Prime Minister David Cameron has been criticised by leading atheist author Richard Dawkins for suggesting that a revival of traditional Christian values could counteract Britain's "moral collapse". Mr Cameron told senior Church of England clergy that a belief in "live and let live" had too often become "do what you please".
This "passive tolerance" of immoral behaviour had helped fuel the summer's riots, City excess, MPs' abuse of expenses and Islamic terrorism, he said at an event to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.
But the remarks were dismissed by Professor Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, who said the Bible was good literature but an "appalling moral compass".