Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has spoken of the difficulties faced by Christians in positions of authority in the UK.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Times, the practising Roman Catholic said there was “a tendency to sneer at religion in the governing classes in this country”.

“To be a Christian today is quite difficult for people in authority because they feel as though they have to apologise for it,” he said.

Mr Duncan Smith works nowadays to shape social policy through his think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, and enjoys the ear of Tory leader David Cameron.

In the interview, he spoke at length on one of his main passions - fixing ‘broken Britain’. He said he had not been able to do anything about this when he became party leader in 2001 but the recession had caused people to start listening to him.

“It has made a huge difference. There was a fin de siècle process, we all went slightly mad: spending, drinking, everything in extreme, it was pandemonium. Now we are picking up the pieces,” he told the newspaper.

Turning to the remedy to Britain’s social ills, he said the Government needed to encourage stability in marriage.

“You can’t force people to get married, but it is madness to penalise them for making the right choices,” he said.

Mr Duncan Smith expressed his dismay at the number of dysfunctional families in Britain, an indication of what he called “society in collapse”.

He said children: “We are now into three or four generations of lone parenting, multi-fathering. I’ve been to places where the girls have such low self-esteem that they think being abused is the norm.

“They have never had unconditional love, they have seen nothing but sex as the basis of relationships so they can’t say no themselves.”

He went on to say that although Britain was an “alcohol-obsessed country”, the Government was “terrified” of doing anything to address the issue.

“They are scared stiff of upsetting the electorate. I would hope Cameron is brave enough to confront that. Alcohol is every bit as dangerous as illegal drugs. You can argue that it’s more dangerous than heroin because it’s easier to get,” he said.

“We are into unpopular territory now, but to deal with something like alcohol that is damaging the fabric of the nation, we need to raise prices. There is a direct connection between the price of alcohol and consumption.”

Mr Cameron has promised him a central role in formulating social policy if the Tories are voted into power in the general election.