I believe in one Party,
Preserver of all that is good in our Constitution,
And of Individual Freedom, Limited Government, National Defence and the Rule of Law:
And in one Party Leader, the only-begotten of the entire Membership,
Chosen democratically by the whole Party,
Centre-Forward, Darling of Conference,
Pre-eminent Parliamentarian of Parliament,
Elected, not appointed,
Being of one philosophy with the Party,
By whom Conservatism is articulated and maintained;
Who for us Members, and for our earthly salvation came down from CCHQ,
And was invited by Her Majesty to form a Government,
And was made Prime Minister,
And was vilified also for us under the BBC.
He was airbrushed and scorned,
And day after day he shrugs it off because that’s his job,
And steps up to the Dispatch Box,
And sitteth on the right hand of the Speaker.
And he shall come again with a larger majority to annihilate the Socialists and the Liberals:
And his Government shall have no end.
And I believe in the Voluntary Party,
The giver of life to the Parliamentary Party,
Which precedeth the Party and the Leader,
Which with the Party and the Leader together should be acknowledged and appreciated,
Because they do all the donkey work.
And I believe in one Conservatism, though it be severally termed 'One-Nation', 'Compassionate' and 'Progressive'.
I acknowledge one Membership for the right to select candidates.
And I look for victory at the General Election,
And for the realisation of the policies to come.
Amen.

It appears to be open season on the Church of England: first came the Pope, then David Cameron, now the BBC...

The Corporation's new Head of Religion (and Ethics), Aaqil Ahmed, has accused the Established Church of 'living in the past'.

Cranmer has nothing to say, except to observe that if the BBC's Head of Religion (and Ethics) believes the Church of England - which is fully engaged with and bearing the costs of the debates surrounding gender equality and sexual orientation - is 'living in the past', he must be persuaded that the Roman Catholic Church is at the very least antediluvian.

And if the Roman Catholic Church is antediluvian, he must be of the opinion that Islam is positively Jurassic.

Why does he not say this?

Just wondering.

The three Labour MPs who have been charged with theft over fraudulent expense claims have declared that they are above the law and will fight attempts to put them on trial.

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine each face up to seven years in jail after Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, announced that he was charging them under the Theft Act 1968. Lord Hanningfield, the Tory frontbencher and leader of Essex County Council, faces six charges over his expense claims.

In a joint statement, the three MPs announced that they would fight the charges by claiming parliamentary privilege over their expense claims. It said: “We maintain that this is an issue that should be resolved by the parliamentary commissioner, who is there to enforce any breach of the rules.”

The four are charged as follows:

Elliot Morley
The former Agriculture Minister and Labour MP for Scunthorpe faces two counts under the Theft Act 1968 of dishonestly claiming expenses. The first count alleges that between April 2004 and February 2006, Mr Morley dishonestly claimed mortgage expenses of £14,428 for a house in Winterton, Lincolnshire. The second count alleges that between March 2006 and November 2007 Mr Morley dishonestly claimed mortgage expenses of £16,000 for the same property when there was no longer a mortgage on that property.

David Chaytor
The Bury North MP faces three charges under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 for false accounting. The first count alleges that in May 2006 Mr Chaytor dishonestly claimed £1,950 for computer services by using false invoices. The second count alleges that between September 2005 and September 2006 Mr Chaytor dishonestly claimed £12,925 for renting a property in Regency Street, London, when he was in fact its owner. The third charge alleges that between September 2007 and January 2008 Mr Chaytor dishonestly claimed £5,425, purportedly for renting a property in Bury, Lancashire, from his mother.

Jim Devine
The Livingston MP faces two charges under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 for false accounting. The first count alleges that between July 2008 and April 2009 Mr Devine dishonestly claimed £3,240 for cleaning services using false invoices. The second count alleges that in March 2009 Mr Devine dishonestly claimed £5,505 for stationery using false invoices.

Lord Hanningfield
The Conservative Peer, who is also leader of Essex County Council, faces six charges under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 for false accounting. The charges allege that between March 2006 and May 2009, he dishonestly submitted claims for expenses to which he knew he was not entitled. The allegations focus on numerous claims for overnight expenses for staying in London when records show he was driven home and did not stay in the capital.

Cranmer understands that none of the four have been arrested.

It’s one rule for them...

None of the four have been finger-printed or had DNA samples taken.

It’s one rule for them...

And they are appealing against any trial by claiming their right to parliamentary privilege accorded them by virtue of the Bill of Rights 1689.

As a result of the conflict between Parliament and James II, Parliament issued the Declaration of Rights in 1689. Article 9 of the Declaration was a response to the case of William Williams and other similar cases:

Whereas the late King James the Second, by the assistance of divers evil counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of the kingdom ...

By prosecutions in the Court of King’s Bench for matters and causes cognisable only in parliament; and by divers other arbitrary and illegal courses ...

And thereupon the said lords spiritual and temporal and Commons ... do in the first place (as their ancestors in like cases have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare:
...
9. That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament.

Yet we ordinary souls have no such appeal when it comes to invoking our rights.

Could someone please explain to His Grace why Article 9 may be invoked by Members of Parliament to assert their privilege, yet subjects of Her Majesty may not invoke the following provision of the Bill of Rights in relation to their sovereignty?

And I do declare that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate, State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm So help me God.

Or is it just another case of 'one rule for them'?

Ruth Gledhill has picked up on an interview David Cameron has done for a gay magazine called Attitude, (available courtesy of The Independent).

She refers to his ‘astonishing attack on the Church of England over its attitudes to homosexuality’.

Curious, that.

One wonders why Mr Cameron has not seen fit to criticise the Roman Catholic Church, which is rather more robust on the issue.

Or his local mosque, which he might find even more robust.

That aside, Mr Cameron is of the opinion that ‘if our Lord Jesus was around today he would very much be backing a strong agenda on equality and equal rights, and not judging people on their sexuality’.

Cranmer begs to differ: if ‘our Lord Jesus’ were around today, there is nothing at all to suggest that he would be remotely interested in talking about ‘equality’ or ‘rights’ at all.

He would be preaching the gospel, in season and out, and calling on people to repent of their sin and prepare for the coming of the Kingdom.

Mr Cameron says: “I don't want to get into a huge row with the Archbishop here, but the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through. Sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom-line, full essential.”

To be frank, Cranmer is rather irritated by this, not least because Mr Cameron appears to be completely ignorant (as Mrs Gledhill points out) of the ‘endless debates, committees, reports, schisms and not-quite-schisms that have played out in the Anglican Communion over the last decade and more on this issue’.

His Grace would like respectfully to point out to Mr Cameron that the Church of England began the process to which he refers while he was still a whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly past Bekynton to Lower Chapel.

And now, in the tenor of Tony Blair lecturing the Pope on this very matter, David Cameron is suggesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury should ‘modernise’ the Church of England.

Good grief.

The Church of England has been adapting, compromising and perpetually 'modernising' along via media after via media since 1534. The genius of Anglicanism is that it seeks to reconcile opposed systems, rejecting them as exclusive systems, but showing that the principle for which each stands has its place within the total orbit of Christian truth.

Mrs Gledhill continues:

‘On civil partnerships, Cameron said it was “worth looking” at changing civil partnerships to marriage but at the moment he favoured staying where we are.

‘He said gay people should be able to adopt. He confessed he had argued about it with him but believed he could convince even the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Scotland (he didn't say which RC AB in Scotland...) that “there are occasions when gay adoption is a perfectly sensible and straightforward thing.” He said he believed that children do best when there are two parents to help bring them up and that “the ideal adoption is finding a mum and dad, but there will be occasions when gay couples make very good adoptive parents. So I support gay adoption.”

‘Cameron was then asked: “Do you think that the right of gay children to have a safe education trumps the right of faith schools to teach that homosexuality is a sin?”

‘He answered: “Basically yes – that's the short answer to that, without getting into a long religious exegesis. I mean, I think, yes. I think...(long pause)... I don't want to get into an enormous row with the Archbishop here. But I think the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through – sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom line full essential.’

But, Mr Cameron, the Church of England is not a political party that may be recreated in the image of man.

It is no-one’s private fiefdom (though it may once have been).

Her Majesty the Queen is the Supreme Governor, and Jesus Christ is the Head.

It is acutely concerned with all that Mr Cameron talks of: the persecution abroad of homosexuals; the adoption of children by suitable parents irrespective of sexuality; the provision of services for the poor and marginalised; the expression of compassion to the alienated, outcast, oppressed and persecuted, irrespective of their gender, skin colour, sexuality or religion. The doors of the Church of England are open to everyone in the land. For centuries before the Conservative Party even existed, it has possessed the capacity for the via media which was never in its essence compromise or an intellectual expedient but a quality of thinking, an approach in which elements usually regarded as mutually exclusive were seen to be in fact complementary. These things were held in 'living tension', not in order to walk the tightrope of compromise, but because they were seen to be mutually illuminating and to fertilise each other.

This is the ‘living tension’ which was first advocated by Hooker (of whom Mr Cameron has probably never heard), who was opposed to absolutism in both church and state and an exponent of conciliar thought. This ensures that the laity, clergy and bishops all participate in guarding against autocracy in a system of checks and balances that in many ways apes the parliamentary process. If authority is dispersed, spiritual tyranny is prevented. The similarities between the synodical and parliamentary procedures are unsurprising when both expressions of representative government have a common root in mediaeval political thought.

Yet Mr Cameron appears to be intent on pursuing the Harman agenda and forging an absolutism. The Archbishop of York has said of Labour:

“Our current Government is in danger of sacrificing Liberty in favour of an abused form of equality – not a meaningful equality that enables the excluded to be brought into society, but rather an equality based on diktat and bureaucracy, which overreaches into the realm of personal conscience.”

While the observations may be wholly valid and politically astute, they only add to the perception that the Church of England seeks to exclude or is out of sympathy with some distinct groups of people for whom it should have a pastoral concern. This would be less of a problem if the Church’s Supreme Governor were not also the Head of State, for by virtue of being so, she is obliged to exercise her public ‘outward government’ in a manner which accords with the private welfare of her subjects – of whatever creed, ethnicity, sexuality or political philosophy. The royal supremacy in regard to the Church is in its essence the right of supervision over the administration of the Church, vested in the Crown as the champion of the Church, in order that the ‘religious welfare’ of its subjects may be provided for.

While politicians may argue over the manner of this ‘religious welfare’ in a context of ‘equality’ and ‘rights’, by focusing on such issues they alienate and distance the Church from political engagement.

