Like many histories of the Labour party, your editorial (31 March) overstates the emphasis on its Christian origins. Labour’s first leader, Keir Hardie, may have been a lay preacher, but its first prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was a paid-up humanist and an early president of Humanists UK. Many in Labour’s founding committees were humanists.
Many of the party’s most significant players – including Nye Bevan, Jennie Lee, Clement Attlee and Rhodri Morgan – were atheists and humanists. Keir Starmer seems to fit squarely in that tradition. If he becomes prime minister, he’ll be at least the fourth openly non-religious one, following MacDonald, Winston Churchill and Attlee.
