I am aware that British people reflecting on the possibility that India could do with a bit more Christianity must be careful — but it could. The concept of the sanctity of each individual is not something that the caste system, among competing others, encourages. Before leaving London I was grilled by Joan Bakewell for the BBC series Belief. I tried rather poorly to convey the fact that even religious doubters should fear the decline of certain specifically Judaeo-Christian concepts and seek ways to pass them on. In the West we have become so bloated with "rights" that every desire has transformed into a "right". Who will tell us when they are not? Perhaps nothing but the shame that while we indulge ourselves there are millions of people sitting in the dust by a stall with no rights system to help them.

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This is the year in which the two biggest debates on Britain's future will be decided. Whether Scotland votes for independence is in the hands of the Scots. The other — whether we might be represented in Europe for the first time by a majority party which wants us out of the EU — is in everyone's hands. Both these questions are huge, but we seem to be stumbling into them.

Given the gravity of the matter I wonder whether the UK should not institute dry days around the votes. Would it focus the mind or lead to riots and disturbances? How would Scotland react? Whatever the result, a vote for a smaller Britain inside a bigger Europe would be the surest sign of drunkenness.