TO borrow the spin doctor's terminology, Dr David Hope has never sung from the same hymn sheet as New Labour. No one would expect him to; no one, it seems, except the control freaks at the heart of Government.

Reports that Dr Hope's automatic peerage is to be blocked as a "punishment" for his speaking out over issues such as flooding and foot and mouth disease were today denied as "absurd" by Downing Street. But they are all too believable. This is a Government whose perspective is skewed by paranoia.

New Labour adheres to the George W Bush doctrine: whoever is not with us is against us. Anyone who dares to step out of line is threatened with the wrath of the party machine.

So it is that backbench Labour MPs who have criticised the bombing of Afghanistan were likened to the appeasers of Hitler's Germany by the chief whip. This is not only distasteful, but ironic. While allied troops fight for the Afghans' right to democracy, the Government clumsily attempts to deny British politicians freedom of speech.

That irony is now joined by the one that sees the Church's second most senior member apparently infuriating the most prominently Christian Prime Minister for generations.

Dr Hope is said to have annoyed ministers by his suggestion in this newspaper that war is a "last resort" - surely a common sense, Christian viewpoint.

He has also criticised the Government's response to the flooding crisis and said the General Election should be delayed until the foot and mouth outbreak eased. On both occasions he was voicing the feelings of many in his community.

If the Government wishes to do away with the peerages for retiring archbishops as part of its continuing reform of the House of Lords, it should do so from the appointments of the present incumbents' successors.

Meanwhile this might be an appropriate moment for ministers to act on Dr Hope's call for "a full Government inquiry into the management of news".

Updated: 10:39 Monday, October 22, 2001