Blair tells leaders: You must 'do God' in modern world

Published on 19/03/2009 22:29

POLITICAL leaders have to "do God" if they are to engage properly with the modern world, even if they personally have no religious faith, Tony Blair, the former prime minister, said yesterday.

Mr Blair was notoriously reticent about discussing his own religious faith while prime minister, with his head of communications, Alastair Campbell, once famously saying: "We don't do God."

But since leaving Downing Street, Mr Blair has converted to Roman Catholicism and become increasingly open about the importance of religion to his thinking. In a magazine article yesterday, he wrote:

"Religious faith and how it develops could be of the same significance to the 21st century as political ideology was to the 20th."

He added: "Leaders, whether of religious faith themselves or not, have to 'do God'."