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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Tony Blair venerates the bones of St Thérèse of Lisieux

Matthew Parris (who describes himself as a ‘lapsed militant atheist’) decided yesterday to visit Westminster Cathedral to pay his respects to a big arched glass box containing the ornate wooden house with little tiles, embracing the sealed alabaster box in which the bones of St Thérèse of Lisieux lay. Or, as he says, 'were presumed to lie'.

As he queued with the faithful, he passed a sign which said ‘The Plenary Indulgence’, and which went on to explain that a plenary indulgence is the complete remission of the temporal punishment due to sin. Apparently Pope Benedict has declared a special grant of indulgences to pilgrims to these relics at Westminster: ‘One plenary indulgence may be gained each day and may be applied either to a soul in Purgatory or the pilgrim himself or herself’.

Mr Parris’ response: ‘A Lutheran rage rose in my gorge. Jesus would have been incandescent. I think I’m a Protestant atheist.’

At least the indulgences are not being sold (unless the peripheral stores selling candles for £1 and roses for £1 or fish and chips for £3.75 count as collateral profiteering).

But on leaving the cathedral, Matthew Paris had a surprise encounter (or meeting of eyes) with our former prime minister and latter-day convert to the faith, Tony Blair.

Why would Mr Blair be venerating the thigh and foot bones of a 19th-century French saint? Why would he seek to light a candle, clutch a rose, touch the glass box, and stare at an ornate wooden casket containing a few bones which he trusts are contained therein?

This was no photo opportunity: Mr Blair was anonymous and alone, which rather indicates sincerity in his Guardian-Tablet-Romish piety.

Was he hoping to beseech St Thérèse for a little French-Catholic intercession in his bid to become President of Europe?

Or was he seeking the plenary indulgence to relieve the punishment due because of his manifold (mortal) sins?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:45 AM Permalink 61 comments

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Rome, Relics, Royalty and Rowan

It is strange, is it not, that the relics of a saint are touring the UK, resting even in Anglican cathedrals to ‘joyful applause’ (while her thigh and foot went to Wormwood Scrubs); the Duke of Edinburgh is paying homage in Walsingham; Cardinal Newman is on the path to sainthood; Pope Benedict XVI is about to make the first ever papal state visit to these shores; the Queen has reportedly ‘grown increasingly sympathetic’ to the Roman Catholic Church while being ‘appalled’, along with the Prince of Wales, at developments in the Church of England...

...and the Archbishop of Canterbury is preaching about how setting up ‘carbon reduction action groups’ would help people to ‘reconnect with the world’ and ‘become human again’.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:20 AM Permalink 98 comments

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Jacqui Smith humiliated as Geert Wilders UK ban overturned


Radio Netherlands are reporting that the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in London has ruled that Dutch politician Geert Wilders should not have been refused entry to the United Kingdom in February.

This is a total humiliation for Jacqui Smith, who requested the ban, not to mention Gordon Brown and this whole tawdry Labour Government who have conspired to diminish our precious liberties and eradicated them systematically one by one.

Mr Wilders said he was ‘very happy’ about the ruling. He said the British government's decision to bar him had been politically motivated and described today’s ruling as ‘not a victory for me, only a victory for freedom of speech’. He said he would be consulting with his lawyers, and planned to travel to Britain at the earliest possible opportunity.

And will be assured of a hero's welcome and a media frenzy far in excess of anything he might have achieved had he not been persecuted and martyred by the Home Secretary.

Mr Wilders was originally invited to show his anti-Islam film ‘Fitna’ at the House of Lords, at the invitation of Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox. The film condemns the Qur’an as a ‘fascist book’ and warns against Islamic violence and the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe. Prior to his planned trip to the UK, an Amsterdam court ruled that he should be prosecuted for racial hatred – a case which is still pending.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (who is not having a good week at all) refused Mr Wilders entry to the country because she said his visit would ‘threaten community security and therefore public security’. The Home Office said they would ‘stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country’. They therefore blocked Mr Wilders' visit on the basis of legislation designed primarily to keep out 'religious extremists' and ‘preachers of hate’.

Mr Wilders decided to defy the ban and flew to the UK anyway. He was detained when he arrived in London and put back on a plane to the Netherlands. The screening of ‘Fitna’ at the House of Lords went ahead without Mr Wilders, attended by reporters and a handful of politicians.

In response to today's ruling, a Home Office spokesman said, "We are disappointed by the court's decision today. The Government opposes extremism is all its forms. The decision to refuse Wilders admission was taken on the basis that his presence could have inflamed tensions between our communities and have led to inter-faith violence. We still maintain this view."

It is to be noted that this arrogant spokesman does not even have the courtesy to refer to the elected Dutch politician as Mr Wilders.

Doubtless Lord Ahmed will now be summoning his 10,000 co-religionists to descend on Parliament for peaceful protest, edifying debate and constructive dialogue.

Geert Wilders for EU President?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 3:27 PM Permalink 53 comments

The ‘Brighton bomber’ enters Parliament

Can you imagine Guy Fawkes being taken into the Grand Committee Room of Parliament and asked to share a ‘forgiveness’ platform with King James I?

Of course, we already have terrorists in Parliament. And since Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have been brought into government, complete with tax-payer funded, unrestricted access to the Palace of Westminster, there seems no reason at all to bar Patrick Magee, the ‘Brighton Bomber’, who will enter Parliament at 6.30pm today.

The occasion marks the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Brighton Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party Conference in 1984. There are many MPs and peers who find his presence repugnant: he was, after all, the most successful bomber to attempt to assassinate the government since Guy Fawkes’ abortive attempt four hundred years ago. Mr Magee plotted, planned and planted the bomb in the hope if murdering Margaret Thatcher and destroying the entire British Cabinet. And he came very close.

But while the traitor Guy Fawkes is still incinerated annually on the top of a thousand bonfires, Patrick (or ‘Pat’) Magee is being fêted at the expense of the taxpayer instead of being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

Cranmer might view this differently if Mr Magee were repentant. For forgiveness is a divine command, and to restrict its flow is to limit mercy. But Mr Magee is not remotely repentant. Indeed, he says he ‘stands by his actions’ though he ‘regrets the attack’.

Perhaps he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this pseudo-legitimising paradoxical verbiage and oxymoronic incongruity.

One cannot regret what one stands by. If an action is mistaken, it must be amended: only a just and right action can be defended. To legitimise is to negate regret. Mr Magee still argues that he ‘felt trapped’ because they were ‘the underdogs’ who ‘had no other way’.

The bomb was wholly justifiable because there was no alternative.

This is not the reasoning of someone who ‘regrets’.

Indeed, it is a consequence of liberating a man who should have served his entire natural life (eight life sentences) incarcerated for treason, if not been sent to the gallows. For what is the attempted assassination of Her Majesty’s Government if it be not treason?

But the Good Friday Agreement dispensed with the need for retribution. Indeed, treason is no longer a capital offence. Patrick Magee (or ‘Pat’) was released after a mere 14 years (less than three years for each death, or four months for each injury and death), without the need for regret, atonement, reparation or justice for the injured and bereaved. There was a crass quid pro quo: we’ll stop bombing you if you free our fellow freedom fighters. It was a very good Friday agreement indeed for the likes of Patrick Magee.

