British MP's and their faiths

I have started this thread in order to find out what faith, if any, british MP's are bound too. If there has been any conversion that would also be worthwhile noting.

Any help would be appreciated. I'm particularly looking for any Jews in British Parliament.

I think it would be appropriate to name only one Member of Parliament in each post with a reference to how the information was obtained.

I'll begin with the obvious:

Tony Blair
Christian - sometimes reffered to as Anglo-Catholic
news.bbc.co.uk...

His wife, Cherie Blair, is reported to be a Roman Catholic.

[edit on 9-11-2006 by surrender_dorothy]

[edit on 9-11-2006 by surrender_dorothy]

Shahid Malik

Muslim

www.timesonline.co.uk...

Mohammad Sarwar

Muslim

www.guardian.co.uk...

1997 Mohammed Sarwar becomes first Muslim MP, holding Govan for Labour

Sadiq Khan

Muslim

www.muslimnews.co.uk...

This is bloody hard because it seems near impossible tie a politician down to their supposed religion.

Anyway Oliver letwin

Jew

news.bbc.co.uk...

Louise Ellman

Jew

www.ynetnews.com...

Oona King

Jew

www.inminds.co.uk...

Evan Harris

Jew

www.melaniephillips.com...

I need som help find Brish MP's who are Buddhists or Sikhs. Nore have I found any who believe in Scientology, Taoism or Shinto.

Although I have already been unindated with assistance from the ATS community I could do with a little more help.

Are you hoping to compile a list of 659 separate and individual entries on what MP's have publicly claimed is their 'faith'?

What on earth for.....and what on earth would it really mean anyway?

Surely the only significant factual data of this type one needs to know about the people who are our representation in the House of Commons is that -
1) they are overwhelmingly white,
2) they are overwhelmingly male,
3) they are in very large numbers Public or Private School educated (that's the British version of 'Public school', it does not meaning state school educated!),
4) they are overwhelmingly university educated,
5) they are overwhelmingly of a middle class or upper class background,
6) they are overwhelmingly of a 'faith background' from some branch of Protestant-ism and
7) they are overwhelmingly very middle aged or even older.

Move over to the House of Lords and the picture is even more white, male, even older, very wealthy and even less representitive of the British public at large.

It's been slowly getting a little better (the Labour party has made genuine strides in getting far more women and people from an ethnic background elected into Parliament, so have the LibDems and now even the tory party claim to be trying).
But none of this is especially 'news' to anyone, surely?

What of it?

I was just hoping that there might be some shocking info for example Gordon Brown being into paganism. But it all seems pretty unlikely and i'm bored of this already.

Well it was a boring route to take to get around to asking a pretty straight-forward question......for which there is a pretty straight-forward answer.

Gordon Brown is a 'son of the Manse', his father is a Church of Scotland Minister.

Gordon Brown is as up and down straight as they come, sometimes (wrongly actually) seen as dour and humourless.

But I have a feeling that the era of the 'young' and supposedly 'charismatic' leaders is drawing to a close.

Sheer competence and long years of experience with a straight-forward straight-talking manner are IMO what the (ageing) British public are going to go for next and Gordon Brown is that kind of man.
I reckon he is odds on to win the next British general election.

We shall see.

cheers sminkeypinkey. you seem to be in the know so perhaps you could answer my actual question. Finding the answer to this question is the real reason I started this thread.

Are any British politicians into some obscure cult or religion?

That's an interesting question.

Tbh it depends on your idea of obscure and what constitutes a cult I suppose.

I could maybe point out Eric Pickles (tory MP for Brentwood & Ongar and Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government ) who has been getting very cozy with an obscure US evangelical fundy group the Peniel Pentecostal Church that have set up in his constituency (as well as things like tithes they're one of those all encompassing groups.....it's not only a church but you bank with their bank, have your mortgage through their mortgage company etc etc).
I'm pretty sure Pickles isn't a member of the group but I know there has been much comment about his need for their votes prompting a long silence over their buying up large numbers of houses in Essex villages
(it's near where I used to live in England and one man I spoke to about talked about people feeling forced out by the religious zealots).

You'll also maybe find people like the Northern Irish DUP MP's religious views cultish or obscure.
Very fundy evangelical, very very 'literal' in their Biblical tastes.
At it's most extreme they're quite Calvinist....all stuff about 'the Elect' etc and the Roman Catholic Church being satanic.

Perhaps one or two Scots are quite Calvinist too (Calvinism does after all hail from Scotland).

Recently we also had a little frisson of excitement over Ruth Kelly (SoS for Education) because she is a member of Opus Dei.
Mention 'Opus Dei' and lots of people start giggling about self-flagellation and strict Roman Catholicism.
I can't say as I've seen much that could honestly be claimed to be her forcing her views on everybody else tho.

But to tell the truth Britain just isn't that bothered too much about 'public religion'; the days of an huge interest in someone's private religious beliefs are pretty much over......although if it comes too public or it comes to light that a proposed law is simply a sop to religion then 'we' tend to not like it much and complain and refuse them.

That's not to say a person's private beliefs are not respected (the recent Gov moves to ally Church fears and concerns on the introducing greater numbers of pupils from outside of a 'faith group's schools illustrate that well enough) but we are absolutely a secular society where our 'established Church' (the Church of England) holds little public attention.

We really don't go in for public religion or public political declarations about religion very much at all, in fact I'd say it's strongly disliked......we're nothing at all like the US in this regard for instance.

But I don't think spending lots of effort having to go looking for a few examples of a nearly invisible and odd religion in Parliament is really what is important or the most productive use of our time tho.

Far more immediate in our concerns ought to be, IMO, the fact that as of Oct 2006 -

In parliament there have only ever been 291 women MPs.

www.communities.gov.uk...

It seems to me that 'we' can't even get a just gender balance right.
That ought to be a major concern to us.

If we keep on excluding from the decision making processes the very people those decisions are supposed to apply to it is no wonder we end up with poor law, often lacking 'popular support' and ill-fitting the purposes it is intended for?