I experienced two revelations last Monday, both of them, appropriately enough, during a House of Lords debate which returned, time after time, to the subject of what the government calls "faith schools".
There is no mention of such establishments in the education bill which was the subject of our discussion. But the prime minister had let it be known that he likes the idea. So we talked about the imminent explosion of Catholic colleges, Anglican academies and Islamic institutes as if, when Tony Blair expresses a preference, fate panders to his whim - making trains run on time, hospital waiting times disappear and Stephen Byers tell the truth.
Members of the House of Lords cannot be expected to sacrifice their dignity by jumping up and down in the way which is expected of eager commoners in what we call "the other place". And there is no Speaker with an eye for us to catch. So the whips prepare a list setting out the order of peer participation.
Last Monday it contained 25 backbench names. Mine was the 25th. As a result I sat through more than six hours of debate. During that time I discovered the first, previous unsuspected, truth. Debates in the Lords do have many of the qualities which the complimentary cliches claim - rational, balanced, informed.
The second revelation struck me like a sudden bolt of lightning when Baroness Sharp of Guildford (leading for the Liberal Democrats) confessed that she found difficulty in understanding the purpose of the bill. Until that moment, I felt the same.
Its most insidious proposals - the extension of both covert and overt secondary selection - were introduced by Tory education ministers and enthusiastically extended by David "Read My Lips" Blunkett. The moment after Baroness Sharp asked her rhetorical question all was revealed. The education bill is declaratory.
Once upon a time the governance of Britain involved two distinct functions - one executive and the other legislative. There is now a third. It is declaratory and it takes precedence over the others.
Much of what ministers do is not intended to achieve results but to create impressions. Hence Tony Blair's explanation to David Frost that early renationalisation of the railways was rendered impossible by the prospect of such a decision suggesting a return to old Labour policies. It is not only the carefully revealed nude on the shirt cuff that is the product of careful planning.
This government's continued popularity is the result of two factors - economic prosperity, which is Gordon Brown's achievement, and image-manipulation which is the prime minister's responsibility. Faith schools come into the second category.
That does not mean that none will be created under provisions of a bill that enables private companies to own and manage schools. But the idea that Tony Blair is going to lead a children's crusade which results in a more religious nation is just so much public relations.
Like so many of the government's most grotesque attempts to manage the news, it will result in a number of spectacular embarrassments.
Raymond (now Lord) Plant - a servant of the Church of England as well as scholarship - warned that it would be the religious fundamentalists who would be most likely to follow the prime minister's lead. And so it has already proved.
Tony Blair does not mind pupils at Emmanuel College, Gateshead, being taught that Eve was made from Adam's rib as long as they get good A-level results. But people who support a Christian's right to be ridiculous will expect the government to step in when an Islamic school tells its science class that the sky is Allah's blue carpet. Fundamentalism is less acceptable when it is not white.
There will also be the problem of what the Catholic Church calls modern heresies and others describe in less complimentary language. I discover that there is already a series of Seventh Day Adventist Churches in England teaching that "Christ [sic] formed our world in seven days" and looking forward to "the soon return of Jesus".
Will the Department of Education endorse the creation of a Christian Science, a Scientology or a Mormon school? If not, it will have to take the intolerable step of nominating state-approved religions.
Estelle Morris suggests that all these difficulties will be overcome by applying the simple rule that a new church school can only be created in response to popular demand. But demand, as every advertising executive knows, can be artificially stimulated.
There is a man in the north of England (described as an "evangelical car-dealer") who wants to finance four faith schools out of his own pocket. No doubt he will be able to demonstrate local enthusiasm - if only for distinctive uniforms and 19th-century discipline. The prime minister likes that sort of thing. And he loves declaring his faith in the respectable virtues.