Or 'Pat'.

And so today he enters Westminster as a guest of The Forgiveness Project and the ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues’ (the what?). He will address an audience along with Jo Berry, the daughter of the MP Sir Anthony Berry who was killed in the blast. Apparently ‘hearing the story of “the enemy”’ is intrinsic to the project’s mission.

Ms Berry’s participation in this event is, of course, a matter for her. To share a platform with the man who murdered your father must be difficult indeed. Even more so when the murderer shows no remorse, and when they are giving the pulpit of the Grand Committee Room – in which Sir Anthony had frequently spoken – to an assassin who still argues that he ‘had no other way’.

Tell that to Lord Wakeham, whose wife was killed in the attack.

Tell that to Lord Tebbit, whose wife was left paralysed for life.

How can a platform for forgiveness even be considered when it is not forgiveness which is being sought and the event offends those who have been most hurt? Forgiveness is concerned with repentance, contrition and regret. And that is not on offer.

The ‘underdogs’ who ‘had no other way’ certainly had the way that is now being pursued, for this is about reconciliation and participation in the legitimate processes of government. Patrick Magee had the choice of participating in democracy or blowing people to bits. He chose the latter because he could not be bothered to talk, negotiate or vote. And when he did vote, it was easier to terrorise than to abide by the outcome.

And now he has become a celebrity terrorist, lauded and applauded by his employer ‘The Forgiveness Project’. He is next to be seen on ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ or ‘Dancing on Ice’.

A few years ago, the BBC invited Lord Tebbit take part in Radio 4’s ‘The Reunion’ alongside Mr Magee. Lord Tebbit wrote in The Daily Telegraph: ‘Now it seems we are to be encouraged not merely to accept Mr Magee as a respectable human but to admire and — most sickeningly of all — to like him.” In another article published in The Financial Times earlier this year, Lord Tebbit declared that this kind of appeasement was symptomatic of the weakness and lack of resolve in modern British society.

To the question of whether he would like to meet Mr Magee and his accomplices he replied: “Yes, I would like to bump into them. If I was driving a heavy truck.”

For Lord Tebbit, forgiveness is a conditional social contract — it is given when it is deserved. And he says: “I can’t forgive someone who justifies what he did.”

The Forgiveness Project is a cultural counterfeit consistent with the zeitgeist. It is not quite ‘forgive and forget’, but it is about excusing and ‘fair-mindedness’, somehow minimising the hurt by ‘putting it into perspective’, or the pursuit of some ‘blind trust’ in the hope of a promise yet to be fulfilled.

Lord Tebbit said that he would share a platform with Patrick Magee ‘when Magee could repent, atone for his sins and help to indict and convict those who employed him’. He wrote of The Freedom Project that it ‘excuses, rewards and encourages murder’.

For the Christian, there must be forgiveness, but genuine forgiveness is not an emotion and it does not negate the rawness of hurt or loss. God did not excuse sin by considering that there may be extenuating circumstances. And neither does God meet our defiance by denying His hurt: the pain was traumatic, the agony almost unbearable.

Forgiveness is the outworking of the love of God. We must pray that God would forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We are commanded to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. St Paul makes it clear that personal vengeance is inconsistent with loving our enemies.

Yet he also says:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

If the state had fulfilled its obligations, justice would have been done and be seen to have been done. And Patrick Magee would not now be walking around freely preaching 'forgiveness' in the heart of the institution he once tried to destroy.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:39 AM Permalink 30 comments

Monday, October 12, 2009

The Tablet: Roman Catholic Church needs to influence ‘the right Tories’

The cover cartoon says it all really. It shows ‘Tory toff’ David Cameron strutting over-confidently but inexorably along to electoral victory, hotly pursued by a prancing prelate eager to bend Mr Cameron’s ear over the depravities of homosexual adoption, the demonic influence of embryology or the evils of civil partnerships. This magazine is lost in its own misguided prejudice, and quite ignorant in its assessment of both the social make-up of the Conservative Party and the inadequate influence of its own Church.

While the Church of England has attended party conferences and held numerous meetings with Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice to contribute to its agenda to restore ‘Broken Britain’, the Roman Catholic Church has ‘stayed behind’ and ‘been slow to develop a dialogue with the party’.

Essentially, The Tablet criticises the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales for sucking up to the likes of Edward Leigh who has ‘little influence in the party’, instead of ‘developing a relationship with its most influential figures’.

This is a curious criticism from a Christian magazine. Did not the Lord exhort believers to invite the last and fellowship with the lowliest?

It is, in any case, ill-considered nonsense to assert that the highly-respected Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee wields ‘little influence’. Indeed, Edward Leigh is one of the most respected MPs in the House. Archbishop Vincent Nichols is also unjustly criticised for contributing to a book by Edward Leigh because Mr Leigh is ‘right wing’ and perceived to be critical of David Cameron’s leadership, and ‘such friendships could be a hostage to fortune’.

And so Richard Kornicki has been appointed parliamentary co-ordinator at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and it is his task to develop ‘a relationship with its most influential figures’. The Tablet writes: ‘Kornicki’s role is to communicate between Catholic parliamentarians and the bishops on issues of mutual concern. With a background in the senior civil service he is also making contributions to policy work. The presence of such an experienced figure is a coup for the bishops, but the key question is how best to use his insights into parliamentary legislation and policy implementation in a way that can improve the Church’s influence. Before his appointment, the activities of the bishops’ tiny staff were largely limited to opposing Labour legislation that allowed gay couples to adopt, liberalised the law on embryology and sought to extend equalities. No wonder the Shadow Immigration Minister, Damian Green, complained that “the Church seems obsessed by sex and lacks a helpful view, or understanding, of the difficult judgements politicians have to make”.’

And then The Tablet continues to talk about sexuality.

The Anglican obsession appears to be spreading.

Damian Green’s view is not shared by all of his colleagues. Mark Hoban is Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury and he believes that his Church’s relationship with the party is improving. He refers to regular cross-party meetings with Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, and now with Archbishop Nichols. But The Tablet notes that Mr Hoban ‘sets limits on the areas in which the Church should intervene’: ‘For instance he feels it would be prudent to avoid involvement in cases where the government of the day is debating whether to bale out particular firms that have got into financial trouble.’

He says: “The key thing is for the Church to speak on matters where it is clearly credible – like inner cities and the family – but not on matters where it is has no practical engagement. It has to be clear what its priorities are, not least in determining what it wants to secure in the coming parliament.”

No, Mr Hoban. The key thing for the Church is to preach the gospel, in season and out. And this is not limited to ‘inner cities and the family’, but to ‘practical engagement’ with the whole of life and social existence. It is a task hopelessly beyond credibility, for it seeks to be transformative of society by bringing redemption to the individual. One may impose change from without, or nurture it from within. One can bend ears or change hearts. This is not about strategies, practicalities or political priorities, but prayer, reflection and inspiration. It is about knowing right from wrong, distinguishing between good and evil, and having the courage of one's conviction to defend one's creed against the spirit of the age.

