Tony Blair won his general election in 1997 by persuading us that he was Jesus. Nobody remembers what the policies were, all we dimly recall is that he got angry when people said he didn’t have any, insisted that he was not going to get into details, and promised to let us know what the policies were later. And we’re still waiting. Some of us feel a little bit let down. We still think that he was Jesus, but in a bad way. In the wishy-washy, open-toed, passive-aggressive, turn-the-other- cheek, can’t-touch-me-guv-I’m-with- The-Big-Guy way. The Messiah, but irritating.

David Cameron stands in a similar position today to that early, junior godhead Blair: he looks right, feels right, glows with a beatific something on which we cannot quite put our finger, but chooses to hold fire on policy and gets huffy when challenged to declare his ideological hand. If he were Jesus, this would be fine. But he is not.

Fortunately, though, it turns out he is Moses.

Or, rather, a “direct descendant of Moses”, as The Times reported yesterday, following the declaration of a Jewish scholar called Yaakov Wise that Cameron’s great-great-grandfather Emile (surname “Levita”) was of the tribe of Levi. (I love the quasi-tautological concatenation of “Jewish scholar”. You imagine the guy hunched round a candle in his prayer shawl and yarmulke, poring over the Cameron family tree.) The tribe of Levi, as you probably know, are the descendants of Levi, the son of Jacob, who was the son of Isaac, who was the son of, oh . . . wasn’t he the son of Abraham? And wasn’t Abraham the first Jew — who changed his name from Abram to remind himself what he was not allowed to have in his sandwiches any more? So how does Moses fit in? I never get this right. He was in Exodus, wasn’t he? He led them out of Egypt. Whereas Jacob is in Genesis, and had a son with an amazing coat whom he threw down a hole, from which he escaped up a ladder. Hang on, I’ll have to check back to the article.

Okay, got it. This Wise fellow says: “The leader of the Levites at the time of the Exodus was Moses . . . it is [thus] possible that Cameron is a direct descendant of Moses, or, at least, a cousin.”

Wow. That’s pretty tenuous. A cousin. I’m a bit less excited than I was. Still, I think we can probably just about rebrand David Cameron as the long-awaited biblical leader of a nation, destined to lead his people into the promised land, don’t you?

AND THERE went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, fat and with that little twinkle old ladies simply adore, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and put the child therein; and she laid it by the river’s brink. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down and saw the ark; And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and she had compassion on him, and said, This is a Tory child. Poor little bleeder. And he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Let him mostly be known as Dave, for, let’s face it, a kid called Moses will get hell at Eton.

AND THE angel of the LORD appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses was relieved, for burning bushes were at that time the most significant source of greenhouse gases, and gave off carbon dioxide like I don’t know what. And Moses saw that the Lord wanted him to compost where possible, and also recycle.

AND GOD came to Moses and saith; say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, hath sent me unto you: And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto a land flowing with milk and honey. And Moses said, is it organic milk? I hope you have the name of the exact farm, because otherwise they will not touch it. Also there will need to be soya milk, unsweetened. For many of our women tolerate lactose not.

AND GOD said go. But Moses said, they will not believe me nor hearken unto my voice. And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. And the Lord said, It looks to me like a spliff. And Moses said, I have never confirmed or denied taking drugs during my time as a student. And He said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it — lest it be an hallucination induced by the drugs he had neither confirmed nor denied any involvement withal. And the LORD said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers hath appeared unto thee. And Moses said, but what happened to my spliff?

AND MOSES went unto Pharaoh and said, Let my People go! And Pharaoh said, Thou willst have to be more specific. And Moses said, Let my People go to the Cotswolds for the weekend. And Pharaoh said, Is that all? You should have said. Fine, no problem. As long as they’re back for work on Monday — those Pyramids are not going to build themselves. And Moses, said: Let my People go until the Tuesday so they can do a spot of hunting and have a top supper in the village pub and not get stuck in traffic on the M4. And Pharaoh said, Don’t push it, Sunshine.

AND PRETTY soon the people had all fallen in behind Moses, except one or two Egyptians who did not want to put a windmill on their houses, for they would spoil the pointy pyramidal look of the place. And these deniers of global warming chased the Tories with their 4x4s but the LORD caused the sea to go back and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, and were drowned. Even all Pharaoh’s Porsche Cayennes and BMW X5s and their drivers. And Moses said unto the Lord, I hope you know what you are doing, messing with the finely balanced ecosystem of our precious ocean resource. If any bluefin tuna have been harmed I’ll have hell to answer for.

AND THE children of Israel came into the wilderness of Sinai. And the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up to hear His commandments. And afterwards Moses went down unto the people, with his tablets, and spake unto them, saying: Thou shalt . . .

AND THEN he paused, saying: On second thoughts, let’s leave these till after the election.

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