Some of you have asked me for some pointers to Marxism and religion. It’s broad, vast, bewildering – as you would expect. But let’s see if I can't offer a roadmap.

1. Opium.

OK, you’ve probably heard or read the famous phrase: ‘religion is the opium of the people’. Usually we think of opium in a negative way, as a narcotic. But a funny thing happened on the way to the medicine cabinet … In the 19th century, opium was regarded as a widespread cure for just about anything. Marx took it regularly, al