Would to God that all Conservative MPs were prophets.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:18 AM Permalink 14 comments

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Cherie Blair lies about Ian Paisley

One is always inclined to believe the worst of one's religio-political opponents. If they are renowned for their bigotry, it makes sense to keep the coals hot with a few apocryphal stories to justify one's own bigotry.

Cherie Blair has told a packed Town Hall at the Cheltenham Literature Festival: "From beginning to end Ian Paisley never shook my hand. His wife would but Ian Paisley wouldn't because I was Catholic. Of course, Tony wasn't (Catholic) at the time.."

And so, she says, Dr Paisley would regularly shake hands with Tony Blair because he was not (then) Roman Catholic, while she was perpetually snubbed because of her faith.

It is not clear what her motives may be for this outrageous lie. Playing to the audience in Cheltenham by stirring up some anti-Protestant feeling seems a little strange. Cranmer knows for a fact that Dr Paisley shakes hands quite regularly with Roman Catholics - be they constituents, ministers of religion or politicians - and does not manifest such petty discourtesies as Cherie Blair avers.

If Dr Paisley could bring himself to shake hands with Bertie Ahern (a Roman Catholic) and share a joke with Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief-of-staff turned Sinn Fein peace-maker, then shaking hands with Cherie Blair would present him with no problems at all.

Perhaps she is simply saddened that she never got to venerate the great man.

Cranmer is delighted that the Paisleys have hit back via The Guardian. Quite what Mrs Blair believed she was accomplishing with this nonsense is a complete mystery.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 11:07 AM Permalink 55 comments

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Barack Obama and the igNobel Peace Prize

The President said he was humbled and undeserving.

Cranmer agrees.

Yet he was no more undeserving than Yasser Arafat.

It was a curious decision to bestow this prestigious award upon someone who has not yet contributed anything to world peace. He has made a few fine speeches of hope and change, but nothing has been achieved, no promises fulfilled. Yet the Nobel committee said it chose President Obama ‘for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples’ and for creating ‘a new international climate’.

They said: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

Such is the Obama cult. He has not brought peace to Afghanistan, he has not got the Israelis and Palestinians talking, he has not halted Iran's nuclear programme. But his presence has ‘captured the world’s attention’.

That’s nice.

Cranmer hopes to win the award next year. He may not yet have captured the world’s attention, but he intends to write a few articles of how he hopes to do so.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:34 AM Permalink 47 comments

Friday, October 09, 2009

Bishop of Croydon attacks Conservative economic policy

The Bishop of Croydon, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, has objected (rather strongly and scornfully) to the Conservative Party’s strategy for dealing with the national debt. He has also criticised the party for linking with ‘racists’ and ‘pseudo-facists’ in its new EU group. The Bishop hath a blog – “Nick Baines’s blog - musings of a restless bishop”, and restless (indeed, intolerant) he certainly is. In response to George Osborne’s speech, he wrote: "Call me old-fashioned, but was George Osborne having a laugh yesterday?"

A laugh?

The Bishop appears to be another theologian-economist with a penchant for Marx and an aversion to capitalism. It is noteworthy that he does not appear to have commented upon Labour’s conference anywhere upon his ‘restless’ blog.

Labour, of course, are in government.

Perhaps the Bishop is not sufficiently restless to consider that they might be in any way responsible for the economic morass into which we are all sinking. Perhaps he has not noticed that 12 years of Labour have made the poorest poorer, youth unemployment higher and inequality greater than at any time under Margaret Thatcher or John Major.

Since the Shadow Chancellor has hitherto only announced how he intends to raise £7 billion, Cranmer can hardly wait to hear the Bishop’s reaction to how Mr Osborne might deal with the remaining £163 billion. The Bishop writes dismissively: "Freezing public pay rates was hardly demanding of the grey matter and miserable prioritising of the rich over the poor didn't come as a great surprise."

Cranmer must have missed the ‘miserable prioritising of the rich over the poor’. Did the Shadow Chancellor not specifically say that the lowest paid public sector workers would be exempt from a pay freeze? And did he not also announce an end to tax credits for families earning more than £50,000 a year? And the limiting of baby bonds worth £250 to the disabled and the poorest families?

How does this constitute ‘prioritising of the rich’?

One wonders why some bishops appear to be pathologically incapable of a rational consideration of anything that emanates from the forces of Conservatism: it is, after all, the political philosophy which has sustained the Established Church for centuries.

But the Bishop’s attack on Mr Osborne did not stop there. He singled out the Shadow Chancellor's mantra ‘We're all in it together’ for particular scorn, saying: "Why did no one laugh?... Osborne and Cameron aren't ‘in it’ in the same way thousands of people I serve in south London are ‘in it’. They are rich kids with inheritances to spare them worrying about their future - whatever happens to the economy in the future."

He continued: "I know the Old Etonians (who, along with their chum Boris will soon run the country) are doing their best but ... why did no one laugh?"

And here we get to the nub of the Bishop’s gripe (if gripes can have a nub).

Consider ‘rich kids’, ‘Old Etonians’, ‘chum Boris’, and the Bishop begins to reveal a rather nasty motivation for his outburst. And when he lauds ‘Polly Toynbee’s sums’ as his economic gospel, one’s suspicions are confirmed.

In his further comments, the Bishop says he ‘long(s) for a party that will raise taxes and “let justice roll”.’

If the Bishop believes for one minute that a high-tax society will ‘let justice roll’, he might just consider that it is the world’s low-tax economies which consistently yield higher standards of living for their populations and do most to alleviate poverty at home and abroad.

The Bishop discloses: “But I did grow up in the north at a time when the Tories shattered my city (with help from Derek Hatton and co) and left wounds in my family that still weep. These guys have not the first idea about life outside the privileged circles in which they moved and I don’t trust them or their worldview.”

There can be nothing to redeem these evil Tories. Rachel is still weeping for her children in Liverpool, and the Bishop is incapable of forgiveness.

The truth is that Bishop Nick has already written off David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson because of their privileged upbringing and education. He ignores completely the immense amount of work done by Iain Duncan Smith’s ‘Centre for Social Justice’, an agenda which David Cameron has announced will be at the heart of his administration.

For Bishop Nick, ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ will always be an oxymoron because ‘their worldview’ is incapable of compassion because they ‘have not the first idea about life outside the privileged circles’.

Perhaps the Bishop might reflect upon whether one really has to lose a five-year-old disabled son in order to understand something of the pain and trauma of doing so. What can a bishop possibly know about that? And when he has considered that one might indeed sincerely and sympathetically weep with those who weep, he might grasp that even Old Etonian rich kids and their chums live with bread like him, feel want, taste grief and need friends.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:24 AM Permalink 47 comments

Thursday, October 08, 2009

David Cameron’s DNA – family, community and country


These, he said, were the things he cares about.

And so David Cameron expounded his mildly-theological mission statement – ‘Modern Conservatives, New Britain'. And this would be a Britain which would not only roll back the frontiers of the state, but would do so in an environmentally friendly manner. He touched on all the traditional great Tory themes – family, society, institutions and nationhood – and he vowed to restore common sense, respect, decency and fair play to a society which has been bereft of such virtues for more than a decade. He refreshingly spoke more of responsibility than rights, more of community than the individual, more of ‘we’ than ‘I’.

