WHEN the Lord Mayor of Leicester's trousers fell down as he stood to thank the organisers of a summer show, some people said it was divine retribution.

Not long before, poor Colin Hall had taken the controversial step of ending the tradition of saying prayers at the start of council meetings.

He was widely quoted as saying prayers were outdated, unnecessary and intrusive. His opponents disagreed, and were probably among the first to chuckle when his trousers later ended up round his ankles, and the incident was reported on the national news. I think Mr Hall might have been wise to wear a belt, but I also think he had a point about the prayers.

When I last checked, both Devon County Council and Mid Devon District Council, as well as a host of our local parish and town councils, still started their meetings with prayers.

I doubt whether any of them has a significant proportion of councillors from other faiths, but I bet they have plenty of councillors who, like me, are not practising Christians.

When I was at school the day started with an assembly for all pupils and teachers in the hall. The headmaster said prayers, we all sang hymns and sometimes he read from the Bible.

The handful of non-Christian pupils (some Jewish, some Jehovah's Witnesses) who did not wish to participate stood outside the hall windows, in full view of everyone else, as if they'd been sent outside for being naughty.

Even all those years ago, I thought it was strange and unfair that members of the school should be excluded like that, and odd that religion of any kind played such a large part in the school day.

My response was to decline to say the prayers, and stand quietly with my head unbowed.

So I also sympathise with Bideford Town Council member Clive Bone who has campaigned to end prayers at council meetings, and Dartmouth Town Council member Brian Boughton who was last year reportedly told to say the prayers or leave the room when he wore his iPod during them in protest.

The National Secular Society has chosen to take Bideford Town Council to court after appeals from Mr Bone failed and the prayers continued.

The society argued that councillors who wished to say prayers could do so in another room, but should leave religion out of the council chamber.

And the Devon Humanists have written to Devon County Council and the ten district councils asking them to follow the example of Totnes Town Council, which replaced prayers with a period of quiet reflection.

Council debates on the subject have featured annoyance from some councillors that the matter should even have been raised – along the usual lines of "We're a Christian country; if they don't want prayers they can leave the room..."

Yet I bet all these councils have policies about equality and diversity, and would all say they are keen to encourage people of faith, or no faith, to become councillors.