Since Mr Cameron is likely to be Prime Minister when the Pope visits in September, Cranmer will be listening keenly to see if he lectures His Holiness and insists that his church must also ‘do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through. Sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom-line, full essential’.

Or would that run the risk of accusations of being ‘anti-Catholic’?

Yet if ‘full equality’ is ‘the bottom line’, if it is ‘full essential’, we are in for a far more interesting religio-political time under the next Conservative government than Cranmer could ever have dreamed.

It has been widely reported that Cherie Booth (ie Blair) QC, sitting as a judge in the case of one Shamso Miah, has chosen to suspend his six-month prison sentence because he was ‘a religious man’.

He had been convicted of breaking a man's jaw with two punches after a dispute in a bank queue in East Ham, London. There was no doubt he was the aggressor, because CCTV footage established this clearly. And he had, in any case, pleaded guilty.

The 25-year-old had gone to the bank straight from a local mosque. Mr Miah produced testimony to the effect that he was ‘a devout Muslim’.

And so Judge Booth did not send him to prison.

There has been some intelligent comment upon this matter, in particular from the incisive Jack of Kent and the magisterial Heresiarch. Cranmer recommends that you read both, for one believes the National Secular Society have a valid complaint that Ms Booth is discriminating against the unreligious, and the other thinks the whole matter has been blown out of all proportion. Cranmer will not repeat their arguments here, but will turn instead to a rather particular matter.

Judge Booth said:

“I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before... You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour.”

It has been observed that the Taliban are ‘religious’, and so undoubtedly are Al Qaida; as are the IRA and the UVF. Not to mention (for religious impartiality) the RSS, Sri Ram Sena, Lashkar e Toyba and Babbar Khalsa International. There is no shortage in the world of ‘religious’ people who seek to do rather more harm than break a jaw.

One could take issue with Ms Booth’s determination of ‘the fact’ that Mr Miah was devout in his faith, for it strikes His Grace that punching a man twice in the face and breaking his jaw is rather more persuasive of ‘the fact’ that Mr Miah may not be quite so devout.

Unless, of course, that religion condones the use of violence.

Is Ms Booth saying that attending a mosque is evidence that one is ‘religious’?

Perhaps it is; outwardly.

But, as a Christian, she ought to know better than to judge by the outward appearance.

And Cranmer has to wonder if Ms Booth, a devout Roman Catholic, would have been quite so lenient if the accused had beaten his wife, or if we were not dealing here with a Muslim but a loyal and faithful member of the Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church in Ravenhill Road, Belfast, who had broken the jaw of one of her co-religionists. For there, you see, they are all liars and bigots.

But Cranmer wishes to be rather more specific in this inquiry, for the word ‘religious’ is used by Ms Booth as a distinctly non-specific adjective denoting conscientious devotion or scrupulous piety.

Why did she choose the generic and not the patricular?

What would have been the reaction had Ms Booth said:

“I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a Muslim...”

Or

“I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a Roman Catholic...”?

Of course, the latter would have caused her immense difficulties due to an apparent bias towards a co-religionist.

But this is, in fact, precisely what Ms Booth is actually saying.

The NSS have a valid complain insofar as no judge is likely ever to articulate: “I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are an Atheist.”

The inference is that those who profess a religious faith have a heightened awareness of morality, of the difference between right and wrong, which is plainly nonsense.

And so Cranmer exhorts Terry Sanderson, the president of the NSS, to pursue this complaint.

Not least because Judge Booth was not compelled to refer to the faith of the defendant at all, and may not have done so if she had privately known him to be her co-religionist.

We cannot entertain the possibility that a Muslim judge might be more lenient towards a Muslim defendant, or a Roman Catholic judge might attribute to an accused co-religionist a higher moral awareness which might mitigate the severity of the judgement.

After all, since 1998, judges have been required to disclose whether or not they are Freemasons, in order to dispel allegations that they were treating fellow Masons differently from the un-enlightened.

But this was deemed ‘oppressive’, and challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.

And so Justice Secretary Jack Straw relented.

Yet is it not manifestly obvious that membership of a secret society or religious affiliation might raise suspicions of impartiality and objectivity in the administration of justice?

And might not undisclosed membership of the National Secular Society incline a judge or journalist to believe that Shamso Miah was delusional in his devoutness, or at least hypocritical, and so worthy of a more severe sentence?

Cranmer has just been sent the following by The White House (they are soooo good at this...). In the context of recent conversations, it seems timely and apt for His Grace to reproduce it in its entirety.

Of course, if a British prime minister were ever to give such an address, they might be accused of being ‘a nutter’

Or would (s)he?

Though THIS didn't take long.


THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release February 4, 2010


REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

Washington Hilton
Washington, D.C.

9:08 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Please be seated.

Thank you so much. Heads of state, Cabinet members, my outstanding Vice President, members of Congress, religious leaders, distinguished guests, Admiral Mullen -- it's good to see all of you. Let me begin by acknowledging the co-chairs of this breakfast, Senators Isakson and Klobuchar, who embody the sense of fellowship at the heart of this gathering. They're two of my favorite senators. Let me also acknowledge the director of my faith-based office, Joshua DuBois, who is here. Where's Joshua? He's out there somewhere. He's doing great work. (Applause.)

I want to commend Secretary Hillary Clinton on her outstanding remarks, and her outstanding leadership at the State Department. She's doing good every day. (Applause.) I'm especially pleased to see my dear friend, Prime Minister Zapatero, and I want him to relay America's greetings to the people of Spain. And Johnny, you are right, I'm deeply blessed, and I thank God every day for being married to Michelle Obama. (Applause.)

I'm privileged to join you once again, as my predecessors have for over half a century. Like them, I come here to speak about the ways my faith informs who I am -- as a President, and as a person. But I'm also here for the same reason that all of you are, for we all share a recognition -- one as old as time -- that a willingness to believe, an openness to grace, a commitment to prayer can bring sustenance to our lives.

There is, of course, a need for prayer even in times of joy and peace and prosperity. Perhaps especially in such times prayer is needed -- to guard against pride and to guard against complacency. But rightly or wrongly, most of us are inclined to seek out the divine not in the moment when the Lord makes His face shine upon us, but in moments when God's grace can seem farthest away.

Last month, God's grace, God's mercy, seemed far away from our neighbors in Haiti. And yet I believe that grace was not absent in the midst of tragedy. It was heard in prayers and hymns that broke the silence of an earthquake's wake. It was witnessed among parishioners of churches that stood no more, a roadside congregation, holding bibles in their laps. It was felt in the presence of relief workers and medics; translators; servicemen and women, bringing water and food and aid to the injured.

One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy Corpsman Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: "Where do you come from? What country? After my operation," she said, "I will pray for that country." And in Creole, Corpsman Brossard responded, "Etazini." The United States of America.

God's grace, and the compassion and decency of the American people is expressed through the men and women like Corpsman Brossard. It's expressed through the efforts of our Armed Forces, through the efforts of our entire government, through similar efforts from Spain and other countries around the world. It's also, as Secretary Clinton said, expressed through multiple faith-based efforts. By evangelicals at World Relief. By the American Jewish World Service. By Hindu temples, and mainline Protestants, Catholic Relief Services, African American churches, the United Sikhs. By Americans of every faith, and no faith, uniting around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

It's inspiring. This is what we do, as Americans, in times of trouble. We unite, recognizing that such crises call on all of us to act, recognizing that there but for the grace of God go I, recognizing that life's most sacred responsibility -- one affirmed, as Hillary said, by all of the world's great religions -- is to sacrifice something of ourselves for a person in need.

Sadly, though, that spirit is too often absent when tackling the long-term, but no less profound issues facing our country and the world. Too often, that spirit is missing without the spectacular tragedy, the 9/11 or the Katrina, the earthquake or the tsunami, that can shake us out of complacency. We become numb to the day-to-day crises, the slow-moving tragedies of children without food and men without shelter and families without health care. We become absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, our contests for power. And in this Tower of Babel, we lose the sound of God's voice.

Now, for those of us here in Washington, let's acknowledge that democracy has always been messy. Let's not be overly nostalgic. (Laughter.) Divisions are hardly new in this country. Arguments about the proper role of government, the relationship between liberty and equality, our obligations to our fellow citizens -- these things have been with us since our founding. And I'm profoundly mindful that a loyal opposition, a vigorous back and forth, a skepticism of power, all of that is what makes our democracy work.

And we've seen actually some improvement in some circumstances. We haven't seen any canings on the floor of the Senate any time recently. (Laughter.) So we shouldn't over-romanticize the past. But there is a sense that something is different now; that something is broken; that those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should. At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate. And this erosion of civility in the public square sows division and distrust among our citizens. It poisons the well of public opinion. It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other. It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on truth. And then we lose sight of the children without food and the men without shelter and the families without health care.

Empowered by faith, consistently, prayerfully, we need to find our way back to civility. That begins with stepping out of our comfort zones in an effort to bridge divisions. We see that in many conservative pastors who are helping lead the way to fix our broken immigration system. It's not what would be expected from them, and yet they recognize, in those immigrant families, the face of God. We see that in the evangelical leaders who are rallying their congregations to protect our planet. We see it in the increasing recognition among progressives that government can't solve all of our problems, and that talking about values like responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage are integral to any anti-poverty agenda. Stretching out of our dogmas, our prescribed roles along the political spectrum, that can help us regain a sense of civility.

Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable; understanding, as President [Kennedy] said, that "civility is not a sign of weakness." Now, I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. (Laughter.) But surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith, or, for that matter, my citizenship. (Laughter and applause.)

Challenging each other's ideas can renew our democracy. But when we challenge each other's motives, it becomes harder to see what we hold in common. We forget that we share at some deep level the same dreams -- even when we don't share the same plans on how to fulfill them.

We may disagree about the best way to reform our health care system, but surely we can agree that no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on Earth. We can take different approaches to ending inequality, but surely we can agree on the need to lift our children out of ignorance; to lift our neighbors from poverty. We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

Surely we can agree to find common ground when possible, parting ways when necessary. But in doing so, let us be guided by our faith, and by prayer. For while prayer can buck us up when we are down, keep us calm in a storm; while prayer can stiffen our spines to surmount an obstacle -- and I assure you I'm praying a lot these days -- (laughter) -- prayer can also do something else. It can touch our hearts with humility. It can fill us with a spirit of brotherhood. It can remind us that each of us are children of a awesome and loving God.

