Reply #30: All very good points...

[LeftishBrit]

and although this particular threat was beaten off, I am very shaken by events in my own constituency, where smear campaigns by religious fundies and other fringe-nuts against the local MP were seemingly the cause of his narrow defeat. (It's a very marginal seat.)

I would strongly recommend anyone, anywhere, to be on the look-out against the intrusion into politics of the religious fringe-nuts .- even if you think you live somewhere where this is not a problem. I thought so too, until rather too late.

Of course, it's nothing like the situation with the Christian Right in America; and not likely to become so, especially as there *are* many fewer highly religious people here. But any religious-righties (and similar ideologues) are too many.