Editor-At-Large: Look out, bishop. The Jedi are after your faithful

I spent yesterday organising a petition to the Bishop of Norwich on behalf of the 390,000 Jedi Knights of England and Wales who have nowhere to worship. As the 2001 census analysis which was published last week reveals, the Right Reverend Graham James presides over a flock of the least devout people in the country (27.8 per

cent admit that they have no religion), while nearly 400,000 people say that they are, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knights. So this might be the time for the bishop to allow one of his underused churches to be converted to a Star Wars temple. The Church of England might be glowing with pride that most people (71.1 per cent) still describe themselves as Christians, but they have no cause to gloat when 7.7 million (14.8 per cent) of us, including those in Norwich, have no religion at all, and only 11 per cent of the believers bother going to church once a month. The census proves one thing – we haven't lost our sense of humour. More people claimed to be Jedi Knights than Sikhs, Jews or Buddhists.

The census also demonstrates that the size of the ethnic population in Britain has been consistently overestimated. A recent Mori poll showed that we believed it stood at 22.5 per cent, when in fact the census shows it at a mere 9 per cent.

The Daily Telegraph chose to tell the story on Friday with a front page headline which screamed "Whites are a minority in two areas of Britain", and its reporter then pointed out that our non-white community of 4.6 million members "exceeds the population of Ireland". It seems that "analysts" predict that by 2011 Leicester may well become the first city with a non-white majority.

You could look at the statistics in an entirely different way and show that one quarter of all the people who currently live in Wales weren't born there, and so must be immigrants, and that Britain's first all-white area is probably around Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland, or Tony Blair's constituency, Sedgefield.

More worryingly, the census reveals an ageing, increasingly single population with one in 10 of us spending 50 hours a week, unpaid, caring for relatives and neighbours. Almost a quarter (23.3 per cent) of the Welsh population has a long-term illness, compared with only 15.5 per cent of those living in the South-east. We still live in a country of two classes – the haves and the have-nots – and surely this is a more productive area to reflect on than ethnicity and religious belief.

The Low Pay Unit disbanded last week, because no one was willing to cough up the £100,000 it required to carry on operating. The writer Polly Toynbee has written an eloquent book championing the low-paid (Hard Work: life in low-pay Britain), campaigning for the Government to raise the minimum wage from the measly £4.20 an hour it is at present to a more realist £5. Fat chance.

While the census reveals that the number of households with more than two cars is growing, so is the gap between the middle classes and the poor. We now have the highest poverty levels in Europe. As the Government encourages education and health authorities to privatise huge swaths of their services, so more and more workers are employed via agencies at the minimum wage with no employment protection at all. And the census reveals that 42 per cent of women work part time, many in these contract jobs, trying to make ends meet. Women make up most of the people in personal services (84 per cent), from childminders to hairdressers, and only 35 per cent of managers and pro-fessionals. If more people (and that must mean more women) are going to university than ever before and achieving degrees, how come they are they still washing dishes, typing letters and wiping up vomit for a living?

Quiz night

Nowhere is Britain's two-class culture brought home more clearly than in an advertisement in last Friday's Guardian. Designed as a cut-out banner against war against Iraq, the list of distinguished signatures reads like a River Café quiz night, from Nick Hornby and Sir John Mortimer to the architects Richard Rogers and Will Alsop. Who thought that a list of pop stars, chefs, architects and luvvies would carry any more weight than the ordinary voters in Newham, Britain's most ethnically mixed borough? Do I care what shoe designer Emma Hope or agony aunt Mariella Frostrup thinks about Saddam Hussein?

These people are no doubt sincere, and I admire them for taking a stand. But there's a good reason not to sign anything like this – it just reads like the guest list for a movie premiere. I imagine that the River Café proprietor Ruth Rogers came up with a natty little goodie bag for signatories to take on the march yesterday, a bit of home-made focaccia, a nibble of polenta, some virgin olive oil and a couple of black truffle shavings. Sadly, these middle-class souls (all professionals) are preaching to the converted. Would they be so ready to sign an advertisement imploring that the minimum wage be raised, or write a cheque to enable the Low Pay Unit to carry on?

I'm not saying war is not a serious topic. But closer to home are unsexy issues such as the shockingly poorly rewarded (women make up 80 per cent of those in the 10 lowest-paid occupations), and the two-thirds of the have-nots in England and Wales eligible for working families tax credits who do not claim them. To these people, protesting about war is a luxury they cannot afford.

Here in Clerkenwell, London, EC1, fashionable loft-dwellers have logged on to the US government's website to discover how to prepare for a biological, chemical or nuclear attack. My neighbours are concerned about the advice to stock up on sticky tape and plastic sheeting to seal all windows before retiring to a windowless room with a supply of tinned food and 4.5 litres a day of bottled water.

Luckily, most single, upwardly mobile people around these parts live on mineral water as part of their daily detox regimes. The tinned food could be a problem – as most survive on delivered gourmet meals and takeaways, their fridges contain only Sauvignon Blanc, quarter bottles of bubbly (for a quick lift before going out clubbing) and gel masks from Boots to get rid of the unwanted eye baggage next morning. And they've paid a fortune for live-work spaces with giant windows. The only space without one is the "wet" room (more trendy than a shower) or boiler room – and that's full of cases of mineral water and an exercise bike. So partying, not panicking, has become the order of the day.

I visited a new club wittily entitled Kashpoint on a boat moored by Waterloo Bridge to be met by a man wearing a pillow on his head – perhaps it was his interpretation of A Guide to Citizen Preparedness. Mind you, I'd rather dance with a man sporting a pillow than read one more favourable review of that talentless misery Nick Cave. Is it politically incorrect to loathe Cave? He's certainly the middle-class media's favourite singer – his latest collection of dirges garnering five stars, numerous accolades, and lavish praise. He's even on the cover of a new magazine, Word. I just ask the question, why?