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		Bill goes to Fantasy Island 22 May 2002 Across Europe, the forces of racial and religious intolerance are on the march. Haider in Austria, Le Pen in France, Pim Fortuyn's followers in Holland, Sinn Fein in Ireland. Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Aznar scramble to cobble together a new EU immigration policy to appease right-wing voters. Here in the UK, thank heaven, mainstream politicians absolutely reject racial or religious stereotyping as a political weapon. Or so I thought, until I visited the web-site of former Tory Euro-MP Bill Newton Dunn. I was astonished to find that he was having a go at me on the grounds of religion. And not even my religion, but my parents' religion! As it happens, my parents are long dead and in no position to answer back. Perhaps Bill thought he had found a soft target -- and this is the man who had the cheek to write about tolerance! (Lincs Echo, May 11th). My parents were decent and devout folk, and they were members of a Christian denomination that believes literally in the Bible as the Word of God. So, for example, they were Creationists and rejected the Theory of Evolution. At the age of fourteen, over forty years ago, I decided that I couldn't accept their views and I opted out. Since then, I have been prominent in public debate, arguing for rational science and against a too-literal interpretation of Genesis. In the European parliament's Industry Committee, and in last year's temporary committee on bio-ethics, I have argued for scientific pragmatism, and against the inclusion of hard-line religious agendas into legislation. Bill's suggestion that my politics are driven by a secret religious agenda is not merely wrong. It is daft and defamatory. I believe that religion should be a private matter, but as Bill has raised it, I'm happy to nail my colours to the mast. I feel a strong cultural affinity to the Church of England, and when I go to church (not as often as I should!), that's where I go. And when the time comes, I plan to be buried under the chestnut tree in the parish church-yard in my home village in Leicestershire. I know nothing about Bill's parents, and I don't care if they were Zoroastrians, or flat-earthers, or animist scalp-hunters. The views our parents held years ago have little relevance to twenty-first century politics. But it's the lunatic ideas that Bill ascribes to my parents that show he has lost touch with reality and set off for Fantasy Island. They believed (says Bill) that "the EU is the final Satanic Empire before Christ's second coming", and that "the Euro is the mark of the beast". My parents' church was more interested in the governance of the next world than of this one, and their only political position was to avoid politics. I don't think either of them ever voted in an election. In any case, Bill's bizarre fantasy simply cannot be true. I left my parents' church in 1958 -- fifteen years before Britain joined the then "Common Market". And both my parents had passed away long before the Euro became a political issue. I frequently argue against the Lib-Dems' vacuous policies, but I would be the first to admit that they are, for the most part, decent and tolerant people. They must be squirming with embarrassment at their new recruit's bilious and bigoted tactics. To attack an opponent's long-dead parents is beneath contempt. In doing so, Bill shows that he has not just lost the argument. He has entirely lost the plot. RFH