It used to be a truism of political science that the United States has a well-defined "religious vote"—in the sense that church affiliation is clearly related to political choice—while no such phenomenon exists in comparatively secular Britain. And on the American side, some familiar patterns certainly held up in the presidential election of 2012. Nearly 80% of white evangelical voters preferred the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, over Barack Obama; Mr Romney's fellow Mormons were similarly supportive. Three-quarters of Latino Catholics voted for Mr Obama (a key factor in the president's re-election) while 59% of white Catholics opted for Mr Romney; this left Catholics as a whole evenly divided.

What about godless Britain? Theos,a think-tank in London, has just published a report that challenges the secularist trope. Analysing the 2010 general election and all previous ones going back to the 1950s, it observed that self-described Anglicans had almost always been more likely to vote Conservative than Labour, except for a few moments when the whole nation swung left. Practising Anglicans were more likely to vote Tory than nominal ones; so the old jibe about the Church of England being the “Conservative Party at prayer” had some basis in fact, despite the leftish thinking of most bishops on issues like debt and poverty. Meanwhile, self-identifying Catholics were consistently pro-Labour, whether their adherence was active or nominal; non-conformists were marginally more likely than others to vote for Liberal Democrats.

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