The Church of England (deceased) has produced a prayer for the discussions about the EU referendum. It is a classic example of the church’s debauched and gutless attitude to everything that moves in public life and I am afraid its atrocity has so irritated my friend Alexander Boot that it has led him into committing blasphemy. I will take this opportunity publicly to exonerate Alex. He has not blasphemed in his recent blog on the subject but eloquently hit this ecclesiastical hydra on all its soft heads.

As a sort of cauterisation, I offer a referendum Prayer of my own:

“O Lord our God, who by the operation of thy boundless grace and mercy, hast established this realm of England in a fair ground and hast blessed and guided its monarchs and people these many ages: we give thee humble and heartfelt thanks for all thy goodness. And we further extol and magnify thy Holy Name for that thou hast not made us in the image of those cheese-eating surrender monkeys across the Channel, neither hast thou fashioned us as the brutish Kraut, nor even as the slippery Dago and the shiftless Eyetie. We beseech thee, O Lord, that in thine unsearchable Providence, thou wouldst protect and defend us against the subtle malevolence of them that are called Eurocrats and do thine utmost to strike down those of our own nation, who indeed call themselves Englishmen, but whom thou knowest to be covetous men and dissemblers whose will is only to do thy people mischief. We pray thee also that thou wouldst in thy wisdom so deal with them that govern the Church of England according to their deserts: that thy people may see an end of them and (this wickedness in high places done away) continue, without their let and hindrance, to serve thee in freedom, liberty and truth. Amen.”