It's not that important but...

Now, as I am sure you will be aware, I am no fan of David Cameron but the Eton boy has had a good couple of weeks. Given his handling of the British press you would have thought he once worked in PR...... oh now wait. He has played the UK press like a fiddle and they have rolled over and taken it like a dog having it's belly tickled.

Firstly there was his stunt, I said stunt, in Europe, he vetoed something. “Oh yes!” rang out the right wing press with one voice, “our boy is our boy, look at him go, sticking it to the French, telling those Europeans where to go”. See, all you have to do is make like you are flipping the bird to the EU and you get a soft ride in your press if you are a Tory.

There is a lingering question though, did you actually do anything? Did he protect Britain's interests? Did he defend our nation from that nasty Europe? Were they going to vote on a new treaty that night? Well according to Channel 4's Fact Check no, no he didn't and no they weren't. To quote from that site “Let’s remember that Mr Cameron didn’t actually veto an attack on the City.

Greater regulation of financial services wasn’t even on the table. In fact, what was up for discussion wasn’t a treaty at all, and most of the proposals for greater fiscal union between the nations who use the single currency wouldn’t directly affect Britain anyway.”

Has his massive huff saved the Square Mile from a so-called Tobin Tax? Well if the EU wants it they will probably get it, again from Fact Check, “EU tax chief Algirdas Šemeta said that the FTT will be “designed in such a way that it doesn’t matter where transactions are taking place”. So a German or French bank trading in London would still be taxed, and it appears that British financial institutions will have to cough up if they do deal with a buyer or seller in the eurozone.”

Yet if you had read the British press you wouldn't have known this. The right-wing ones were very happy but their only explanation of the situation was “he said no to Europe and that's a good thing 'cos Europe is smelly” and the Leftist press went with roughly the same story except ending with “and that's a bad thing.” No attempt to explain that Mr Cameron did pretty much nothing. Well done everyone.

Then yesterday, Friday the 16^th for those not reading this on the day of publication, he made a speech to some Bishops or other and said something nebulous about being proud to be Christian although not practising that much and being proud to be so. Fine, I don't really care about your personal religion (unless you are just claiming it to score some extra voter points but that's discussion for a different day) but he did described the UK as a Christian nation. Again, an excellently worded statement aimed at getting the best possible coverage in the press that supports him and oh, how it worked. This was a deliberate attempt to get more positive press attention and was completely meaningless in policy terms, the policies of his party are not “Christian” as I understand it, picking on the weakest groups in society is not very nice. Blessed are the meek and the cheese peace maker, good Samaritan helping the poor, beaten up bloke etc.

Anyway, that, again, is not the point, the correct direction of questioning is “are we a Christian nation?” It is interesting that Mr Cameron decided to bring this up in the same week as the British Social Attitudes Survey 2011 was released which seems to indicate that we aren't. Some facts from this survey, 51% of Britains say they have no religion, 62% say they have never been to a religious survey and only 43% describe themselves as Christian. So are we a Christian nation, well, not really. If you ask which is the largest religion in the country then I suppose yes, you can describe the UK as a Christian nation but it would be a bit of a stretching of the truth or, as some might describe it, a lie (or as Fox News might describe it, a fact). More people have no religion than have any religion so we aren't a Christian country really. Most of us have no religion but let's not let that get in the way of a good headline. He has played a blinder.

Without actually doing anything significant Mr Cameron has managed to generate 2 weeks of unquestioning positive headlines in the places that he wants them. This, my friends, is excellent politics. Really, let us all take a step back and admire the work.