Political activists who behave like zealots will do no good at all

The election debate so far has included a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing over whether religion has a place in politics and whether religious politicians have to spend significant portions of interviews talking about their views on what other people get up to in bed. But one striking feature of all political debate is how many of its participants behave like religious zealots without even realising it.

Media vicar Reverend Richard Coles yesterday tweeted that he’d spoken to a friend who planned to switch from Labour to the Conservative, rather than the Lib Dems, as Coles might have expected. The replies to this message were rather instructive. A number of people thought this voter simply could not exist. Another said in threatening tones that they hoped this friend would never need the NHS, which allowed Coles to explain that his pal was in fact an NHS consultant. This led to more people wondering whether this friend was real, suggesting they probably did a lot of private work on the side, or accusing them point blank of being ‘self-serving’.