Setting out his vision for Britain, Mr Cameron said: “I see a country where more children grow up with security and love because family life comes first. I see a country where you choose the most important things in life - the school your child goes to and the healthcare you get.

“I see a country where communities govern themselves - organising local services, independent of Whitehall, a great handing back of power to people. I see a country with entrepreneurs everywhere, bringing their ideas to life - and life to our great towns and cities.

“I see a country where it's not just about the quantity of money, but the quality of life; where we lead the world in saving our planet. I see a country where you're not so afraid to walk home alone.

“We are going to solve our problems with a stronger society, stronger families, stronger communities, a stronger country. All by rebuilding responsibility.”

And he pledged to ‘tear down Labour's big government bureaucracy, ripping up its time-wasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.'

It is not quite the Beatitudes, but it was compassionate and conservative in a thoroughly Anglican way: it was uplifting and edifying stuff.

But Cranmer has a ‘but’.

Though it is the most cordial, mildest and politest of ‘buts’.

The social arrangements of (post-)modern Britain no longer acknowledge precedence, respect our institutions or even adhere to a cohesive morality. The disintegration of authority has led to the collapse of justice and resulted in a social fragmentation which demands ‘equality’ for everyone and ‘freedom’ to express anything. Liberalism is pervasive, and this is fundamentally at odds with Conservatism.

The purpose of establishment is to prevent fragmentation and restore cohesion. That is why it is the greatest of political themes and the most important of Conservative aims. Yet how can this be revived unless individuals are prepared to recognise – in this or that individual, in this or that office – a vested authority by which their gospel of relativity may be constrained or redefined? How can one assert a particular view of society and bring it to ideological fulfilment without making people subject to the power of the state whose frontiers one has pledged to roll back?

It is one thing to take people to a mountaintop and share the ecstasy of the vision; but the realising of it is a matter of the utmost political delicacy. Establishment – including that of the Church – is necessary to uphold the authority and sustain the morality by which the political will is achieved.

And David Cameron’s political vision can never be achieved while there is a superior parliament, court, government, president and pervasive secular orthodoxy to which every family, community and the whole country are presently subject.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 4:41 PM Permalink 22 comments

Lord Dannatt? The appointment of all peers is now a ‘political gimmick’

When the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling was told by the BBC’s Emily Maitlis that former Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, was joining the Conservatives in the Lords, he expressed the hope that it was not a ‘political gimmick’. He added: “We’ve seen too many appointments in this government of external people where it’s all been about Gordon Brown’s PR. General Dannatt’s an experienced figure and should rightly be working alongside government. I’m always suspicious of government’s motives when it does things like this.”

And so he ought to be.

And equally suspicious ought one to be of the motives of the Opposition ‘when it does things like this’.

Mr Grayling was neither ‘in the loop’, nor attentive to what Ms Maitlis was telling him. She specifically said that the General was to join the Tories, while he continued under the mistaken impression that it was Gordon Brown, and not his own leader, who was offering the General a job.

And so Mr Grayling went on to berate the Government for a ‘political gimmick’.

Rather like former bishops or speakers, it is rare for former service chiefs to align themselves openly with any political party. Most former defence chiefs raised to the peerage sit as cross-benchers, above the unedifying fray of partisan politics.

There are some who are questioning David Cameron’s judgement over this appointment, suggesting that he has potentially politicised the armed forces as the motives of each retiring senior military figure will now be questioned and ‘tainted’.

This is not a problem for Mr Cameron. But it is certainly one for General Dannatt.

It was his lack of judgement which leaked this story on a Radio Five interview yesterday. Today, that poor grasp of politics has wiped the reporting of every other Conference speech off the front pages. He alone is responsible for this.

It transpires that he has been advising the Conservative Party ‘for months’, which is a manifest assertion of political allegiance and a breach of the convention that the military are politically neutral.

While the whole country has heard Sir Richard openly criticise the Government for not providing enough support and equipment for troops in the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was believed that he was speaking up nobly for the armed forces. When he said he believed that the Army is fighting the Taliban with ‘at least part of one arm’ tied behind its back, we believed that the General was speaking with honourable motives.

Now there is more than a whiff of playing politics.

That Sir Richard is to be made a peer will now come as no surprise. That he will be a minister in the next Conservative government is now foregone.

But the reality is that there is no real difference between Labour and the Conservatives when it comes to appointments to the House of Lords. All peers are now ‘gimmicks’, for the second chamber is itself now nothing but a gimmick – a political football for either party to fill with its placemen and cronies in order to gain partisan advantage in the legislating process. Lord Dannatt may bring more to the Upper House than Lord Sugar, but as a Conservative what he brings will be much diminished.

And what will David Cameron do when the next wing commander, general or admiral steps out of the chain of command and starts to criticise publicly his Conservative government for not ring-fencing the defence budget, or for failing to provide the necessary ships, helicopters or body armour to allow them to do what they have been sent into a theatre of war to do?

And when he does nothing, will he object if they start to advise Labour?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:05 AM Permalink 40 comments

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Luvvies, pride and prejudice

Cranmer was going to talk about George Osborne’s austerity truth-telling versus Ken Clarke’s regulatory sophistry.

But the former is tedious and the latter a rather predictable delusion: indeed, Mr Clarke’s speech was reminiscent of that given by John Maples, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, a decade ago, when he announced that it was official Conservative Party policy to re-negotiate the Treaty of Rome. The faithful cheered to the rafters, but anyone who knew anything about the EU knew that he was talking nonsense.

But there was a little side-show last night which merits some analysis. The homosexual hypocrite Ben Summerskill was due to speak at the ‘Tory Conference Pride’ – the party’s first official ‘Gay Pride’ event – and laud the progress made by the party, such as the acceptance of gay civil partnerships and an unqualified apology for Section 28. But he was not so pleased with the presence of Michal Kaminski at the conference, since he is alleged to hold ‘homophobic’ and anti-Semitic views. On behalf of a rainbow coalition of luvvies – including Ewan MacGregor, Stephen Fry and Jo Brand, Michael Cashman, Eddie Izzard and Patrick Stewart – Ben Summerskill demanded that David Cameron disassociate the Conservative Party from Poland’s Law & Justice Party, because its members hold such ‘extreme’ and ‘offensive’ views. They wrote: “We want to believe the Conservative Party has really changed – please help us by rescinding the invite to the Polish Law & Justice Party and urging them either to change their views or quit your new European group.”

And to make his point, Mr Summerskill stamped his feet, threw a hissy fit and withdrew as the LGBTory star turn.

Nothing contrived about that at all.

Then über-luvvie Stephen Fry was wheeled out to support the boycott, also decrying the ‘homophobic’ Law & Justice Party, and insisting that all of David Cameron’s efforts over the past four years to woo the ‘gay vote’ have foundered because of this EU alliance.

Nothing contrived about that either.

