Must politicians do God?

Piggybacking on religion doesn't work | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Must politicians do God? It was odd that as the country grew more secular, so New Labour front benches contained rather more churchgoers than before, and fewer who dared profess the outright atheism of the Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland generation. Goodness knows what Gordon Brown actually believes, but he banged on about being imbued with his minister father's values so often that he risked raising the old man from the grave to admonish him. He was, as ever, trying to mimic Tony Blair, the undergraduate Christian convert on his journey to Rome. "We don't do God" was the sort of denial that got St Peter into trouble. He certainly did God, but in ways too mysterious to be understood by his electorate.

Nick Clegg announced his atheism – only to panic under pressure and politely rebrand it agnosticism. David Cameron is an archetypal Conservative social churchgoer – no alarming enthusiasm of the Blair variety, but a flicker of belief, he says elegantly, that comes and goes like reception from his local radio station.

But Ed Miliband is straightforward – an atheist born and bred, no pretending. Will he be punished for it? The answer to that question is a good proxy for a great many other questions about him. Can he be who he is, say what he thinks and avoid trimming to please target groups? Can he earn respect for authenticity and authority or these days do all politicians have to strain to be all things to all people? My hunch is that times have changed. After the MPs' expenses scandal, people feel contempt for politicians they think will do anything to gain and keep power. They may welcome a straighttalker. If I'm wrong, how depressing for the future of politics.

With his good listening habit and openness to new ideas, this humanist does human very well. Lack of religious belief may earn him more credit than the uneasy suspicion that Blair thought he had a private hotline to God, or that Brown was a religious phoney, faking it.

To be an atheist is not to disrespect people with religious beliefs. But it does suggest he will not afford religion a special status as Blair and Brown were inclined to. Religious groups are such tempting prey for politicians, hungrily eyeing all those people gathered together in pews or on prayer mats every week, listening to sermons. MPs worrying how to reach a nebulous "community" seize on any concrete group as a possible conduit for political messages. But trying to piggyback on churches or mosques doesn't tend to work: religious movements have their own various agendas and they try equally hard to make use of politicians for their own devices.

In truth, they inhabit separate universes – both in their way concerned with the great moral issues of the day. But great eternal religious certainties are often a bad fit with the everyday compromises of politics, inching along the path towards small improvements. If Miliband recognises these essential incompatibilities, he may find it easier to deal honestly with believers of all hues.