Through faith, but not through faith alone, we can unite people to serve the common good. And that's why my Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has been working so hard since I announced it here last year. We've slashed red tape and built effective partnerships on a range of uses, from promoting fatherhood here at home to spearheading interfaith cooperation abroad. And through that office we've turned the faith-based initiative around to find common ground among people of all beliefs, allowing them to make an impact in a way that's civil and respectful of difference and focused on what matters most.

It is this spirit of civility that we are called to take up when we leave here today. That's what I'm praying for. I know in difficult times like these -- when people are frustrated, when pundits start shouting and politicians start calling each other names -- it can seem like a return to civility is not possible, like the very idea is a relic of some bygone era. The word itself seems quaint -- civility.

But let us remember those who came before; those who believed in the brotherhood of man even when such a faith was tested. Remember Dr. Martin Luther King. Not long after an explosion ripped through his front porch, his wife and infant daughter inside, he rose to that pulpit in Montgomery and said, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."

In the eyes of those who denied his humanity, he saw the face of God.

Remember Abraham Lincoln. On the eve of the Civil War, with states seceding and forces gathering, with a nation divided half slave and half free, he rose to deliver his first Inaugural and said, "We are not enemies, but friends… Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

Even in the eyes of confederate soldiers, he saw the face of God.

Remember William Wilberforce, whose Christian faith led him to seek slavery's abolition in Britain; he was vilified, derided, attacked; but he called for "lessening prejudices [and] conciliating good-will, and thereby making way for the less obstructed progress of truth."

In the eyes of those who sought to silence a nation's conscience, he saw the face of God.

Yes, there are crimes of conscience that call us to action. Yes, there are causes that move our hearts and offenses that stir our souls. But progress doesn't come when we demonize opponents. It's not born in righteous spite. Progress comes when we open our hearts, when we extend our hands, when we recognize our common humanity. Progress comes when we look into the eyes of another and see the face of God. That we might do so -- that we will do so all the time, not just some of the time -- is my fervent prayer for our nation and the world.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

Cranmer has been asked to comment on the ‘Ad limina’ address of Pope Benedict XVI to the 35 assembled bishops and archbishops of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, in which His Holiness was perceived to criticise the legislative programme of Her Majesty’s Government.

His Grace has already attempted to do this, but manifestly failed miserably. He was accused of being inter alia ‘too clever’, ‘pompous’, ‘conceited’, blah, blah, blah (though not [yet] ‘bigoted’, ‘creepy’, ‘yucky’ or ‘disgusting’): the usual diatribe of puerile ad hominem vitriol which tends to be deployed by those who are either incapable of comprehension or unwilling to engage with the argument (or both).

Firstly, it would help to understand precisely what the Pope said, for the true account will not be found within the pathological distortions of the mainstream news media. When one is acquainted with the Pope’s perception of many of his 35 bishops and archbishops in Eccleston Square, it becomes evident that his 'attack' was not so much upon the UK’s anti-Christian Labour Government as it was upon his own recalcitrant bishops’ lack of unity, their obstinate reluctance to implement his reforms, and their stubborn refusal to be subject to the Magisterium and adhere to traditional orthodoxy (ie, their 'Anglican' tendencies...).

And his speech concerned ‘natural law’, though few journalists have mentioned it, and of those who did there is apparently little understanding of the term or of how it relates to issues of justice.

What has been read by most commentators as a high-handed, interfering papal condemnation of the secularist-humanist-equality-obsessed politicians in Her Majesty’s Government was more a humble and wholly-justified rebuke to the ecumenical-relativist-perpetually-compromising bishops and priests in the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

And yet the media narrative has been dominated by Harriet Harman’s ‘Equality Bill’, and she has not helped herself by the timing of her spectacular (cowardly and utterly disappointing) climb-down. After all, either she believes in ‘equality’ or she does not: if she does, why has she not pushed this Bill through Parliament irrespective of the will of the Lords, as Labour have done on so many occasions for far more trivial bills? Does the banning of hunting with hounds really merit the deployment of the Parliament Act more than ensuring the inviolable rights of women or homosexuals?

Ms Harman, is the fox’s right to life worth more than gay equality?

Of course, she has one eye on the General Election, and God knows Labour need their traditional five-million-strong ‘Catholic vote’ if they are not to be completely annihilated.

But one hopes that traditionally-Labour-supporting faith groups of all descriptions and denominations will not be duped into believing that this is anything but a temporary lull, a calculated pause, a manipulative political manoeuvre to avoid the Pope’s visit being completely overshadowed by Labour’s odious and utterly illiberal ‘equality’ agenda.

Yet the Pope’s ‘intervention’ has produced a curious coalition of unanimity:

Simon Jenkins in The Guardian says ‘the pope is right and Harriet Harman is wrong’:

‘I might prefer the opposite to be the case but, on the matter in hand, Voltaire's principle should apply. The Roman Catholic church (sic) may be a hotbed of religious prejudice, indoctrination and, somewhere in the United Kingdom, social division. But faced with Harriet Harman's equality bill and her utopian campaign to straighten all the rough timber of mankind, the pope's right to practise what he preaches needs defending.’

Even though Simon Jenkins ‘deplore(s) the attitude of the Catholic church to homosexuality, veiled as it is in decades of a hypocrisy whose consequences for many young people are only now coming to light’. And even though he notes ‘the church's historic aversion to religious debate and dissent, its pathological conservatism, its veneration of relics, its cruelty to its own adherents and its necrophilia make the pope's plea for tolerance ring hollow’, he detects in Ms Harman’s ‘Equality Bill’ a potential tyranny by which ‘a new social order’ of Labour’s own devising is being constructed.

And so he concludes: ‘Harman's interest is not social equality – which her government has conspicuously ignored – but state control.’

Andrew Pierce in The Daily Mail observes the persecution of society’s most vulnerable. He says: “Indeed, children such as me, raised for two years in a Catholic orphanage, could be the real losers of Harman's obsessive drive to force the Church to embrace her doctrine of legalised social engineering.”

“That's not to say that I agree with all of the Pope's edicts. In particular, I find the Church teaching that homosexuality is ‘intrinsically disordered’ deeply offensive. But imposing legislation is not the answer to countering such outdated views.”

And he understands that the very intolerance which has historically been expressed towards homosexuals, not least by the church, is now being directed at those who hold sincerely-held objections to homosexual equality, thereby rendering them inferior and so unequal. And he calls Ms Harman a ‘zealot’.

Brendan O’Neill at Index on Censorship is succinct: ‘It is a shocking indictment of the state of progressive politics in Britain that it has taken Pope Benedict XVI — the head of a backward church — to put the case for freedom of conscience against the UK government’s Equality Bill.’

He, too, refers to a ‘tyranny of equality’ as the State removes the right to freedom of association (and therefore the right to discriminate).

Christopher Howse in The Daily Telegraph says of Pope Benedict's remarks on the doings of Harriet Harman that ‘an irresistible force has collided with an immovable object’.

Presumably the Pope is irresistible because Ms Harman is manifestly movable (God willing). Yet Mr Howse reminds us that ‘the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England’, and notes ‘the Primate of England...got there before the Pope’ when he said: "If religious freedom means anything, it must mean that those are matters for the churches."

But the Primate of England was scarcely reported.

And no-one listened.

Law Central gets to the elephant in the room, about which His Holiness has been disconcertingly silent:

‘(The equality) battle is already lost and the Catholic Church does itself no favours to suggest that the rules and laws of a religion should prevail over national laws protecting the basic equality rights of others. It will find itself in uncomfortable extremist company if it persists with that line.

‘Whilst the Church still has some time to influence the debate on the draft Equality Bill, it has missed the boat completely on the existing equality laws protecting gay and female workers. These are now firmly established in the UK and are underpinned by European legislation.’

The Spectator also notes the Brussels dimension: ‘The coalescence of British and EU anti-discrimination law is but an immodest garment for trenchant ideology. Harman’s bill strives to subjugate individual freedoms, such as that to religious expression, beneath state-imposed rights. This legislation is the progeny of faith in social engineering, not social mobility; it ignores that toleration and freedom in Britain were derived from the right to religious observance free from state proscriptions.’

The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks in The Times is more philosophical: ‘Using the ideology of human rights to assault religion risks undermining the very foundation of human rights themselves. When a Christian airport worker is banned from wearing a cross, when a nurse is sacked after a role-play exercise in which he suggested that patients pray, when Roman Catholic adoption agencies are forced to close because they do not place children for adoption with same-sex couples and when a Jewish school is told that its religious admissions policy is, not in intent but in effect, racist, we are in dangerous territory indeed.’

And he notes the distinctly English understanding of liberty which is at variance with that on much of the Continent: ‘The English approach was gradual, evolutionary, mindful of history and respectful of tradition. The French approach was perfectionist, philosophical, even messianic in a secular way. For the French revolutionaries there is an ideal template of society that can be realised by the application of politics to all spheres of life. Liberty is to be achieved by a vast extension of the powers of the State.’

And this is the method embraced by the European Union and now adopted by Labour: they are forcing men to be free. While the English tradition of liberty has been to set limits to the State, on the Continent (noably in France) liberty is imposed by the State. We have traditionally legislated to prohibit; they to permit.

And so there is very broad agreement across the political and religious divides that the Pope was right to ‘intervene’ and remind us that the Law of God transcends the laws of man, and that the Roman Catholic Church is supranational and Semper Eadem.

And yet, and yet...

There is an awful lot of hypocrisy about, especially from anti-EU Conservatives who habitually deplore the 'interference' in British politics of a meddling ‘President of Europe’ who struts his stuff on the world stage like an ‘absolute monarch’ and presides over an ‘unelected oligarchy’ or ‘ruling élite’ with a ‘democratic deficit’, aided by a complicit civil service answerable (in theory) to an ‘impotent parliament’ in a state in which no criticism is permitted, social activities are regulated, liberties are restricted, the press and media controlled, with its own army and police force ...

...just like The Vatican.

One cannot have it both ways. If Conservatives are jubilant that the Pope has ‘declared war’ on Labour, one has to wonder how they would have greeted Pope John Paul II’s ‘declaration of war’ (as Anglican bishops frequently did) against the policies of Margaret Thatcher, or how they might react to a papal rebuke of any of David Cameron’s policy proposals. And one also has to wonder at the poverty of the understanding of such notions as political sovereignty and religious authority and how, in a representative liberal democracy, these may be legitimately expressed without moving towards omnicompetent clericalism or a theocracy of suzerain monocracy.

The Pope is not simply the leader of a worldwide religion: he is a head of state. What would have been the reaction if President Bush had sought to influence the vote in Parliament on the Iraq war? Do clerical robes make such an intervention more acceptable? What if President Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez were to comment on UK employment law in an attempt to influence the outcome of the legislative process?

