Jonathan Davies

As an Anglican, there is a little bit of me that would always like to see an Anglican as Prime Minister, but I recognise that that is not always desirable or possible. In fact, despite the historical measures relating to Catholic emancipation that we have discussed today, of course Roman Catholicism never did go away. Catholics practised their faith in private, often in fear of their life. The secret of the success of the Church of England is that it is the original broad church. Even within the Anglican communion, there are people who hold a whole variety of views, and allowing our Prime Minister, a Roman Catholic, to perform his constitutional function of advising the monarchy is very much in keeping with that tradition. A week last Sunday, I attended the High Sheriff’s legal service at Derby cathedral. It was for Dr Syed Yusuf Iftikhar, an NHS consultant who came from Pakistan and served for over 40 years in the NHS. It brought together people from different faith communities, and was led by the Dean of Derby, the Very Rev. Peter Robinson, but we had representatives from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths. That is the Church of England at its best, particularly at a time when we see division in our society. We have talked about antisemitism today, but recently we have unfortunately seen racist aspects to our political parties here. The Church of England has an excellent role to play in bringing communities together, and many of us will see that on Remembrance Sunday next month.