But Cranmer wonders why such strength of feeling was never evident when the Conservative Party were allied to the European People’s Party. Why was there no call from luvvie-dom to boycott the ‘anti-gay Tories’ for being in alliance with the EPP, when the group includes Polish Civic Platform, the Deputy Speaker of which rejoiced in a court decision to deprive a lesbian mother of custody of her four-year-old daughter: “The court didn’t bow to pressure from the aggressive homosexual lobby, which came to make a scene as usual”. And it also includes Forza Italia, who produced a blatantly ‘homophobic’ poster at the last Italian general election (“Daddy and Papa? This isn’t the family we want!”). And the German CDU are not above manifestations of racism, having called for the deportation of 'criminal foreigners': “We have too many criminal young foreigners… Germany has had a Christian and Western culture for centuries, and foreigners who don’t stick to our rules don’t belong here”. They also campaigned in 2000 under the slogan Kinder statt Inder (‘Children rather than Indians’). And let us not forget the Austrian People’s Party, whose Secretary General called for the banning of burqas, adding: “If we allow consultations to be held in Turkish, we will one day become Turkish ourselves.”

All of these parties are members of the EPP. But Ben Summerskill and Stephen Fry never once objected to their ‘extreme’ and ‘offensive’ views, and never demanded of David Cameron that he disassociate from such ‘homophobes’ and ‘fascists’.

Cranmer smells the Le Male-drenched wrist of Michael Cashman MEP all over this. The homosexual (may one call him so, or is it 'gay'?) Labour MEP has clearly been out on night manoeuvres, holding assignations with his political soul-mates, and has contrived a media row with a few high-profile luvvies to discredit the Conservative Party and denigrate Michal Kaminski.

It’s a good job the party still has the support of Jim Davidson.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:13 AM Permalink 37 comments

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Boris Johnson – the darling of the Conservative Party Conference

Cranmer is not going to discuss the Darling who has spitefully attempted to upstage the Conservatives in Manchester. That Darling is no proper darling: there is nothing endearing, winsome or lovable about him.

No, Cranmer wishes to talk of the Conference darling.

It used to be Michael Heseltine, of course. The Party faithful would pack Blackpool’s Winter Gardens hours in advance of his appearance, and year after year he delivered a virtuoso performance of some of the most memorable conference lines and dramaturgy, with his blond mop wafting to every upward inflection. And year after year he would earn a rapturous standing ovation: he was widely perceived as a rival and potential successor to Margaret Thatcher.

There has really been no-one since. There have been and are orators, but none with flair and charisma: there has been charisma, but not with intellect and vision.

Boris Johnson’s conference speech marked the restoration of the darling species: he not only exuded panache, he held firm to core Conservative principles. He came up to the podium to the theme of EastEnders – the soap opera in which the Mayor played a cameo role last week – but he left to real-life adulation and heartfelt appreciation. He had been cast in a mere supporting walk-on role, but he turned the spear-carrier into a protagonist.

There must be something about blond mops.

Boris Johnson is too big to be hemmed in – either at a Party conference or at City Hall.

And he shows himself to be consistently in tune with Conservative heartlands. He wants to abolish the planned 50p tax rate; he wants a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty; he wants to see the return of grammar schools; he seeks to heal the banker lepers of their pariah status. He is seen to do more and care more about such issues than the Party leadership.

And his interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight (fast-forward to 16.30) is political theatre of the highest order. There is nothing tedious, mundane or scripted about Boris: he is authentic and original – ‘a toenail in the body politic’. At one point, he is so exasperated by the inane level of questioning and the depths which Newsnight has plumbed that he addresses the camera directly. And he declares to the watching millions: "David Cameron is a first rate chap, a very good guy. He will deliver a fantastic, committed and determined Conservative government and give this country the new leadership that it is crying out for after a decade of unrepentant, unbelievable Labour government. So go on out there and vote for him in May. That is my strong advice."

What politician other than the Prime Minister has ever been invited by the BBC to address the nation directly?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:49 AM Permalink 32 comments

Monday, October 05, 2009

Conservatives target 2.6 million on ‘Incapacity Benefit’

One would think that the United Kingdom were the most disabled nation on the planet. With nine per cent of its working population declared incapacitated, one could be forgiven for thinking we were subject to some chronic pandemic or a profound flaw in the genetic pool.

But the reality is that we have developed a cultural aversion to earning a living. Statistics indicate that five million people have never had a job under Labour as the dependency culture has gripped poorer neighbourhoods. No adult works in 3.3 million households and 800,000 have been claiming incapacity benefit for more than a decade. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is the wasted potential of the one-in-five young people who have never had a job.

Tony Blair appointed Frank Field, an independent-minded MP, to be his welfare reform minister with a brief to ‘think the unthinkable’. Unfortunately for him, he did – and Gordon Brown thereafter ensured that Mr Field’s political career was ended.

New Labour have micro-managed and centralised welfare and spawned a myriad of benefits – Job Seekers’ Allowance, tax credits and the New Deal for the unemployed to name but a few. And what have these yielded? Despite a lengthy period of low unemployment, welfare spending has continued to increase. This is the defining characteristic of our welfare state: it is expensive, inefficient, bureaucratic and fails to deliver what it is supposed to.

It is crying out for reform.

The Bible has quite a lot to say about not working. It talks of the inevitable fate of the sluggard lying in bed; the sloth too lazy to find employment: it tells us that if a man will not work, he shall not eat.

It is ‘nasty’ stuff – uncaring, uncompassionate, harsh and ‘right wing’.

Nasty or not, today in Manchester the Conservative Party will declare war on the sick-note culture, unveiling plans to slash £25 a week from the benefits of the work-shy.

Of course, the Party will not use the words ‘war’, ‘slash’ or ‘work-shy’, for they are seeking to sound reasonable, huggable, fluffy and pink.

But in the UK, it pays not to work. Indeed, it frequently pays more than work. And it must be a wholly justifiable welfare reform to redress the absurd situation in which a man can ‘earn’ more by lying in bed all day than he can by getting on his bike and finding a job. If he is incapacitated, he receives £89.90 a week: the unemployed receive only £64.30. In addition, of course, to having one’s rent and council tax paid, children supported, and a host of other benefits to keep one from the ever-rising threshold of poverty.

The Conservative welfare reforms have been drawn up by David, Lord Freud, who defected from Labour to become a shadow minister in the Lords earlier this year. If only Tony Blair had trusted Frank Field, we would not now be a nation of supplicants, with one in three households dependent on the state for at least half its income.

But Cranmer has a question (or three):

In order to be declared incapacitated, one must obtain a ‘sick note’ from one’s doctor. One would think, being professional and qualified, that doctors only issue such a note to those they judge to be incapable of work – the severely disabled, the mentally ill, those who have had heart attacks or been afflicted with a debilitating illness. By talking of compulsory health assessments by ‘super doctors’ from ‘private firms’ who will test how genuine a claimant’s incapacity may be, are not the Conservatives effectively accusing the nation’s GPs of not doing their jobs properly? Are they not interfering in a delegated, professional judgement? Are they not creating a further centralised bureaucracy instead of insisting on localised efficiency?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:13 AM Permalink 47 comments

Sunday, October 04, 2009

The European Empire identifies its Emperor


The creation of a European Empire has moved a step closer: only Poland and the Czech Republic have yet to ratify the Constitution for Europe (known as the Lisbon Treaty) which will pave the way for a powerful new President of Europe.

