Beati pauperes spiritu

Sainthood, like so much else, has gained pace. During the Middle Ages, when the Roman Church bestrode a flat world at the centre of the universe, burning books and heretics and taking early anti-terrorist measures against the Jewish menace, the process of attaining official canonisation was a leisurely one. Jeanne d'Arc, who was burned in 1431, was only granted sainthood in 1920, by Pope Benedict XV.

Under John Paul II, the media pope, the saints came thick and fast. Karol Wojtyla beatified and canonised more people than any of his predecessors. Perhaps he felt the need somehow to compensate his church for all the members his crankish mediaevalism was losing it. Then again, perhaps he was simply having fun, as when he promoted to official venerability the great whited sepulchre of World War II, Eugenio Pacelli.

Political saints still differ from religious ones in that religious saints must be physically dead in order to qualify. In the case of political saints, brain-dead will suffice. Which brings us to New Labour and its newly-appointed chairperson: the blessed Ann Clwyd, patron saint of Baghdad and points Abu Ghraibward. As the divine Tony's special envoy on human rights, as you may recall, she made rather a spectacle of herself during the early days of our glorious crusade in Iraq, regurgitating stories of Saddamite torture and mass graves like something in a hair shirt informing the populace that the Jews had eaten their babies.

So energetic was the Blessed Annie in pursuit of Iraqi human rights that she didn't know about the US forces' recreation centre at Abu Ghraib until she read about it in the papers. So outspoken was her moral courage that she denounced playtime with hooding and humiliation as a "fundamental error in policy". You can see that the Blessed Annie is eminently suited for high office in the holy choirs of New Labour's historic third term; her intellectual honesty and rhetorical fire are practically the equal of Geoff Hoon's, or even John O'Farrell's.

Perhaps it's just one of the many advantages of being out of touch, but it seems to me that the Blessed Annie has not been heard of for some time. I did read a while ago that she'd been made a Privy Counsellor, presumably as a reward for something or other; but her breathless paeans to Iraq's Salvadorean democracy seem not nearly so prolific of late. Can't think why.

Still, we must wish her well, just as we must hope for the speedy canonisation of the Venerable Pius XII. No one who hopes for the final collapse of Vatican Incorporated, or longs to see New Labour laughed out of office at last, can afford to regret the rise of two such resplendent ethical gargoyles.