Oh, my. Tony Blair seems to have declared war against us.

“We face an aggressive secular attack from without. We face the threat of extremism from within.”

Arguing that there was “no hope” from atheists who scorn God, he said the best way to confront the secularist agenda was for all faiths to unite against it.

He said: “Those who scorn God and those who do violence in God’s name, both represent views of religion. But both offer no hope for faith in the twenty first century.”

The spectacle of these pious phonies flailing against the secular agenda could be worth a giggle. “Down with secular public education! More revelation, less science! Get reason and evidence out of our politics!”

How does that loin-girding work, anyway? I keep confusing it with tying a tie and end up with this long dangly bit in front, and it just doesn’t look very rampant, if you know what I mean. Not that it matters much, since we’re going to battle with forces that have spurned secular methods and plan to pray at us or cast magic spells or something, but I’d like to at least look natty.