Census office feels the Force of followers of the 'Jedi faith'

So many people entered "Jedi Knight" on their census form that the Office of National Statistics has given the creed an official numerical code, denoting it as a religion within the "other" category.

The census number-crunchers learnt the hard way that those who stand in the way of the Jedi are doomed to fail. They dismissed as a lunatic fringe the Star Wars fans who responded to the question on religion in this year's census with the answer "Jedi Knight".

But they were up against a power they did not understand. Self-proclaimed Jedis were using e-mail to persuade followers of the creed that they must make their allegiance public and stand up for their faith.

And even if they were taking George Lucas' sci-fi saga a touch too seriously, the Force must have been with them, because they have triumphed over the ONS.

During the e-mail campaign, potential Jedis were told that if 10,000 people claimed to be followers the religion would become official, but the ONS was insistent last night that it did not mean the Government had recognised Jedis or "the Force" as a new religious group.

Yet somewhere in Whitehall a computer now lists hundreds or possibly thousands of people under the classification "896" for Jedi Knight.

A somewhat weary spokesman for the ONS refused to state how many Jedi Knights the census had recorded, saying that information would not be available until autumn next year, and then only to those willing to pay an unspecified fee.

The spokesman said: "We were trying to get the census taken seriously but we recognise that there was this mood where people would put this answer in the 'other' section whether we wanted them to or not.

"A sufficient number put it in that we felt it was appropriate to give them a code for administrative purposes just so it was quicker to put the information through the machines. It is not a recognition of anything."

The spokesman added that it was not yet clear if the Jedis had warped the view of the religious make-up of Britain provided by the census. "That is for others to decide. We just count the numbers," he said.