceived to trample so carelessly upon the reputations of those who oppose them.

To me, a None, this partly explains the membership crisis facing Christianity in this country. At present, the church makes scheduled appearances in people’s lives only at times of high drama (birth, marriage, death), and has also become part of the desperate scramble for a free decent education. Certainly, if deathbed panic and school admission frenzy have become big recruitment opportunities (different methods of “scaring up” new believers), then it shows how bad things are. Surely, if you’re so inclined, religion should be a life choice, not a lifestyle one. Perhaps what this report reflects is how Christianity is in danger of losing its relevance for British people in their daily lives, where it might really matter.

It all could have been so different, David… I mean, Ed



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ed and David Miliband: only one of these men is any good with a bacon sandwich. Photograph: Paul Grover/Rex/Shutterstock

On Question Time last Thursday, Ed Miliband was twice called “David” by fellow panellist, novelist Dreda Say Mitchell. Ed took it well, but it must have smarted.

It’s been a while since the Milibands’ Cain and Abel political fratricide show was big box-office, but anyone who thought that Ed shafted his older brother must have enjoyed this latest karmic instalment. Not only did Ed’s sibling eclipse of his older brother fail to materialise when he was Labour leader, with everyone constantly muttering about him being the “wrong” Miliband, but all these years on he’s still publicly addressed as “David”.

With all that’s happened (ahem), I wonder whether Ed sometimes lapses into a reverie, where an alternative life unfolds. He steps nobly aside for photogenic David, a man who could perhaps be trusted to eat a bacon sandwich. Then, maybe Labour wins, and Ed enjoys a high-flying political career as chancellor, foreign secretary, or whatever was decided when he fell on the leadership sword. That wouldn’t have been a bad career trajectory – better, anyway, than being called “David” on Question Time, not once but twice. If such thoughts don’t occasionally niggle Ed, he must be made of concrete.

No more Bonds, please – kill him off



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Daniel Craig as 007 in Spectre: over-snug swimming trunks not pictured. Photograph: Allstar/United Artists

Please tell me that we’ve reached peak-Bond speculation. I couldn’t care less if Daniel Craig has tired of playing him, or whether actor Tom Hiddleston had brunch with director Sam Mendes.

Which might, however, mean it’s looking less likely that there could be a genuinely interesting casting decision, resulting in a black Bond, female Bond, or whatever. Instead, the result looks set to be … a prominent white male actor. “Good heavens!” we’ll cry, “Who saw that coming?”

Whoever lands the role, it’s probable that Bond would still be played straight, and would still pump out the kind of male ultra-hetero wish-fulfilment malarkey that makes old Benny Hill sketches resemble feminist manifestos. Fast brum-brums, supposedly futuristic gadgets that all look as if they fell out of a mid-range Sainsbury’s Christmas cracker, and let’s not forget the ladeez! – all those “hot babes” who don’t seem to mind being killed, so long as they get to spend time snuggling up to Bond’s artfully teased chest hair.

Although I’ve always found Bond deeply irritating, akin to having an intermittently buzzing bluebottle trapped inside British culture, the nadir was hit hit in Skyfall, where a female character with a glass of whisky on her head was executed, and Bond quipped: “A waste of a good Scotch.”

If something was being squandered, it wasn’t a tumbler of Macallan, it was Craig’s acting chops and dignity. Now Craig is leaving Bond behind, it seems, taking his over-snug swimming trunks with him, but the Bond bore-a-thon looks set to rumble ingloriously on, to the point where it’s rather embarrassing having this tuxedo-clad troglodyte dominate the film landscape.

Instead of endlessly speculating about who is going to play Bond, how about a referendum about how to kill him off?