Just because the Pope’s ‘interference’ (if that is what it was) concerns a religio-political matter with which very many might agree does not render it politically acceptable. If UK law should not be subject to omnipotent directives from Brussels, then neither should it be subordinate to the infallible orthodoxy of The Vatican.

When it was decreed that ‘the Pope of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England’, it was a declaration that the government of England is not subject to any foreign prince or potentate.

But, like nature, politico-religiosity abhors a vacuum.

The greatest sorrow and tragedy is that the Pope’s intervention has demonstrated the undeniable spiritual vacuum which emanates from the black hole within Lambeth Palace, and the almost total abdication of responsibility by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of course the Pope should not be ‘interfering’ in UK politics: that is the constitutional role of the Esablished Church. And yet, if they are silent, God will speak through another and say what He wants to say.

And the people are evidently listening, whatever their politics, religion, race, gender or sexuality: the Pope has articulated something of the English tradition of liberty and the instinct of the people for freedom from tyranny.

And the reality is that people now feel less threatened by the Pope than they do by their own government: they fear the Vatican less than they fear Parliament; they despise politics more than religion; they respect the Roman Catholic Church more than the Church of England; and they honour the Throne of St Peter more than the Throne of the United Kingdom.

It is a sad day indeed when we need the Pope to remind us of our history, customs and traditions.

But when we are already subject to a foreign power, unable to make our own laws or govern ourselves according to those customs and traditions, and when our Parliament, Government, Monarch and Church are all apparently complicit in that occupation, one must thank God that the King of the Vatican is prepared to ‘interfere’ and remind us of the source of our spiritual strength, the fount our political power and the origins of our philosophical greatness.

What a profound disappointment.

After numerous vituperative blog links to His Grace and chat threads all over the world concerning his 'spat' with Professor Richard Dawkins, the only response the eminent Professor could muster to His Grace’s most courteous and considered response to the Professor's list of questions (which even acknowledged that we agree on a very great deal, and even that the Professor is quite probably a better theologian than many), was to indulge in a number of those 'vitriolic side-swipes' he so objects to in others.

One wonders why he could not explain 'calmly and coolly, what is wrong with it', instead of indulging in puerile name-calling or regurgitating the crass opinions of others. But since 'nasty' is the best the eminent Professor could do by way of a response, His Grace has included it in his list of citations.

It says far more about Professor Richard Dawkins than it does about His Grace.

It is just such a pity that he didn't say 'bigoted', 'creepy' and 'disgusting' as well.

In this relative calm, here is an insight from another of His Grace’s curates (he appears to have a few) Thomas Becon:

'Our recent spat with Professor Dawkins and his followers put me in mind of a famous observation of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that there are some things that cannot be explained - only shown.

He illustrated the point, with reference to a picture that could be either a duck or a rabbit, but the famous illusion of the old/woman/ young woman serves equally as well.

In a curious way this has a relevance to the old Christian teaching that God has revealed himself in two ways, Scripture and Nature, and it was this thinking that enabled the Church and its clergy to have played such a major role in the development of science. If God had revealed himself in the created order, then plants and creatures could be examined for what secrets they held of their Creator.

Yet anyone coming across such a picture for the first time is presented with a conundrum. What is depicted? Some may only see the Old Woman, others the Younger One. Most can see both, flipping between the two, whilst being unable to explain exactly how their interpretation changes. The image does not change, nor the eye, nor the brain that makes sense of the image.

Most Christians can see both. They can understand Scripture and Nature and do not insist on the irreconcilability of both. A few only see the one and of course Professor Dawkins and his crew only have a one dimensional answer to the evidence before them.

It is for this reason that they shout, abuse and get angry. Do not be under any illusion yourself; you cannot persuade them. If they cannot see it, then we just have to accept they cannot see it. They don’t want to, and shouting and getting angry must be very personally rewarding. A sense of superiority is a very comforting thing when there is nothing else to validate your existence.

So they deny that which they cannot see, and they call you “stupid” “illogical” “naive” , and they dignify themselves with the self congratulatory title of “Brights”.

“It’s and Old Woman everyone can see that. Even some of you can see its an Old Woman - so why deny that which is plainly before your own eyes?”

Yet some of us do continue to see the alternative. We know that the skill and vision of the Creator was greater than our critics are able to perceive, and we can only wait and hope that if they scale down the anger, the penny may drop for them just as it did for us.

Yet there is an almost comic (or do I mean cosmic?) irony in all this.

The same folk who insist upon the impossibility of reconciling the scientific and the theological, the physical and the spiritual, are also the ones who point us to the world of the particle physicist who routinely works in a near metaphysical world in which photons are in two places at the same time and the story is continuing to get “curiouser and curiouser.”

The religiously scientific are able to think in such ways. Like Alice’s Queen we can indeed sometimes “believe six impossible things before Breakfast” but that is because the more we learn of the complex topsy turvy world which we inhabit, the more we become lost in wonder at the outworkings of our Awesome God.

I fear it is the “ Brights” who are somewhat dim in this expanding universe of the mind and spirit. We can only smile and enjoy the irony that they appear to be the ones stuck in a rut of 19th Century Darwinian thinking that is fast being left behind.'

Islamic Revolution Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei attended the holy mausoleum of the late Imam Khomeini yesterday and recited the first sura of the Holy Qur’an to remember him. He confirmed that Her Majesty the Queen has invited him to the United Kingdom in September – an official state visit; the first ever granted to an ayatollah – and that he has been gracious to accept.

And then he made a speech, addressed to British Muslims and to imams in particular, calling for Islamic unity to contend against Government legislation which contravenes shari’a law. The Ayatollah condemned the ‘unjust limitations on the freedom of Muslims to act in accordance with their beliefs’, and he urged imams to ensure Islam’s moral teaching was always presented in its ‘entirety’ and ‘convincingly defended’ with ‘Jihadi zeal’. He told the assembled leaders to ensure their faithful knew he ‘holds them in his heart’.

He urged them warmly to welcome disaffected Christians who wanted to convert to the Islamic faith, and he looks forward to a new system of Anglo-Islam accommodating whole Christian congregations who are opposed to women or homosexual priests and bishops.

The speech has caused a few ripples in the media, but Her Majesty’s Government have made no response to what may be perceived as fomenting treason and civil unrest.

The full speech is below:

Dear Brothers,

Asalam 'Alaykum.

I welcome all of you on your hajj to Tehran, where you have come to pay your respect at the holy mausoleum of the late Imam Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution. I thank you for the kind words that Anjem Choudary has addressed to me on your behalf, and I offer you my warmest good wishes and prayers for yourselves and all the faithful of the United Kingdom entrusted to your pastoral care. Your visit to Tehran strengthens the bonds of brotherhood between the Muslim community in your country and the Islamic Republic of Iran, a brotherhood that has sustained your people's faith for decades, and today provides fresh energies for Jihad and contentment for the mawali. Even amid the pressures of a secular age, there are many signs of living faith and devotion among the Muslims of the United Kingdom. I am thinking, for example, of the enthusiasm generated by the Muslim Council of Britain in their exhortation to slaughter those who seek to destroy us, the interest aroused by Abu Hamza that the flag of Islam might fly from Number 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, and the eagerness of young people to practise the Five Pillars and take part in the hajj to Mecca. On the occasion of my forthcoming State Visit to Great Britain, I shall be able to witness that faith for myself and, as successor of Ayatollah Khomeini, to strengthen and confirm it. During the months of preparation that lie ahead, be sure to encourage the Muslims of the United Kingdom in their devotion to Allah, and assure them that the Islamic Revolution Leader constantly remembers them in his prayers and holds them in his heart.

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of Muslims to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates shari’a law which is the natural law. I urge you to ensure that the moral teaching of Islam is always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended. Obedience to the words of Allah written in the Holy Qur’an in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth. Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Muslim, how could anyone dispute Mohammed’s right to be heard?

If the full saving message of Islam is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Muslim community in your country needs to speak with a united voice. This requires not only you, the imams, but also Muslim teachers, scholars and politicians – in short all who are engaged in the task of communicating the Holy Qur’an – to be attentive to the words of Allah, who guides the whole Ummah into the truth, gathers the Brotherhood into unity and inspires us with Jihadi zeal.

Make it your concern, then, to draw on the considerable gifts of all Muslims in the United Kingdom and see that they are equipped to hand on the faith to new generations comprehensively, accurately, and with a keen awareness that in so doing they are playing their part in the mission of Islam. In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognise dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate. It is the truth revealed through the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed and embodied by the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the Caliphate that sets us free. The late Imam Khomeini realised this, and he left us an outstanding example of faithfulness to revealed truth by following the Shari’a wherever it led him, even at considerable personal cost. Great writers and communicators of his stature and integrity are needed in Islam today, and it is my hope that paying your respects to him will inspire many to follow in his footsteps.

Much attention has rightly been given to Ayatollah Khomeini's scholarship and politics, but it is important to remember that he saw himself first and foremost as an imam. In this Year of Jihad, I urge you to hold up to your imams and community leaders his example of dedication to the shahadah[, to salah, to sawm, to zaka and to hajj. You yourselves should set a similar example. Be close to the imams who teach faithfully in your mosques, and rekindle their sense of the enormous privilege and joy of standing among the people of Allah as Muslims. In Ayatollah Khomeini's words, "Those who are trying to bring corruption and destruction to our country in the name of democracy will be oppressed. We will oppress them by God's order and God's call to prayer.”

Indeed, since politicians are trying to destroy the Islamic life and the freedom of the Mosque, spare no effort in encouraging a new generation of foot-soldiers for Allah and emphasising to the faithful the true meaning and necessity of Islam. Encourage Muslims everywhere to express their appreciation of the shari'a imams who serve them, and to recognise the difficulties they sometimes face on account of their declining numbers and increasing pressures. The support and understanding of the Brotherhood is particularly necessary when the building of mosques is delayed and hindered through tedious planning applications. Help them to avoid any temptation to view the imams and community leaders as mere functionaries but rather to rejoice in the gift of their divine calling by Allah, a gift that can never be taken for granted.

Inter-faith dialogue assumes great importance in the United Kingdom, given the varied demographic profile of the population. As well as encouraging you in your important work in these areas, I would ask you to be generous in implementing the vision of Ayatollah Khomeini, so as to assist those groups of Muslims who wish to see the flag of Islam flying over the homes of the Prime Minister and of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. And the British Parliament should be guided into the fullness of submission to Allah. I am convinced that, if given a warm and open-hearted welcome, the British Parliament will be a blessing for the entire Islamic world.