Empires need an Emperor: Emperors need an Empress. And to govern Europe, it helps if one is allied at least nominally to the Vatican. Tony Blair's conversion was always political, and the kingdom of this world has not disappointed. There is something a little ironic that, at the very time that the United Kingdom is rejecting the facade of New Labour for a radical reforming Conservative Party, the architect and embodiment of New Labour will occupy a throne in Brussels and assert his superior political authority. Britain’s real Supreme Court, the European Court of Justice – now sits in Luxembourg. We are at that point prophesied by former Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell back in 1962. Speaking of his opposition to acceding to the Treaty of Rome, he declared: ‘It means the end of a thousand years of history. You may say: "Let it end." But, my goodness, it is a decision that needs a little care and thought.”

The only care and thought that has gone into this has been to ensure that New Labour incarnate can continue strutting his stuff on the global stage and bestriding the narrow world like a Colossus.

The Treaty of Lisbon is a logical consequence of the Treaty of Rome: the move to ‘streamline’ EU institutions to mimic the functions of a nation state does indeed represents the biggest threat to British sovereignty since the invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066.

The Irish voted Yes in their second referendum by 67.1 per cent. But it was not a ‘vote for Europe’: it was a vote of fear. And fear clouds the reasoning mind. They have been promised ‘sustained economic recovery, security, tackling global poverty and action on climate change’. They were frightened for their jobs and have lost their sovereign self-confidence. They were duped into believing that salvation is to be found in the EU Tower of Babel. Astonishingly, President Barroso said: “I am pleased that the EC helped in putting impartial and accurate information at the disposal of the Irish people.”

Cranmer has never known the EU produce anything that was either impartial or accurate. It is smoke and mirrors: distortion, dishonesty and disinformation.

This will be Ireland’s last referendum on the EU, for the Treaty of Lisbon has granted the EU legal personality: it is no longer necessary to hold divisive IGCs or seek the permission of member states before it implements a directive. The EU can now sign treaties on behalf of its member states: it can pass laws without their individual consent. British embassies abroad will now become EU embassies, each flying the EU’s corona stellarum duodecim. The EU has indeed become an Empire.

But at least the Irish were permitted a vote on the issue – even two.

David Cameron has said: “If the treaty is ratified in all member states, we have repeatedly said we would not let matters rest there.”

What, precisely, does Mr Cameron intend to do to prevent President Blair from resting there?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:55 AM Permalink 48 comments

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Are 'broken families' responsible for 'Broken Britain'?

As the Conservative Party gathers in a damp and dismal Manchester to consider how the country’s broken politics can fix broken Britain, the BBC’s Mark Easton asks the question: “Are 'broken families' responsible for 'Broken Britain'?”

He quotes Iain Duncan Smith: "I have always believed that it would be impossible to prove conclusively that simply having a lone parent effects your outcomes as a child and we have never argued that.”

Dave and Liz Percival make some sensible comments at their Weekly Update of UK Marriage News No 9.35 20 September 09, which can be found at www.2-in-2-1.co.uk.

Nick Gulliford observes:

"At first sight the news that children of single parents do as well as those of married parents, both academically and behaviourally may seem like a real blow to some of the arguments for the “benefits” of marriage..... But dig a little deeper behind the bald headline and one finds an important caveat – singleness is OK as long as it is constant, with no new partners entering the scene.... This poses a dilemma for policy makers – shift policy to make re-partnering of single mums less socially acceptable, or support the formation of the most stable family structure before children are born, and ensure it is supported throughout life. Far from being bad news, this [OECD] study to me seems to point to one of the most compelling arguments why the inherent stability of marriage should be high on society’s agenda – the fluidity of modern “serial relationships” is destroying the lives and futures of our kids."

The argument, “support the formation of the most stable family structure before children are born, and ensure it is supported throughout life” seems convincing to me, along with the argument of the OECD which is 'convinced that giving specific benefits to single parents may make matters worse.' "There is little or no evidence that these benefits positively influence child well-being, while they discourage single-parent employment.

In the UK we have tried giving substantial benefits to 'single' parents – many of whom [up to 200,000 according to Frank Field] are not really 'single' but hostesses of 'guest' [often serial] stepfathers – only to find the lives of the children are disrupted to a much greater extent than if they remained genuinely 'single' mothers. Indeed, the rates of child abuse in such 'families' is significantly higher, some studies indicating 33 times greater.

What we have not tried in the UK is to “support the formation of the most stable family structure before children are born, and ensure it is supported throughout life”. Indeed, the status of married couples has been undermined through both the tax and benefit systems, most particularly that of the poorest married couples.

When the Labour government was elected, the Social Exclusion Unit announced that there were eight indicators of deprivation, one of which was 'family breakdown'. However, when the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit and the ONS published the Neighbourhood Indices of Deprivation in 2001 there were only seven of them, plus an Index of Multiple Deprivation, the omission being 'family breakdown'.

No one has given a satisfactory explanation as to why there is no Neighbourhood Index of Domestic and Social Cohesion, nor have politicians or journalists been sufficiently inquisitive to investigate.

Mark Easton quotes the OECD, "There is little or no evidence that these [single parent] benefits positively influence child well-being.... “ At the start of 2009 a Local [Neighbourhood] Index of Child Well-being was published – though not included in the Index of Multiple Deprivation; this was published through the DCLG which is now responsible for the Indices.

So in future, it should be possible to measure changes in 'child well-being'. But I doubt very much if this government will sanction the publishing of an 'index of domestic and social cohesion' for fear that neighbourhoods with low levels of domestic and social cohesion are shown to be much the same as the neighbourhoods with low levels of child well-being.

And that would never do for HMG, and probably not for the BBC either!

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:05 AM Permalink 28 comments

Friday, October 02, 2009

Vatican urges Ireland to vote NO in Lisbon referendum

At last, there is discernment.
At last, the blind now see.
At last, there is hope.

Today the people of the Republic of Ireland vote in their second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. They gave the wrong answer last year, despite a 'slick' marketing campaign to lure them into the Lisbon web. So their government has generously granted them the opportunity to repent, though not quite at leisure. Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, has promised voters that he has secured ‘legal guarantees’ from the EU that Ireland's neutrality and tax policy will remain unaffected, and its traditional Roman Catholic stance on issues such as the family and abortion will remain untouched.

It is not true, of course. It is still the same treaty, nothing has changed. The Irish people are being asked to affirm precisely the same dense and complicated document that they rejected last year. It still legislates for an EU ‘foreign secretary’, a permanent president (Blair - 'within weeks'?), and it removes member states’ vetoes in several areas, in particular to questions related to justice and home affairs. And it still includes the ‘passerelle’ clause, which permits the EU to extend its jurisdiction over precisely those areas Brian Cowen asserts are inviolable – without the inconvenience of having to refer back to national parliaments or endure the indignity of further referenda. It remains a self-amending treaty. It is an instrument of oppression.

