Tony Blair never did pray with George Bush before the invasion of Iraq, he said on Tuesday. "It wouldn't have been a wrong thing, but it didn't happen", he told Charles Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph – answering the question he had refused to answer when it was put to him by Jeremy Paxman and he was still prime minster. But he did pray with the Salvation Army, he said, when he was leader of the opposition despite the horror of some of his staff.

At a debate with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, he told the audience of 450 people in Westminster, central London: "I remember the Salvation Army coming to see me when I was leader of the opposition.

"At the end of it, she said: 'We're all going to kneel in prayer'.

"There were two members of my office, who should remain nameless, who looked aghast.

"I said: 'You'll have to get on your knees'. One of them said: 'For God's sake' and I said: 'Exactly'".

Andrew Brown | Read this article in full at guardian.co.uk