“I don't believe in God personally but I have great respect for those people who do and different people have different religious views in this country.”
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The great thing is that whether we have faith or not, we are by and large very tolerant of people, whatever their particular view.
The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.
It's really important to say this. Often the faith schools were founded before the state provided education. I want good education in this country so I'm not going to slag off faith schools. I think that it's important that people of different backgrounds and different faiths go to school together and many faith schools do that.
And think of how we challenged the idea of a male dominated Parliament with All-Women shortlists and made the cause of gender equality central to our government. We were right to do so.