Life After Death

belief has been enjoying a renaissance with some. Church-going has become more popular: Christian belief in the sanctity of human life has not. It may represent a better beginning than it first appears. Only time will tell. Secularisation of society has made it increasingly difficult for the believer to succeed in politics - at least to succeed without surrendering some important aspects of belief. Parties themselves have at times come to resemble para-churches, with quasi-Messianic charismatic leaders, and even the ritual and camaraderie associated with the Church. Some of their members use their parties as a secularised substitute for a church or religion.

Emulating the less tolerant epochs of church history, political parties have also developed an intellectual inquisition which tells its members how to think, how to speak (in sound-bites), and in some cases how to dress. It represents the triumph of style over content and has bred an intolerant political correctness. Members of Parliament end up issuing synchronised press statements, tabling authorised questions and motions, never speaking or voting out of turn. It is a pale imitation of truly representative politics - where principles and conscience come first. We have created a Parliament of Daleks - whose only function is to obey.

Stand for Truth The core requirement of being politically correct - 'PC' - is to believe that you should not say or do anything that some group might find offensive. It is an insistence that you conform to certain stereotypes - and one of its first casualties has been an honest and open debate. An independent frame of mind or a determination to question the new orthodoxies automatically makes you a maverick, out-of-step, old-fashioned, detached, reactionary or even bigoted. Ben Jonson once said: "Stand for truth; it's enough". Truth is the last thing they want to hear in politically correct circles. In many instances, political correctness may have begun with a good impulse: a concern with the dignity of women, a loathing of racial hatred, a hatred of discrimination - but it can degenerate remarkably quickly into being ridiculous and even intolerant. In politics, being politically incorrect can lead to de-selection, victimisation and narrowness in thought and action. There are few areas of British life which remain untouched by this pernicious phenomenon.

It begins with the very words we use. The language of Chaucer and Shakespeare is debased into the language of the Islington wine-bar. Inelegant expressions begin to pepper our speech. In local government, instead of addressing "Madam Chairman" or "Mr Chairman", the holder of the office becomes an inanimate "Chair". A slip of the tongue and the incorrect offender is guilty of heightism, sexism, racism, ageism - and any number of other 'isms'. If he is really unlucky, the offender might simultaneously manage them all at once!

Law and Double Standards Legislators are no better. You can be on the side of animals but not humans. In 1986, laws were enacted protecting animal embryos and even larvae from experiments, while four years later they gave the go-ahead for destructive