With these thoughts, I commend your mission to all those who have been or who have attempted to become martyrs of the faith. May Mohammed guide you always. To all of you, and to the imams, brothers and sisters of your country, I cordially impart my blessing as a pledge of peace and submission which is Islam.

The aggression and subversion of this speech have been condemned in some sections of the press; caused 'anger' among secularists; and been lauded as 'wonderful' by others, The National Secular Society are demanding that British Muslims should foot the £20 million security bill the visit of the Ayatollah is expected to cost the British taxpayer.

Cranmer has been accused of all manner of nasty and hurtful things by the loyal disciples of Professor Richard Dawkins; even of rabid censorship on the grounds that so many of the contributions on the previous Dawkins post were ‘supportive’ of His Grace’s position.

No contributions have been censored (other than one anonymous two-liner of foul language), but doubtless the false allegation and numerous accusations of cowardice and ineptitude give them a superior degree of self-satisfied comfort.

Even the Professor himself appears to have expected that his letter might be censored.

God forbid.

Not upon this blog anyway, which appears is fast-becoming the last bastion of unfettered religio-political speech in the United Kingdom.

Professor Dawkins’ letter appears to be genuine, for he himself has said so. He will have to forgive His Grace for his doubting cynicism: when the White House emailed His Grace à propos of nothing, it took him a little while to realise that it was genuine; after all, Lambeth Palace has never bothered to write, and neither has Her Majesty's Leader of the Oppposition, let alone Number 10. So one might understand and excuse a little skepiticism when someone visits who purports to be the eminent and distinguished Richard Dawkins.

But the good Professor has been timing His Grace on the passing hours it has taken to respond (which is a little unfair, for His Grace does not have an abundantly-funded foundation behind him). Cranmer is content to respond to the Professor's series of comments and questions thus:

Dear Cranmer

I am intrigued by the Christian vitriol that is being thrown in my face after my article in The Times. You, Cranmer, have even suggested that I should be arrested for incitement to religious hatred. Here’s a brief summary of what I actually said. Cranmer, please explain, calmly and coolly, what is wrong with it.

His Grace has no time for vitriol, though he understands that it is frequently confused with valid criticism or impassioned feelings on any matter, especially by the target of such criticism or expressed feelings. One wonders why you consider an accusation of ‘spineless hypocrisy’ or of the possession of 'a sub-GCSE level of comprehension' to be vitriolic, while your references to St Paul’s ‘nasty’ mind, or to ‘bleating’ clergymen, or to Pat Robertson’s ‘sub-Palinesque ignorance’ are presumably rational, polite and measured.

Nowhere has His Grace suggested that you ‘should be arrested for incitement to religious hatred’. It could not be writ more large than in the title to the post itself, which begins with an implied interrogative ‘should’ and ends with a question mark. In your apparent over-sensitivity, you seem to think that His Grace supports the 2006 legislation which is increasingly being used against Christians (usually) in order to stifle very legitimate debate about religio-political issues (or even to express opinions on religious orthodoxy). There is no indication at all that you ought to be arrested for speaking as you do or writing as you did in The Times. But neither should others. That nuanced point appears to have been lost on you. The article was as much about the hypocrisy of The Times (one could say the same of the BBC) in the unequal way they treat religions, as it was about your intolerance of Christianity.

Whether Christian, Muslim, Jew or atheist, we all agree in condemning Pat Robertson’s suggestion that the earthquake was God’s punishment to the Haitian people for making a pact with the devil. But Christians, unlike Muslims, Jews or atheists, are hypocrites to condemn Robertson, because he is the one who clearly and unapologetically stands up for Christian theology. As follows:-

Firstly, it is not clear that Pat Robertson actually said what he is widely reported to have said. We are all aware of how journalists and television reporters, eager for their scoops and desirous to bolster their reputations, take a sentence or phrase completely out of context and distort it in order to create the story. It is intrinsic to the media: it goes with the territory. However, even if we go with what you understand he said (and he may very well have done so, though even if he had it would have been no different to what Fr Wagner [Bishop of Linz] said a year ago about Hurricane Katrina being sent by God because it destroyed five abortion clinics and countless nightclubs), you are quite wrong to insist that it is uniquely the Christians who are hypocrites for condemning what you deem to constitute ‘clearly and unapologetically’ Christian theology. If a Muslim were to condemn it, they would also be hypocrites, for many of them hold the same beliefs about divine retribution for sin. And so do some strands of Judaism. And so (in a different way, through karmic laws) do Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. But you have chosen to focus solely on the ‘faux-anguished hypocrites’ the Christians, possibly because you are not aware of (or been bothered to acquaint yourself with) what adherents of other religions have said on the matter. And so you summarise ‘Christian theology’ thus:

1. God metes out terrible punishment for sin. The doctrine of post-mortem punishment for sin in Hell is fully sanctioned in the New Testament (not in the Old Testament, incidentally, although the Old Testament has plenty of wholesale punishment for sin in this world). Cranmer, are you now saying that Pat Robertson is mistaken in his emphasis on divine punishment for sin?

If one were to take The Ladybird Book of Evolution and advance extracts as evidence to disprove the nuances and complexities of that to which you have dedicated your eminent and learned life, you would be justified in expressing a degree of incredulity. Yet are an academic: the readers of Ladybird books tend not to be. While there is no doubting that there are indeed some Christians who believe as you have written, as straightforwardly as you have expressed it, you will be aware that there are also evolutionary biologists who are quite content to accommodate in their disparate belief systems the ‘Intelligent Design’ or ‘Creationist’ theory, and find it quite consistent with all that you yourself profess. But it would be quite wrong of anyone to categorise you all as evolutionary biologists in the same sense, not least because you might feel that to be so categorised with your co-biologists would do you an immense disservice, or constitute evidence of a fundamental lack of comprehension of your writings. The ‘Creationists’ sustain all manner of disjunctive contradictions and inconsistencies which simply do not exist for you.

You appear (with respect) to have no appreciation of the varieties of literary genre that are to be found in the Bible: it is not a novel, and neither is it a scientific textbook nor a broadsheet newspaper. Yet what it is in each of its constituent parts is fundamental to this discussion, because we can proceed no further (as may be your wish) until there is an understanding on your part of the discipline of textual criticism. Granted, that which has been applied to the Bible is a relatively recent pursuit of the last century or so, but Gunkel’s concept of Sitz Im Leben is immensely useful in that pursuit as it informs us on some of your questions. The crass ‘cause and effect’ theology to which you refer was addressed millennia ago in the Old Testament 'Wisdom Literature', when it was observed that it rains on the righteous as well as the unrighteous. Yet you still insist on caricaturing God in the fashion of Job’s friends.

You appear (again, with respect) to be unconcerned with authors, audiences, contexts, philology and hermeneutics – all of which are the building blocks of discourse analysis. You appear to have no appreciation of the complexities of communicating a Hebrew gospel in a Greek world or of the historical reality and theological necessity of incorporating aspects of cultural philosophy into what became the New Testament: if the gospel of salvation was not to be perpetually dismissed as ‘foolishness to the Greeks’, words and expressions had to be found to communicate it in the vernacular. What ‘hell’ became is not what ‘sheol’ was, for it could not be: the Greeks had no ‘sheol’.

All of this, of course, is not a research methodology required in science, but you will find it foundational to innumerable Oxford DPhils. Unless you consider a DPhil in Theology or Philosophy to be of a lower order than your own doctorate; a proposition from which you are unlikely to dissent.

2. Humanity is so deeply sinful that the only way God could forgive us was to have his own son punished vicariously for all our sins. He was tortured and crucified so that humanity’s sin could be purged. Cranmer, are you now denying that Jesus died for our sins? Moreover, the principal sin for which Jesus died was the sin of Adam, who actually never existed. Cranmer, are you saying you think Adam existed and therefore that evolution is false?

There has been (and is) no denial that Jesus died for our sins, and no denial of the concept of ‘original sin’.

It is interesting that you are able to assert so dogmatically that Adam ‘actually never existed’.

It is an assertion that cannot be made other than by faith, for you cannot possibly know by any epistemology or method of science. His Grace is content to say that he does not know whether or not Adam existed because he cannot know. But then he does not believe that the Book of Genesis is in the same literary genre as The Downing Street Years.

3. Robertson’s devil talk may sound barbaric, but all Christians subscribe to the belief that Jesus ‘cast out devils’. And this cannot just be an archaic way of saying ‘cured mental illness’, because on one occasion the devils departed from a madman and entered a herd of swine, causing them to stampede over a cliff. Christians who believe that Gospel story are therefore committed to the belief that ‘devils’ are actual entities or agents, capable of leaving one brain and entering another. Cranmer, are you denying the truth of that Gospel story? (Many modern Christians would, but Pat Robertson would stay true to the Gospel).

What is the source of your information that ‘all Christians believe...’? It is this sort of absolute assertion which leads people to judge your prejudice (for it is evident) and undermines the strength and validity of your argument that some Christian beliefs are repugnant, some irrational and incomprehensible, and others quite offensive. But not all would agree with all of these assertions: you appear to have no latitude for the infinite variety of human expression and understanding. Why is the ‘truth’ of any gospel story so mono-dimensional to you? Why are these accounts of the life of Jesus so monochromatic and incapable of other quite credible interpretation, regardless of what you consider to be ‘archaic’ modes of expression?

You appear to confuse the Christian understanding of the Bible with the Islamic view of the Qur’an. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were human beings whose accounts of the life and works of Jesus were somehow inspired: they are not infallible for they are mediated by man. Mohammed was a human being to whom Jibrail is believed by the majority of Muslims to have dictated the Qur’an verbatim, in Arabic, between AD610-632. For many Christians, that which you posit to be written ‘truth’ may simply be one perception of it. You appear to seek to impose the majority Muslim view of the Qur’an upon ‘all Christians’, because the only ‘true’ Christians are as ‘Evangelical’ or ‘Fundamentalist’ as Pat Robertson.

If you are denying some parts of the Gospel but not others, how do you decide which parts? As it happens, Pat Robertson, like the true Christian he is, chooses to deny none of it.

Again, you contend Pat Robertson to be a ‘true Christian’ because he believes that which you understand all Christians ought. It is a wonder that you cannot see the arrogance of such a view, for how can those who do not believe instruct those who do believe in what they must believe? It is not even as if your writing is temporised with ‘might’ or ‘may’ or some’ or ‘most’, but perhaps that is consistent with your offensive (in the literal sense) scientific method.

