Bartholomew's Notes

From Mediaite:

President Donald Trump called on a friendly reporter during a press conference with Prime Minister Keir Starmer as part of his state visit to the United Kingdom on Thursday, who complimented the American president on being a “proud Christian leader.”

Bev Turner with GB News then asked Starmer, “Having been in DC for a few weeks, it’s really interesting to see how you run the country as a proud Christian leader. And it really begs the question to the prime minister, if you don’t mind, are we still a Christian country?”

Trump previously encountered Turner in Scotland in July, and she says that he remembered her when she visited the Oval Office earlier this month in the company of Nigel Farage.

I would have answered such a question by advising Turner to consult a sociologist of religion, but that obviously was not the point she was interested in: Starmer is known not be a man of faith, having stated in a Sunday Times Magazine interview from 2021 that he does not believe in God, and Turner was hopeful that his answer would be something that would alienate Trump and American viewers.

Instead, though, Starmer responded with some brief acknowledgement of what we might call Britain’s Christian heritage, and how that has been part of his own life:

“Yeah. Look, I mean, in terms of a Christian country, I was christened. So, that is my church, has been all my life,” Starmer began. “And we are, you know, that is wired into our informal constitution. Of course, we celebrate many other faiths as well. And I’m really proud that we’re able to do so as a country.”

This is the sort of answer you might expect from a politician: diplomatic and a bit vague, but also an attempt to emphasise common ground with a wide range of voters.

The press conference then moved on, but Turner thought she had sniffed out a gotcha and she returned to the subject later, as Trump boarded his plane. She told Trump that Starmer had said in his Times interview that he is a “convicted atheist” – not actually his self-description (1) – and she asked him whether he thought Starmer was “the kind of guy that says something when you’re there…”. However, Trump declined to be steered, and instead described Starmer as “nice” and a “fine person”, before discussing a couple of areas of disagreement. The idea of Trump of all people being asked to pass judgment on another politician’s sincerity in matters of religion is particularly ludicrous.

On social media, Turner followed up by promoting the views of an American fundamentalist who characterised Starmer’s answer as evidence that the UK is “a nation ruled by liars and Satanists”. Turner has frequently promoted conspiracism on social media (e.g. here, here and here), and at one point last year even toyed with the possibility that Trump himself is a “psyop”.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said in August that she lost her faith in 2008 after reading about the crimes of Josef Fritzl, while Nigel Farage has suggested that he avoids church because the vicar would subject him to a “Marxist lecture”.

Footnote

1. The 2021 interview can be read here. Starmer stated:

“This is going to sound odd, but I do believe in faith. I’ve a lot of time and respect for faith. I am not of faith, I don’t believe in God — but I can see the power of faith and the way it brings people together.”

Condensing this into “convicted atheist” gives an impression of a rather more antagonistic view of religion.

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