American Constitution Now!

For once I agree with Polly Toynbee, who is dead against the Bill to Outlaw Incitement to Commit Religious Hatred.

What advocates fail to appreciate is the climate of self-censorship the Bill will create, whereby editors and publishers will inevitably steer clear of art or articles that could conceivably land them seven years in the nick.

It is disappointing if not surprising that most major religious groups support the legislation, with the exception of the Evangelical Alliance which has presumably woken up to the fact that it is mostly religions that incite hatred against other religions...

It is, of course, too early to tell, but I can't help reflecting on the similarities between our current climate - traditional freedoms under threat; demographic anxieties (as well as shifts); talk of constitutions, democratic deficits, independence - and the world of Tom Paine et al.

Certainly as a child of the 1970's I am also a child of the 1770's, those Enlightenment values the bedrock of the society in which I was raised and the lens through which I view the world.

Yet now I feel as if these values are under threat. Not only do we have a government that is actively promoting religious schools, often at the expense of the secular alternative, but instead of scrapping the out-dated blasphemy law, we're introducing more legislation to protect the bigotry that passes for much organised religion.

Isn't it about time the Enlightenment bit back? The dogs dinner that was the European Constitution may have been shelved, but what about a British Constitution?

It doesn't have to run to hundreds of pages or be penned by an out-of-touch aristocrat, it simply needs to enshrine in law the values I (and, I suspect, the vast majority of us) hold dear - freedom of expression, liberty, democracy and the separation of church and state.

Indeed, it already exists - it's called the American Constitution. After all, what could be more English? Inspired by Norfolk boy Paine, penned by founding fathers who were raised by British-born parents, and based on the Magna Carta, the Constitution represents a heady mix of Enlightenment ideals and English values.

We might have to cut out the bit about guns, mind.