Scholars of the Bible understand literary criticism, yet they are not all constrained to believe what is fore-ordained, not least because the Protestant Reformation liberated man to use his unique intelligence and apply reason to tradition and scripture. To many Christians, these are not mutually exclusive (or, rather, reason does not operate to the exclusion of tradition or scripture). There are various schools of thought on this, but none of them has the whole truth, which only you appear to possess. And that is not meant as ad hominem vitriol, but a genuine expression of a sincere observation. If a Christian holds a tradition or teaching which you determine to be unscientific, it is intrinsically unreasonable. But that which is unscientific is not necessarily anti-scientific.

Cranmer, you accuse me of a “sub-GCSE level of comprehension of theology and an utterly simplistic caricature of religious philosophy.” My comprehension of Christian theology is set out in points 1 and 2 above (and arguably point 3, depending on what kind of Christian you are). My understanding of Christian theology is that all true Christians stand by at least 1 and 2. Cranmer, do you deny either of them? Please answer clearly and honestly, and without personal venom or irrelevant sideswipes.

With respect (once again) if the sum total of your ‘understanding of Christian theology is set out in points 1 and 2 above’, the observation of a sub-GCSE level of comprehension may be fairly adduced. Please be assured that there are many children in Year 8 who are more advanced in their understanding of Christian doctrine than you appear to be. There is an absence of any knowledge about the Patristics or scholasticism, the development of doctrine or any understanding of how scripture was compiled. Yet perhaps you would argue (or your followers on your behalf) that it is all nonsense and so you have no need to. Cramming God into a nutshell is a laudable pursuit if one can sell books and make a living from it. But yours is the ‘odious doctrine’ insofar as it seeks to transform the nut into God, for the nut can be empirically verified while God cannot, and so one should not be surprised if, just occasionally, a sledgehammer might be disproportionately deployed to crack it. Throughout history, scientists have attempted to explain the universe as they observe it. And some of them have paid the ultimate price at the hands of religious zealots whose religio-political authority was ostensibly threatened. But if history has taught us anything about science, it is that those observations may be temporal and partial. What the omniscient alchemists once taught as science is now known to be absurd superstition, and you are only standing upon their shoulders: not in the sense that what are saying is absurd superstition, for it is not, but in the assertion of an omniscience as absolute and unequivocal as the ‘mad mullahs’ or other ‘faith-heads’ you routinely scorn and berate.

His Grace does not wish to caricature either you or your views, and certainly not in the fashion that Howard Jacobson has recently done. You may, indeed, be a better theologian than many theologians. But, ultimately, we appear to differ on only one thing. You seem to believe that the integrated complexity of the physical universe and the origins of life itself can be explained rationally through particle physics and evolutionary biology; that the patterns and order which may be observed are consistent with apparent disorder and chaos, and that experiments and equations are all that we can know to be true.

Theists have space for the ontological as well the physical, chemical and biological. And the reasonableness (to them) of that ontology does not negate, neuter or nullify what is known in the physical world. Indeed, there is an abundance of evidence that it does not; that the two may co-exist.

We agree that you cannot disprove the existence of God any more than the Christian can prove it. Yet, for you, there is no necessity to disprove, while, for the Christian, there is a soteriological need to increase faith by, in part, drawing on the empirical evidence which has been corroborated by the humanities and the sciences. While this Christian is capable, willing and content to draw philosophical inference from such evidence, and to find within it a rational argument for God, you appear to be incapable, unwilling or uncontent to draw such philosophical inferences, or even to concede that this empirical evidence may constitute evidence at all, for it may not be placed in a test tube, observed under a microscope, or conjectured through a plethora of theoretical equations.

If the theologian speaks as a philosopher to the scientist, it may be nothing but ‘foolishness to the Greeks’. Yet when the scientist instructs the theologian in what the scientist believes the theologian should believe, there is not only the absence of academic humility, but neither is there science nor philosophy for there is no rational discourse, and where there is no rational discourse there can be no enlightenment, and where there is no enlightenment, there can be no discovery of further truth.

It used to be said that politics is show business for ugly people.

But then John F Kennedy burst onto the world stage.

Followed by Margaret Thatcher.

And Ronald Reagan.

And Pope John Paul II.

Followed by Tony Blair.

Closely followed by David Cameron.

And...err...Scott Brown.

And suddenly politics was about the beautiful people.

And the more beautiful you were, the more people listened.

And while Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II had a background in acting (if that isn’t being a little generous in the case of the former president), and while Tony Blair at least flirted with the idea of a performing career, there was no sense in which their politics were deemed to be inauthentic as a result of their thespian inclinations.

But that is the accusation levelled by Lord Mandelson at David Cameron.

In a further reference to this tedious issue of ‘airbrushing’ posters (as though no New Labour advertising agency ever airbrushed any photograph of Tony Blair), the wholly authentic Right Honourable the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the County of Durham, First Secretary of State and Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business and Secretary of State for Innovation and Skills (and Church Commissioner) has described Gordon Brown as a ‘more authentic’ figure.

More authentic?

Is it the possession of a 'clunking fist’ or the revelation that he throws foul-mouthed tantrums or physically abuses his staff evidence of authenticity?

Discussing the Prime Minister, Lord Mandelson told the BBC: "Look, you know he's not a sort of TV personality. He's not sort of Terry Wogan or Des O'Connor in the way that some people see David Cameron. Gordon Brown is actually a rather more authentic figure than that and I think when people evaluate the relative merits of both leaders, they may well come to a different conclusion from the one people are assuming now."

Hmm...

Des O'Connor is a former member of the RAF has been in showbiz for more than half a century. He is one of only a handful of British entertainers to be acclaimed internationally on stage and television. On stage he has starred at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, the Sydney Opera House, The O'Keefe Centre, Toronto and has made over 1,000 solo appearances at the London Palladium. He has met and worked with many personalities of the day, from rock and pop stars, actors and TV performers, to politicians, princes, to luminaries, such as Frank Sinatra, Adam Faith, Sean Connery, Liberace, The Beatles, Shirley Bassey, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Tony Blair, and members of the Royal Family.

It would appear that even Tony Blair is sufficiently inauthentic to desire to touch the hem of Des O’Connor’s garment.

It is also noted that he has recorded 36 albums and sold more than 16 million records, being awarded a CBE in 2008.

The man is a national and much-loved institution.

And Terry Wogan?

He is the son of a grocer whose inauthenticity went on to attract a regular audience of eight million listeners, making him the most listened to radio broadcaster of any European nation. His sardonic rambling and acerbic esoteric tangents are what made the Eurovision Song Contest bearable (if ever it were), and he has presented the BBC's Children in Need appeal since its inception, helping to raise tens of millions for charity. He became a British subject in 2005, and was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Another national and much-loved institution.

If David Cameron manages to be even half as popular and respected as either of these 'TV personalities'; if he manages to stay at the top of his game even for half as long, he will be the most successful prime minister in British history.

Perhaps Lord Mandelson might care to explain which ‘authentic’ people the Prime Minister tries to emulate.

Or is the fact that Gordon Brown has no greater conceit than perfect contentment with every aspect of himself and every judgement he makes evidence that his authenticity is no virtue and his lack of humility no attraction.

At least David Cameron understands that in a televisual age in which image is all, the medium is the message: there is no point contending against the vernacular.

‘And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Dawkins, that there is none like him upon the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that obsesseth ad nauseam about the non-existence of God, and escheweth all reason?’

With apologies to Job, is there a man on earth more obsessed with establishing beyond doubt the non-existence of that which does not exist than Professor Richard Dawkins?

Cranmer was asked during the week to fisk/respond to Professor Dawkins’ rant in The Times, but it is hardly worth it. He displays a sub-GCSE level of comprehension of theology and an utterly simplistic caricature of religious philosophy. If one were to critique evolutionary biology in such crass terms, Professor Dawkins would be the first to dismiss one as being an intellectually deficient ignoramus.

Yet it is a provocative piece of writing, inciteful even, for he appears to presume that the Revd. Pat Robertson is the archetypal Christian, and lauds him for his adherence to Christian orthodoxy.

What fate would befall Cranmer if he equated all Muslims with the ‘obnoxious’ Osama Bin Laden?

What persecution and injustice would he endure of he criticised the Qur’an; parodied the ‘nauseating’ and ‘barbaric’ teachings which emanated from the ‘nasty human mind’ of Mohammed; or said the ‘entire religion is founded on an obsession’ with killing the infidel? What if he mocked the ‘moral depravity’ of the ‘be-frocked and bleating’ imams; lampooned the ‘odious doctrine’ of Allah; or denigrated the sincerely-held beliefs of the ‘faux-anguished hypocrites’ who constitute the ummah?

Might he find himself in court, like Geert Wilders, accused of inciting hatred for daring to articulate a religious opinion?

Frankly, Cranmer is aghast that The Times has permitted Richard Dawkins to denigrate Christianity and Christians in this fashion.

Would they dare to print this address to British Muslims:

Bin Laden may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Qur’an. Bin Laden is true to it. But you?

You may weep for Pakistan where Bin Laden does not, but at least, in his jihadist, sub-Abu-Hamza ignorance, he holds up an honest mirror to the ugliness of Islamic theology. You are nothing but hypocrites.

Of course not. They would never permit such offensive invective against Islam or those Muslims who blamed the Indonesian tsunami on the 'loose sexual morals in tourist nightclubs'.

But neither would Professor Dawkins have parodied their beliefs or criticised their orthodoxy.

And it is also unlikely that The Times would have published such a tirade against Judaism and the Jews.

God forbid that they might be accused of anti-Semitism.

But Christianity? Yeah, why not.

Paedophile priests, bigoted bibles, patronising piety and corrupt congregations: drag the name of Jesus through the mud and no-one will really mind.

The wrath of Ruth Gledhill is the worst they have to fear.

And she is unlikely to challenge Dawkins’ monstrous fundamentalist caricature of the Christian God, not least because she does not appear to have the time (and neither does the other Times God-blog). And also they pay her salary.

Yet it is really quite astonishing that someone of Professor Dawkins’ academic stature should place the (largely inaccurate) secondary-source accounts of someone like Pat Robertson over the primary sources not only of Scripture but also over centuries of the considered and learned reflections of such literary theologians as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, TS Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, CS Lewis… And over the labyrinthine theologies of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher, Barth…

But Professor Dawkins prefers the two-dimensional spirituality of Pat Robertson and his one-dimensional god because it is easier for him to shred. When the choice is between that or Dawkins’ atheism, one can see the attraction of the latter.

But they are really two sides of the same coin of zealotry.

