I dare say that few British Catholic Herald readers are atheists. A number won’t vote Labour. But even some of those who do will recoil at the prospect of “the first atheist prime minister in British history”, as an interviewer described Sir Keir Starmer moving into 10 Downing Street later this year – as he seems almost certain to do.
But the facts of the matter, and their implications, turn out to be more complicated. For a start, the interviewer may have been wide of the mark. Sir Keir indeed replied, “No, I don’t”, when asked whether he believes in God. But that doesn’t necessarily set him up to be Britain’s first atheist prime minister.
