The former Works and Pensions secretary, James Purnell, interviewed in today's Guardian, comments on the wisdom of Labour's educational policies. In particular he turns the spotlight on faith schools. He says, "We've been allergic about having any kind of debate about the fact that we are making lots of parents have to pretend to be religious at school."

However this issue gives us an insight into what has always been a far profounder problem with the New Labour 'brand': When is a thought crime not a thought crime? When it's a New Labour policy.

It appears that by making people 'sign up' to the New Labour 'article of faith' the government truly thought that it could create a new generation of middle class Christians - or at the very least it might create a new generation of middle class parents and middle class children who possessed something approximating a Christian conscience. In fact by forcing the middle classes to jump through hoops in order to get their children a decent education, all that New Labour created was a nation of tired, jaded, politician-hating cynics.

So... if none of the parents of any of the children at any of the faith schools in any part of the land actually DO God, there is one question that still remains?

Who does?