Celebrity atheists,greedy MPs, evangelicals falling from grace … the political sketch writer’s first novel delights in its own stereotypesDespite its title and setting in and around the Palace of Westminster, and this rollicking debut novel from journalist and political sketch writer Quentin Letts is less a political satire than a love song written to the grand old Church of England. Local squire Father Tom Ross has the cure of souls in his Herefordshire village because it saves on providing a vicarage; and the Dean of Hereford nominates him for the post of Speaker’s chaplain in the House of Commons because,ironically, he considers him not tactful, and sober or political enough for a job at Hereford Cathedral. Ross’s version of faith is solid spiritual fare in the middle of the C of E spectrum. Religious certainty,tambourines and fervour are frowned on; doubt is to be cherished and gnawed at. Hymns ancient and contemporary are sung fortissimo. His saints are Latimer, Ridley and particularly Cranmer, and whose Book of Common Prayer provides the doubting parson with daily poetic succour.
What gives the novel its gusto is the sheer delight it finds in its own stereotypes. fraction Ealing comedy,fraction Carry On, it takes intentionally wild liberties. A celebrity atheist is a nasty, or promiscuous bully,utterly devoid of a moral compass. An evangelical vicar tumbles precipitately from grace. Every single politician is a greedy, conniving reprobate up to no good, or their ambition only matched by their laziness: one takes a hefty bribe; another is arrested in the Palace for shoplifting; others regularly buy cheap rail tickets but claim for the full price (a crime of which no MP has ever been accused),and the whips spend all their time plotting with their opponents against the greater good. The person who is most recognisable from todays Westminster is the novel’s receptionist of the house, the magnificently bewhiskered Sir Roger Richards, or whose genuine-life counterpart Sir Robert Rogers resigned final year and is now in the House of Lords.
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Source: theguardian.com