Advice for Mr. Brown  
The new UK Prime Minister

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I am just one UK citizen. I have no political power and I do not deserve any because I have never been elected to hold any public office.
I think that all UK citizens who have never been elected to a public office should be treated as having no more say in political affairs than I have. This includes all those with religious titles. All those who became spokesmen or women for a religion appointed themselves in the first instance. In other words they were never elected by anybody except themselves.

Religious spokespeople have frequently developed hierarchies for themselves with titles to suit. However, no matter how exalted a religious title is, the person concerned has never ever been voted into his or her office in a public election.

You, Mr. Brown, were chosen by your party as their leader, having been elected to be a Member of Parliament many times. In a general election it has been a standard system for many years to vote for people who support one party or another. In the case of the major political parties it has become the rule that those who have been elected to Parliament should choose their leader from among their number. In other words, the leader of a party is indirectly elected by the public at a general election. If the party concerned has a majority over all other parties it normally forms the new government with its elected leader as Prime Minister. Your recent elevation to the post of Prime Minister reflects a delayed vote for you since you have been elected by your party as the leader to succed Tony Blair - without any opposition.

Please compare your position as the elected leader of the United Kingdom with those who wish to influence your decisions from a religious point of view. None of them will have ever been publicly elected to any political office. Their mandates for influencing public policies are no more than mine. They have elected themselves originally with just one vote.

May religious spokespeople refer to ancient texts as guidance for how people should live today. If I could pass a law concerning the activities of these people, it would require them to limit their claims to what can be independently verified. We already have a law about misrepresentation in advertising. Attempts to recruit new followers to a religion are advertising. (This includes the instruction of children in schools.) The fact that something was written in a book hundreds if not thousands of years ago is not proof of its veracity. Those who advocate that people should live by 2,000 year old rules should be required to live at the standard of civilization that existed 2,000 years ago. If such people demur, they can truly be regarded as hypocrites of the worst kind.

Laws such as those promulgated by the British Parliament are mainly laws that apply to the contemporary situation. 2,000 year old laws should only apply to the time when they were promulgated in a similar manner.

Wilf James

A man with a one vote mandate.

Letchworth, SG6 2NZ
27th June 2007