Nothing has changed except the economic context. The financial crisis has rocked the country, turning it from having a much-admired and booming economy into the economic sick man of Europe, where the bottom has fallen out of the housing market, the banks are broke, unemployment is in double figures and GDP has dropped sharply.

A vote for Lisbon is being portrayed as a vote for jobs and economic recovery. Rejection means Ireland will 'sink without a trace'.

But in an astonishing intervention, quite out of character with previous Vatican pronouncements on matters relating to the EU, Bruno Waterfield reports that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, has warned the people of Ireland that the European Union threatens their country's ‘identity, traditions and history’.

The Republic is estimated to be about 90 per cent Roman Catholic. Of course, in recent decades there has been a massive decline in adherence to the faith with regard to regular Mass attendance, but affiliation remains a strong cultural expression. While this intervention is a veritable Gloria in Excelsis to His Grace, it will be a Missa Solemnis to the Irish government and the European Commission, who have poured millions of euros into the ‘Yes’ campaign, despite their own rules forbidding such intervention.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s comments echo those made by Pope John Paul II as the ‘European Constitution’ was being drawn up in at the turn of the millennium. When the draft first appeared, there were objections that the document moved directly from acknowledgement of the influence of Greek and Roman cultural influence on European identity and culture, to that of the Enlightenment. The fact that there had been a few millennia of Christian influence in the interim was completely omitted.

The Cardinal said:

“Individual European countries have their own identity. The EU prescribes its laws or views to them and they do not have to fit with their traditions and history. Some countries are logically resisting this – for example, Ireland. If Europe recognised homosexual couples as equal to marriage, for example, it would go against its own history. And it would be right to stand against it. The Church wants to encourage states in this."

The Church wants to encourage EU states to assert their individual identities?

Hallelujah!

This is the first time there has been Vatican affirmation of the historic Protestant Christian identity and tradition of the United Kingdom.

This intervention is an immense blow to the obsessively-secular EU, which seeks to ‘prescribe laws and customs’ which are antithetical to Christian history and tradition. The disgraceful treatment meted out to Italy’s prospective commissioner Rocco Buttiglione revealed what had hitherto been covert. The imposition of secularism as an assertion of ‘neutrality’ on the part of the state (for the EU is a de facto state, if not increasingly de jure) challenges the distinctive Christian moral vision of the common good.

In the politically liberal EU, there can be no coercive or even cohesive state theology and no insistence that such a theology should even be necessary. The state is primarily if not exclusively the mechanism by which the happiness of the individual is promoted and individual fulfilment is realised. Thus King George VII, by the grace of God the next British Monarch, will not only be head of state but ‘Defender of Faith’ rather than ‘Defender of the Faith’. There is no dissuasion from holding on to spiritual or moral principles, but neither is there encouragement or insistence that one must do so. It is not a crude sacred/secular, church/state or private/public divide, but the perpetual assertion of a via media of ‘neutrality’.

This is the EU’s political paradigm. In a sense , it is a logical consequence of Protestant thought which has influenced the political and social order: Locke was only one who asserted that toleration and the rights of private conscience are themselves hallmarks of Christianity. Neutrality is one of the principal goals of the liberal state because society, being composed of a plurality of persons, each with his own aims, interests, and conceptions of the good, is best arranged when it is governed by principles that do not themselves presuppose any particular conception of the good.

There is an evident dilemma in seeking neutrality of political effect because intrinsic to the pursuit of any policy is the likelihood that it will have a detrimental effect on at least one conception of the good to the manifest benefit of another. But there are manifestly circumstances in which it is unfair to act neutrally – where there are not even prima facie reasons to be neutral.

Neutrality appeals to the EU’s egalitarian instinct that one group should not be more advantaged or enjoy greater privileges than another, but it leaves unresolved the need to adjudicate between competing conceptions of the good. It is manifestly necessary to deem some conceptions as being legitimate or beneficial and others as not. In doing so, there is a need to refer to some ‘higher code’ which, in liberal Western democracies, has traditionally been identified with Christianity and the principles of the Enlightenment. These, in England, have historically been embodied and articulated by the Church of England (or worldwide through the Anglican Communion).

In the EU, the ‘higher code’ is an aggressive assertion of Enlightenment secularism. Its creed is godlessness, and the only acceptable expression of spirituality is that of Gaia – earth worship. And so ‘global warming’ and the environment are deemed sufficient to unite mankind.

Declan Ganley, the leader of Libertas, which is campaigning for a No vote, is of the opinion that Cardinal Bertone represents the Roman Catholic Church's true position. He said: “I welcome these comments and encourage all practicing Catholics to take them on board before they cast their ballots.”

Cranmer exhorts them to do the same, to heed warning of the Cardinal.

The result is due tomorrow afternoon.

If Ireland votes No, the Lisbon Treaty should be dead.

If Ireland votes Yes, David Cameron has a slight problem.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:38 AM Permalink 62 comments

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Liberal Democrat religious discrimination

Cranmer loves things like this.

Watford’s Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate, Sal Brinton, sent Javid Suleman (pictured) a greeting card to celebrate Eid.

Mr Suleman is a Christian.

The card was sent purely on the grounds that Mr Suleman has a ‘Muslim-sounding’ name, and therefore was presumed to be a Muslim.

Ergo, as far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned, one’s religion is determined by one’s surname, and one is then appropriately categorised. This is Liberal Democrat campaign strategy – classification according to ethnicity, skin colour, or religion.

Wonderful prejudice.

It would be interesting to discover by what means and authority this inaccurate data has been collated and stored.

Even more interesting (for Cranmer) is why the Liberal Democrats are sending greeting cards to ethnic minorities in commemoration of the days of religious observance at all.

Will all of Watford’s Christians (or white people with ‘Christian-sounding’ names) be sent a Christmas card?

If not, should not all of Watford’s white-people-with-Christian-sounding-names make a formal complaint about the Liberal Democrats’ discrimination on the grounds of religion?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 2:18 PM Permalink 21 comments

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act come in to force

Have you been cloned yet?

Today's the day.

Gosh, how exciting. A plethora of mini-Cranmers all contending with the religious quarrels and political nonsense of the day.

It is being implemented in three stages, but this bright and glorious day heralds the bulk of it. It is the beginning of a brave new world of fertilisation and embryology experimentation.

Parliament approved the Bill last autumn, and it is replete with controversial issues.

One of Cranmer’s loyal communicants writes:

“Much fuss was made, and quite right too. However, tucked away here and there are aspects which were agreed with hardly a squeak. This was not because these are refreshingly un-contentious. Far from it. But rather because we were barely told about them.

One of these concerned the use of bodily tissues donated for research. The Act permits the use of such tissue to create embryonic clones, fully human or using animal eggs, of the donor for destructive research. In mitigation it must be added hastily that explicit consent must be obtained from the donor for their cells to be used in this way. Now, whatever one’s personal view on such research, that must be seen as a reasonable protocol, respecting bodily integrity and personal choice.

But it’s not that simple.

