Saint Thomas More is the patron saint of politicians. As a Catholic myself I should have known this before, but the information actually came to me quite recently via the Mainichi Shimbun. So many thanks to the newspaper for this piece of religious education.

What more can politicians ask in the way of a protector? The saint, who is now more generally known as Sir Thomas More,fought for his convictions against that philandering monarch Henry VIII.

Henry was not only a philanderer who wanted many wives, but also a power hunter who wanted to be both head of the Church and head of state. Neither of those aspirations was acceptable to Sir Thomas.