Pragmatic PM proves a Christian contradiction

IS GOD welcome in the House of Commons? Is government about making choices between good and evil? Is there room for morality in politics?

To one Labour man centrally involved in British politics today, the answer is a resounding "yes". His faith is deep-rooted and all-embracing, influencing if not deciding just about every major decision he has taken in recent years. To him, morality matters. Absolutely.

But ask another Labour politician who has reached the top of the greasy pole and the answer is rather different. For him, a "good" government is simply one that delivers efficient administration, running a healthy economy and delivering good public services. Beyond upholding the law, the state has no real business in the private lives of its citizens. And we don’t do God.

Another rift at the heart of government? Gordon Brown’s Church of Scotland socialism pitted against Tony Blair’s metropolitan secularism? Not quite.

The first politician whose beliefs are sketched here is Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. And so is the second.

At his monthly press conference in Downing Street yesterday, all eyes were on Mr Blair for signs of tension with Mr Brown. The inflections, the gestures, the body language all subject to Westminster Kremlinology for the merest hint of unease.

And hints there were. From my vantage point in the second row - just behind Andrew Marr’s right ear - I can faithfully report that Mr Blair was left genuinely uncomfortable by some of the questions thrown at him. Only they were the ones about God, not Gordon.

Asked whether the Asian tsunami had shaken his faith in God, he was by turns bland and evasive. Asked if he saw his drive to improve the plight of millions of Africans in terms of "good and evil", he gently declined. The needless deaths of children are "an evil", he said. Regarding the moral status of the causes of those deaths, he said nothing.

This is puzzling, but not surprising. Tony Blair oversees a government that is distinctly shy of moral debate. Look no further than Mr Blair’s treatment of one of New Labour’s fallen angels, David Blunkett.

Throughout the agonies of Mr Blunkett’s slow-motion downfall, Mr Blair was steadfast in his support for the former Home Secretary. Even after the evidence of conduct incompatible with ministerial office had forced him out, the Prime Minister kept the door more than half-open for Mr Blunkett’s return.

His lifeline was Sir Alan Budd’s open verdict on his conduct. That means no official finding that Mr Blunkett broke any rules. And for Mr Blair, that means everything’s OK.

Because Mr Blair’s public view of his ministers is simply that as long as they do a good job and keep within the rules, nothing else much matters.

The simple fact of Mr Blunkett’s relationship with a married woman and his earlier relationship with a junior official in his own department just don’t come into it. Nor do the handful of other ministers currently pursuing extra-marital affairs have much fear of censure from Mr Blair. There is no expectation on them to live good lives, just to do a good job.

The Prime Minister may have a good many devout Christians in his government and sometimes comes across as preachy, but when it comes to questions of personal morality, he doesn’t actually do much preaching.

Part of the reticence is a tactical hangover from New Labour’s early days. Mr Blair was happy to see the Tories hoisted with their own petard when sermonising on personal decency in public then philandering wildly in private. But he gave no hostages to fortune: in opposition, his team never attacked Tory ministers for their conduct, fearful that once in government, Labour could be held to the same standards.

Mr Blair’s almost amoral view of public life may be tactically shrewd and it may well chime with large sections of public opinion. Yet it is hard to believe it sits happily with his own conscience. Behind the spin and evasion, he is a genuinely committed Christian who believes strongly in the sacrament of marriage and the virtues of the family. Whatever else they accuse him of, not even Mr Blair’s worst enemies have ever found the slightest evidence suggesting any infidelity or sexual misconduct. None ever expects to, either.

Nor do many of Mr Blair’s policies chime with his own soul. No-one who knows him can see him ever making much use of pubs that open 24 hours a day, or US-owned mega-casinos.

Since George Bush’s re-election in the United States, growing credence has been lent to the theory that Americans have morality while Europeans have secularism, and never the twain shall meet.

MR BLAIR has been happy enough to play along with the caricature, looking distinctly ill at ease when a couple of years ago he was asked if he and the president prayed together.

(The answer, incidentally, is yes, but only up to a point. The two men have often dined together, and Mr Bush is in the habit of saying grace before he breaks bread.)

But consider Mr Blair’s answer yesterday when he was asked if there were any circumstances when torture is justified. "No," he replied, unblinking.

That is a far clearer position than that taken by Mr Blair’s fellow Christian, in the White House. Mr Bush has nominated as his new attorney general Alberto Gonzales, a man who apparently believes that in the war on terror, many of the people America believes to be its enemies are not entitled to the Geneva Convention’s protection from torture.

So the European sophisticate is happy to engage in moral black and whites, but the born-again Texan prefers the decidedly greyer area of politico-legal discussion that weighs an individual’s rights against the needs of the wider collective struggle.

And do not underestimate the role Mr Blair’s sense of morality played in his decision to go to war in Iraq. Privately, he has sometimes flirted with a philosophy that would commit the West to toppling not just Saddam but Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, the military dictators of Burma and anyone else whose regime fails the morality test.

Yet such passionate views are mostly kept well hidden as the Prime Minister finds rather more practical reasons for his policies. Asked last year about his government’s "moral compass", Mr Blair again looked shifty and replied: "The common moral theme is doing the sensible thing."

So Saddam had to go not because he was evil but because he was a military threat. We have to save Africa not because doing so is right but because it will boost chances for British trade and curb the flow of asylum seekers.

Perhaps after the next election, Mr Blair’s last, we will see a little more of Mr Blair’s true soul, especially when he truly embarks on his attempt to help Africa.

For now though, the Prime Minister will hold to his calculation that the only way to keep the electoral mandate he needs to carry out his moral mission is to keep his morality hidden.

For a man possessed of an almost supernatural self-confidence, it is a curiously cautious path to take. And for a leader striving so hard for righteousness, not a little tragic, too.