Exceptions are written into the legislation. Tissue already held in tissue banks may be used if it is “not reasonably possible” for the researcher to trace and obtain consent from the donor and he is not aware of any evidence to suggest they would object (how would he be aware?). Tissue from children may be used in this way if their parents consent. Tissue from the mentally incapacitated can also be used and that bright almost-new Mental Capacity Act was tweaked so that the prohibition on intrusive research did not apply. How? Well, by deeming that using tissue from a mentally incapacitated person to create their clone and then destroy it is not “intrusive”.

What did our elected representatives have to say about this?

Well not much, apparently. But then, it was slipped in after the only free votes (for the Government, that is), debated only in Committee, and then pushed through the remaining Commons stages on a guillotine and with Labour MPs on a three line whip.

But at least we know that efforts must be made to trace us and seek explicit consent before our stored tissue can be used.

Except that the UK Biobank seem to think they needn’t bother.

This organisation currently holds cells provided by over 363,000 altruistic individuals which they make available for medical research. Unlike Generation Scotland, a Scottish counterpart, they see no need to commit themselves to obtaining explicit consent. If tissues are supplied to researchers anonymised, as is often the case, there is not a lot that researchers can do.

If UK Biobank want people to keep faith with them and continue to donate tissue for research, they need to think again. We need to able to trust our research community. And they need our trust because without it they will lose our support. At least that’s how they see it in Scotland.

And that was the message of Alder Hey, too. Is it so soon forgotten?

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 9:04 AM Permalink 15 comments

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Sun abandons Labour - so what?

At precisely 12.05am, while Cranmer was working frantically at his desk throught the midnight hours as he has done all week, night and day (quite literally), in order to fend off Mephistopheles and the rest of the demonic horde which presently plagues him, he received an email from The Sun.

The Sun has never before emailed His Grace, and neither would His Grace particularly wish them to again. He wondered why he was being spammed with the lastest about some D-list celebrity or scurrilous gossip about nothing worth reading.

It appears that the paper has decided to rat on Labour. Or rather, to re-rat back to the Conservative Party. And, for some reason, this is the story all over every newspaper, political blog, and on the lips of political anoraks (of which His Grace may be one: he certainly feels like such a limp garment at the moment).

It was, of course, purposely timed to detract from the Prime Minister's big moment.

Poor man. He had worked very hard on that speech. One could tell.

Years ago, The Sun was indeed influential. But that was in the age when newspapers were read by millions and the press barons were courted like one entreats the powers of divinty. They interceded between the rulers and the ruled: they received the lively political oracles from the learned and wise, and distilled them into bite-size chunks of sound-bite vernacular for the lesser-educated proletariat.

But that age has gone. The world has changed. Newspaper circulations have plummetted just as much as mass party membership has declined.

When, back in 1992, the paper boasted "It was the Sun wot won it", there was a perception that it had. It was ludicrous, of course. It had simply sensed the lack of appetite for Neil Kinnock, and backed the likely winner of that general election. The Sun did not win it for John Major. It is a commercial enterprise and was simply giving its readers (or picture viewers) what it sensed they wanted to read (or see). It follows trends and views: it does not create history or form opinion.

Cranmer has no doubt that politicians will always be invited on to the yachts of the rich and powerful. But the rich and powerful will increasingly be subsumed to those who innovate and control the new media. Rupert Murdoch and his son James will doubtless retain some influence, but the future belongs to the likes of Stephan Shakespeare and Tim Montgomerie who, while not possessing their own yachts (as far as His Grace knows), are clearly at the helm of the new age of political campaigning.

Some traditional Labour votres will this morning be spluttering over their cornflakes, feeling betrayed by the rag that brings them their morning fix of tittle-tattle, banal comment and soft porn.

They should never have relied upon it to give them their daily bread. Its influence is overrated: its self-perception of its political omnipotence absurdly exaggerated. Mr Cameron would be wise to smile over his marmite on toast this morning. But The Sun alone will not 'win it' for him.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:20 AM Permalink 21 comments

Monday, September 28, 2009

Conservatives propose to reduce marriage covenant to a contract

The BBC reports that it is emerging Conservative Party policy to make pre-nuptial agreements binding, as they are in many EU countries. Henry Bellingham, the shadow justice minister, said: "We want to bring in a fairly wide-ranging divorce law reform bill and I'm very keen that part of it will include pre-nups and make them enforceable in law, subject to very strict safeguards."

Some 'family' (divorce) lawyers disagree: Marilyn Stowe said: "The whole emphasis is on divorce reform - and I actually think we should be looking much more at marriage. I have to say if I was asked to enter into a 'pre-nup' I wouldn't."

Marilyn Stowe argues: "I am married and I advocate marriage for those who wish to commit in that way. But I am also prepared to recognise that everyone has the right not to do so. I believe that the law should be available to all families, not just the select few – and certainly not the innocents who currently ‘make do’ with the odd CSA cheque and a hotch-potch of inadequate legislation."

Cranmer is grateful to his faithful communicant Mr Nick Gulliford for bringing this to His Grace's attention and for pointing out the manifest deficiencies of this argument:

1. Virtually all the parties to this 'debate' seem to be making a fundamental mistake of treating marriage as a 'contract' rather than a 'covenant'. Because it is a covenant it does not lend itself to the kind of legal impositions that politicians and lawyers are seeking to place upon it.

2. One consequence of this is that a divorce should only be granted when there is mutual consent by the parties which is the same as that with which they entered the marriage. Only if the marriage was forced should the courts should have unilateral power to negate it.

3. If the ‘hotch-potch of inadequate legislation’ that covers cases involving children of parents who are not married is not working, then politicians must devise better legislation. But if couples are determined not to marry, to try to impose upon them the marital commitments they have sought to avoid is silly. At present the tax and benefit systems impose penalties on poor married couples, which is equally silly. Poor people are unlikely to marry if it attracts penalties. The arguments for not making pre-nuptial agreements binding in law are even stronger than Marilyn Stowe imagines.

4. Making a pre-nuptial agreement (preparation for divorce) legally enforceable would strike a serious blow at current public policy which is to support marriage as a lifelong commitment. Anything that undermines that would alter a fundamental aspect of public policy which has been part of our tradition for centuries. Indeed, the covenant relationship between God and his people and Christ and His Church have been likened to that of the commitments of spouses, so there is a long history behind it.

5. Even the people supporting enforceable pre-nuptial agreements, like Henry Bellingham, the shadow justice minister, always add the caveat ‘subject to very strict safeguards’, which means the courts would always have the ultimate power to set aside any agreement they did not like, which is really the same as saying these agreements cannot be made enforceable anyway. If couples choose to enter into pre-nuptial agreements and they can only divorce by mutual consent, there is no need for them to be enforceable.

It seems to Cranmer that by entering the covenant of marriage and swearing before God "til death us do part" is utterly negated if a pre-nuptial divorce agreement has preceded the swearing of the sacred vow. Indeed, it is difficult to see how anyone in conscience could take the vow if there has been legally-binding preparation for "til I think it's no longer working".

One wonders how long it will be before the Lord’s covenant with His people will be undermined by Parliament and the courts – subject, of course, to very strict safeguards.

posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 8:56 AM Permalink 79 comments