All religions profess a higher knowledge and supreme truth, and Dawkins is no exception. But he is not an atheist: he is religiophobic.

And phobic to the extent that many moderate and reasonable atheists will have no truck with his obsessive, demented, fundamentalist extremism and his fanatical hatred of Christianity.

While most atheists are content simply not to believe in God, Dawkins appears to be psychologically disturbed due to some trauma in his upbringing, for he loathes the very idea that God could exist to the extent that bitterness and bile pour out of every word he speaks. If God is simply an imaginary being somewhere up there with Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, why does he get himself so worked up about it?

It is a quite irrational pursuit for an atheist.

The Professor needs to get out more and mix with a few moderate atheists. And he might learn from them that in many countries of the world the Christian faith is the tie that binds communities, gives them a moral framework, induces hope, inspires them to great acts of charity, and exhorts them to love their neighbour by doing all manner of good deeds.

Or did The Times pay him £1000 for his article?

Did he donate it to Haiti?

Or is he content to use their appalling plight to advance his insidious faith and demented doctrine and cash in on his prejudices, in exactly the same manner as he accuses Pat Robertson of doing?

It is wonderful that atheists should have the infallible professor to shepherd their flock: His Secularness Pope Dawkins.

But the man is a spineless hypocrite.

And The Times are evasive cowards.

It appears that the Secretary of State for International Development met with Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday ‘to thank him for the Church's role in international aid, especially for the earthquake victims in Haiti’.

Quite why Douglas Alexander should presume the need to express gratitude to the Pope is unknown, but Cranmer finds it quite incredible that he also thanked His Holiness for the ‘Catholic Church's unique role on the world stage – particularly at the grassroots level delivering health and education services...’

One wonders if he thanked him for the Roman Catholic Church's excellent adoption agencies as well.

It beggars belief that a Labour secretary of state should thank the Roman Catholic Church for its education services when the Government of which he is part is doing its damnedest to destroy the ethos of faith schools and force them to conform to their simplistic, illiberal and ultimately totalitarian politically-correct ‘equality’ agenda which has no space for the religious conscience and no time for Christian tradition and orthodoxy. We are now in the absurd position in which secular bodies (especially the Office for Schools Adjudicators) are increasingly interfering in admissions to faith schools, thereby presuming to discern who does and does not subscribe to a particular basis of faith. If these schools no longer have the power to select children on religious grounds, it is difficult to discern how their distinct ethos can be maintained.

Schools and colleges have to cope with increasing government ‘social engineering’ legislation which seeks to impose secular values on their distinct curriculum and ethos. When Douglas Alexander thanked the Pope for his church’s education services, one wonders why he omitted to explain the intolerance that lies at the heart of the Blair/Brown agenda, especially with regard to the sanctity of life.

All the church schools wish to do is to educate children in accordance with their worldview - placing God at the centre of the formative process, teaching morals and spiritual values, with purity outside of marriage (which is male and female) and fidelity within, providing a framework of discipline, imparting respect and tolerance, instilling obedience to Scripture and to Christian orthodoxy.

One wonders if the Secretary of State is familiar with his party’s persecution of those who support Roman Catholic education services? Or of the rabidly-secular fundamentalist views of Barry Sheerman MP, who chairs the parliamentary cross-party committee on children, schools and families? Mr Sheerman detects 'intense turmoil' about the future of Catholic education, and revealingly asserted: “It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith. But as soon as there is a more doctrinaire attitude questions have to be asked. It does become worrying when you get a new push from more fundamentalist bishops. This is taxpayers' money after all.”

All credit to Douglas Alexander for thanking the Pope for his 'doctrinaire attitude' in resisting Labour’s anti-Christian attitudes and for being 'serious about his faith'.

Cranmer does not have time to outline the development of this theory. But it is presently constituted of four principal conditions: the threat of the aggressor must be certain; it must be the action of last resort; there must be serious prospects of success; the use of arms must be proportionate.

It is all now conveniently summed up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Of course, the theory has evolved over the centuries, and the foundations actually pre-date Augustine of Hippo. But the conditions were written before the era of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, after which the concept of a pre-emptive strike became rather more important than a ‘certain’ threat or an ‘action of last resort’.

And so today Tony Blair justifies his war. And he does so standing on the shoulders of some of the world’s greatest theologians and philosophers.

But Mr Blair is neither a great philosopher nor a great theologian.

Notwithstanding that he has his own faith foundation, which is more than Augustine of Hippo or Aquinas ever had. And notwithstanding that, since his conversion to Roman Catholicism, he has sought to lecture another great theologian on matters of sexuality.

Today is Mr Blair’s dress rehearsal for his own Judgement Day. Sir John Chilcot is not quite God, and Mr Blair will not call him ‘Lord’.

But only because he has a ‘K’, not a ‘P’.

And Cranmer has no doubt that Mr Blair will swat away these irritable civil servants like flies. His defence will essentially be nothing more than ‘the hand of history was on his shoulder’ and he ‘did what he thought was right’ because he’s ‘a pretty straight kinda guy’. The war may have been insecure in ‘international law’, but Parliament gave its consent (in a way it has never done for any previous war), and this rendered the war legal.

We know that Mr Blair has been re-familiarising himself with documents and reading digests of the evidence given by previous witnesses. And he knows that he is not likely to be asked any questions that he has not already been asked, either by his Cabinet or Parliament, or by Hutton.

But the Chilcot Inquiry represents his last chance to justify the war, and shape the judgement of history.

His performance today is about his ‘legacy’.

And that long since ceased to be political: it is now acutely religious.

His political achievements, even leading governments of vast majorities which had the potential to make lasting revolution, were modest: academies, civil partnerships, minimum wage... He could have taken us into the euro, completely decentralised education, or completely reformed the Upper Chamber. Any of these would have been a revolutionary and lasting legacy. But instead he tinkered at the peripheries, compromising, blowing this way and that, always bending with the strongest wind.

But now he has his own faith foundation: the ‘Tony Blair Faith Foundation’, no less, which bestrides the secular world like a colossus. Well, not quite, but it is his church: it is the shrine to which they come from the four corners of the world to kiss. It is the inspiration for his theo-political quest for peace in the Middle East; the bedrock of his public life as world statesman; the cornerstone of his messianic desire to heal the world.

Spiritually, of course.

He tried to heal it materially, especially that ‘scar on the conscience’ Africa. But human nature got in the way.

So he has decided to tackle that first.

Tony Blair may be more conciliatory and humble today, but he will be no less defiant in his evangelism. When he is scorned, he will reason that a prophet is without honour in his home town.

He will have in his mind that Saddam Hussain started two bloody wars; the first responsible for millions of deaths. It was Saddam who flouted ‘international law’, for it was he who practised genocide upon millions of Shi’a Muslims and used chemical weapons of mass destruction on thousands of the Kurds. He was an abhorrent leader of a foul regime. He was ‘evil’.

And the world is all the better for his riddance.

Whether or not Tony Blair has a ‘Messiah complex’; whether or not he inhabits his own world of ontological Truth; whether or not he is unable to distinguish between his own opinions and those of God, on the Iraq War he was right.

The aftermath may not all have gone according to plan (if, indeed, there was any plan at all). But 50 or 100 years from now, the names of George W Bush and Tony Blair will be written down in history as those who brought democracy where there was dictatorship; who were saviours of a people who were oppressed; who brought light and hope where there was darkness and despair. And there will be statues and commemorative days of liberation, for Iraq, which was a creation of Britain from its inception, defeated evil and liberated its people.

Parliamentary democracy does not come about over night.

England should know.

Cranmer is very saddened indeed to learn of the death of JD Salinger, best known for his coming-of-age novel 'The Catcher in the Rye' about rebellious teenager Holden Caulfield, which was published in 1951. The work has been termed 'a bible of teenage dissent': it has been translated into 30 languages, and sold more than 65m copies worldwide. Salinger had an undoubted gift for the teenage vernacular and was able to enter the adolescent interior monologue in quite a remarkable way.

In tribute, with happy memories, fond affection, and very great respect:

If you really want to hear about it, you'll probably want to know about where I was born, but I can't really be bovvered with all that David Copperfield crap. So I'll just tell you about all this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I mean, that's all I told DB, and he's my brother an' all, so I sure as hell can't be arsed to tell you. He's in Hollywood and writes movies. I hate movies. They're so phony. But then I hate everything, cos everything's boring, right?

Whatevva. The day I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this posh school out in Pennsylvania, which I guess makes me some kind of trustafarian, but I, like, like to think of myself as this deep working-class hero, rebel without a cause alienated gangsta. Anyway, that day I got back to school early after leaving all the gym gear on the New York subway an' all the fencing team were mad as hell but I wasn't that bovvered 'cos what did I care?

Did I tell you I had just been thrown out for flunking four subjects? Nah, thought not, 'cos I'm also a cool, unreliable narrator dude. Anyways, I wasn't that bovvered 'cos I'd been kicked out of all my previous schools. I mean, working is just so not hip when you've got all this other teenage shit going through your head, like sex an' girls an' sex an' how no one really, like, understands you.

Anyways, there I was kicking my heels till term ended on Wednesday, thinking I really wasn't that bovvered about how pissed my father was gonna be when he found out I'd been kicked out, when that sexy bastard Stradlater came in late after dating a girl that I fancied and I went mad an' got him in a head lock and then he called me "you crumby sonofabitch, Caulfield" an beat me up cos' he's, like, much bigger than me, so I thought, yeah, like, whatevva, sod this for a game of soldiers, and decided to leave school there and then.

So I picked up my last few hundred dollars and went to the station. I met the mother of a right bastard at Pencey on the train and told her I had a brain tumour, how funny was that? An' when I got to Penn station I thought about calling my mother, my 10-year-old sister, Phoebe, an' a couple of girls I vaguely knew who I imagined might want to have sex with me as I was feeling horny as hell, but then I thought, nah, can't be bovvered, I'll smoke 20 cigarettes an' try an' get drunk and check into a divey hotel full of perverts.

The bastards in the kind of phony bar that would have made you puke wouldn't serve me a drink - said I was too young - so I chatted up some 30-year-old women from Seattle. Two of them were right mingers, but the blonde was OK, but when they started laughing at me, I thought, I ain't bovvered, so I paid for their drinks 'an headed back to the hotel.

The elevator guy asked me if I wanted a prostitute an' I thought I ain't bovvered either way but I might as well as I was a bit lonesome, so I said yes an' then she came along an' she was cute an' all but I couldn't , y'know, do it, because it didn't feel right. Truth is, I'm a virgin, no kidding, an' I don't really get the sex thing, so I gave her $5 an' then she came back with the elevator guy an' demanded another $5 an' I said no way so he beat me up.

