Letter: Christians bring honesty to Westminster

Sir: "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer." (Bacon: Of Truth). You are probably right to say (leading article, 8 April) that Tony Blair is taking a risk in playing the Christian card (if that is what he has done) but to say that "no true Christian, one who actually lived a life of love and self sacrifice, would survive in politics" is not only gloomy but also muddled thinking.

What is a true Christian? You seem to be proposing a definition and then saying that this cannot be attempted in the hurly-burly of life.

Many of us would say that, on the contrary, that must be its mise-en- scene. Tony Blair, Ann Widdecombe and all the rest of us will mix success with failure, but we must keep the ideal before us and know that the essence of repentance and forgiveness is that we may go on and on with the cycle and so progress is made. Otherwise we may as well give up and then it is not only the political outlook that will be truly without hope.

The Rev Ben Hopkinson

Stainton, Middlesbrough