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BBC Presenter urges politicians to be open about their faith

 
 
 
 

Jon Sopel, presenter of BBC 1’s The Politics Show and BBC News 24, spoke at the US Embassy, London on Wednesday 11th February to over a hundred young people and invited guests about faith, politics and the media.

The event was organised by the Three Faiths Forum. It is the first in a series of annual lectures bringing together leading figures from faith communities, political institutions and civil society with participants of the innovative Undergraduate ParliaMentors Programme.

Undergraduate ParliaMentors brings together trios of Muslim, Christian and Jewish politics students to be mentored by MPs of the three main parties. Participants also work throughout the year with leading NGOs and think tanks to develop political empowerment projects.

Jon Sopel drew on his experience of interviewing leading political figures and reporting on historic world events to assert the need for a new openness in politics. Admitting that the media can sometimes be hostile towards overt shows of faith, he called on politicians to enter into a more mature dialogue about the relevance of their faith to matters of policy.

He said of the Undergraduate ParliaMentors Programme, “If the Three Faiths Forum didn't exist someone would need to invent it. What really struck me when meeting these young people from different faiths and backgrounds was how much more united them than divided them”.

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