Blair reveals why PMs don’t ‘do God’

Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last Christmas, has finally explained why he didn't "do God" - in the famous phrase of his one-time spin doctor Alastair Campbell - while he was Prime Minister. It was because talking about religion always led to "a packet of trouble", Blair said at Westminster Cathedral on Thursday.

Making his first speech about his Christian beliefs since leaving Downing Street in June, Blair explained why Britain's politicians tended to keep their faith private. "To admit to having faith leads to a whole series of suppositions,” he said. These include the risk of being "considered weird" and voters thinking "that your religion makes you act, as a leader, at the promptings of an inscrutable deity".

Blair, who notably did not mention the war in Iraq, said religious faith was "a good thing" and that acts of terrorism had highlighted the fact that "we ignore the power of religion at our peril". (Continued below)

The former PM was appearing at the Cathedral to launch the Tony Blair Faith Foundation which he hopes will help unify people of different religions and spur them on to end world poverty.