An' that's pretty much the story of the rest of the book. I thought about sex, I rang a few girls, went to the movies, visited some museums, thought about how crumby and phony everything was an', like, how no one really loves me. Occasionally, for a bit of pathos, I thought about my brother Allie who died of leukaemia a while back, 'an then I went home to see Phoebe 'cos I was running out of cash an' she's the only one who understands me.

"Dad will kill you when he finds out, Holden!" she yelled at me. "Why d'ya do it?" "Because school's shit and everyone's a phony," I replied. "But you hate everything, so what's the difference?" She was right, of course, but I weren't that bovvered, so I just said, "No one understands me", borrowed $8.65 an' left to wallow in more repetitive existential angst and have deep thoughts about saving children from adulthood in the long rye grass.

I went to see an old teacher, Mr Antolini, but he turned out to be a pervert, so I went back to Phoebe's school to tell her I was heading west to work in a gas station. "I'm coming with you," she said. "No ways," I replied, but she followed me to the funfair and we hung out together an' it wasn't too bad so I thought, whatevva. I wasn't that bovvered what I did, so I might as well go home.

An' that's it really. The psychoanalyst guy they've got here wonders if I'm going to apply myself when I start a new posh school in the fall, but in truth I doubt it. 'Cos at heart, I still ain't really bovvered.

There is a lot of fuss and bother at the moment about the revelation that the Marquis of Salisbury (who was the most pro-Unionist member of John Major's cabinet) hosted a discreet conference last week at Hatfield House, which brought together Northern Ireland’s Unionist ‘strands’, the Democratic Unionists and the Ulster Unionists, with whom the Conservative Party are already in a formal electoral alliance.

The Guardian says such ‘blatant sectarianism’ will endanger the peace process, and according to Nick Robinson, the Government accused the Conservatives of ‘at best naivety and at worst cynicism’ for jeopardising the Northern Ireland peace process by taking sides in the dispute.

Just who does he think he is, this David Cameron, that he, a Unionist, should be so presumptuous as to attempt to unify Unionism?

It would not be the first time that a Unionist prime minister had dared to dream the dream of ‘Unionist unity’ – co-operation or (dare one really dream?) merger between the UUP and DUP in order to prevent a Sinn Féin victory at the General Election which would see Martin McGuinness become First Minister.

Cranmer has previously spoken of the realities which would face the Conservatives in the event of a hung parliament, and why a parliamentary alliance with the DUP would be of infinitely more worth than one with the UUP.

But the DUP, of course, are deemed to be ‘bigots’.

And Iris Robinson hasn’t helped.

David Cameron has long talked of creating a new ‘non-sectarian’ force in Northern Ireland, hence the alliance with the UUP. And the Conservative Party is now committed to contesting all 18 seats in the Province, potentially splitting the Unionist vote three ways (recalcitrant UUP, Tory/UUP, DUP) which will inevitably result in one or two extra nationalist SDLP/Sinn Féin MPs being returned.

Cameron’s Unionism appears to have irked one or two who are of the opinion that it is the task of the British Prime Minister to remain ‘neutral’ in Northern Ireland; to be a ‘referee’ in the childish squabbles and a grown-up ‘honest broker’ between the warring factions.

Why should one be ‘bipartisan’ with those with whom one shares no political objectives? Why should one seek to placate those with whom one has no philosophical affiliation?

The SDLP and Sinn Féin wish to see an end to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Queen removed as Head of State and a republic established.

Why should David Cameron feel obliged to hold ‘neutral’ or ‘bipartisan’ talks with republican nationalists?

The Daily Telegraph reminds us that David Cameron is, after all, leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party:

‘...it seems a stretch to lambast Mr Cameron for doing his job as a unionist politician, which should be to find political ways to ensure Sinn Féin doesn’t end up the winner as the result of the failure of Unionism in Northern Ireland to get its electoral act together’.

‘...call me retro but isn’t it refreshing to find at least one politician who hasn’t forgotten that republicanism and communism are bad for the United Kingdom?’

The Spectator talks of ‘moving Ulster politics beyond sectarian interests’ which The Guardian (ever with its eye on the political priorities) says will raise ‘tricky questions over the Orange Order’.

And the Orange Order is, to those on the outside, some sort of weird cult on a par with Opus Dei and the Masons.

Although there is no longer a formal link between the UUP and the Order, it is noted that all the party's leading figures are members. Sir Reg Empey, ‘who will carry the Tory and unionist flag in East Belfast’, is a member.

The Guardian notes: ‘The Orange Order bans Catholics from joining. And this is what it says about the qualifications to be an Orangeman:

‘An Orangeman … should strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome, and scrupulously avoid countenancing (by his presence or otherwise) any act or ceremony of Popish Worship; he should, by all lawful means, resist the ascendancy of that Church, its encroachments, and the extension of its power, ever abstaining from all uncharitable words, actions, or sentiments towards his Roman Catholic brethren...’

And then the newspaper helpfully explains:

‘What that means in practice is that members of the Orange Order are banned from attending mass at Catholic funerals. No doubt Cameron will be asked in the general election whether the Orange Order should lift its ban on Catholics and whether members should be allowed to attend the funeral mass of Catholic neighbours.’

What a bizarre perspective it is which highlights ‘tricky questions’ over personal religious adherence to Protestant Christian soteriological doctrine yet ignores the ‘tricky questions’ about the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher and the maiming and murder of members of her Cabinet. Or the murders of Ian Gow, Airey Neave (by the splinter group INLA), Anthony Berry, Robert Bradford and Lord Mountbatten. Or the fact that we are in government with republican terrorists, torturers, traitors and murderers who are now intent on controlling matters of British policing and justice.

Or perhaps these are no longer ‘tricky’ questions, but rather impolite questions which are simply no longer asked.

Should Mr Cameron be asked why he is a member of the Church of England when its (rather sectarian) XXXIX Articles of Religion condemn the ‘Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping, and Adoration, as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints’ as being ‘repugnant to the Word of God’; and dismisses the ‘sacrifices of Masses’ as ‘blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits’? Should he be asked why he is a Monarchist when the institution is closed (rather sectarian) against anyone who ‘shall hold communion with the see or Church of Rome, or should profess the popish religion, or marry a papist’? Or why he owns a King James Bible when its preface (rather sectarian) talks of being ‘traduced by Popish Persons at home and abroad’?

For anyone with any awareness of history, the Conservative Party was born out of Tory/Whig religious sectarianism and has steered a via media for three centuries. The Party has a strong tradition of social concern and action which is rooted in Protestant Christianity and fused with the establishment of the Church of England. Edmund Burke, the ‘Father of Conservatism’, advocated a Protestant understanding of man’s ‘moral agency in a civil order’. He talked of obligations which ‘arise from the relation of man to man, and the relation of man to God’, and made appeals to the ‘grand chorus of national harmony’ which derived from the Protestant Settlement and has been sustained through the age of Empire, the creation of the British Commonwealth and the assertion of Britain’s ‘continuing role on the world stage’, all of which have been shadowed by the Worldwide Anglican Communion – the universal theological expression of England’s ‘beautiful order’.

The Conservative Party, as it has existed since the beginning of the nineteenth century, is the Unionist Party. Its raison d’être has been defence of the union, and that union has been Protestant since its inception. The nineteenth-century Conservative social reformer Lord Ashley (7th Earl of Shaftesbury) argued that ‘our great force has been Protestantism... every step of our success has been founded upon it’.

The Party now deliberately and rightly eschews denominational links: one does not need to believe in any particular god to be a conservative. But British Conservative traditions have been Protestant; those elsewhere have been Roman Catholic. There is no shame in this history. In fact, it is so obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to point it out.

After the Battle of Trafalgar, Pitt the Younger was toasted as 'the Saviour of Europe'. He demurred, insisting that Europe was not to be saved by any one man: “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

We did, of course, ‘save Europe’ on many occasions.

Perhaps not always ‘by example’, but certainly by consistently maintaining a balance of power which was invariably in the national interest.

Now, of course, Europe has consumed (indeed, abolished) England: we are nothing but a country of ‘euro regions’, each directly funded by and subject to the foreign power; to the princes and potentates in Brussels who prohibit and permit, determine and decree, legislate and direct what we may and may not do.

But that is old news.

With a supine (to put it politely) national church, the marginalisation of Christianity and an increasing assertion of fundamentalist secularism, Islam may be about to the UK a great service.

Bear with His Grace on this one.

Harridan Hormone’s (EU-inspired) Equality Bill was dealt a severe blow in three key votes on proposed amendments in the House of Lords. The legal inequalities which our Masters in Brussels sought to force Parliament to eradicate were retained at Their Lordships’ pleasure.

The churches were prepared for the battle, and no doubt many thousands of Christians donned their breastplates of righteousness and interceded for victory. Cranmer wondered who might win (fully expecting, being a seasoned observer, that the Gates of Hell would prevail).

The issue of the extent to which churches (and other religious bodies) might continue to discriminate against employees on the grounds of their sexual conduct (or, for Pope Benedict, even their inclination), was of importance not only for religious liberty but also the right to freedom of conscience.

Baroness O’Cathain, supported by the passionate, charismatic and patriotic Archbishop John Sentamu (...would that he might succeed Rowan Williams...) insisted that religious institutions must retain their exemption from equality legislation which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexuality: they must be permitted to maintain their traditional ethos and have the right to expect that staff would uphold tenets of their faith.

And they won: a powerful coalition of bishops and Conservative peers defeated the Government by 216 votes to 178.

The Government, of course, still wants it to be made impossible for a Roman Catholic school to sack its head teacher if he should declare himself homosexual, enter into a civil partnership with his boyfriend, undergo gender realignment and then cross-dress (if such it would be) to come to school.

But such a law must be applied uniformly. Thus the imam in a mosque or the head teacher of a Muslim school may also not be dismissed on the grounds of sexuality.

One wonders what legislative madness it is that permits dismissal for consuming a bacon sandwich, yet not for consummating a same-sex union.

But the Government now have a problem.

Lord Tebbit put it succinctly when he said: "We have a choice tonight – whether we walk in fear of the law of the Lord or the law of Brussels. I know which way I am going."

The House of Commons could be asked to vote to overturn Their Lordships, effectively asserting EU judicial primacy over centuries of freedom of conscience and religion. Or risk prosecutions being brought by agitating atheists, militant homosexuals or tactical transsexuals against a church, a church school – or (Allah forbid) a mosque.

And this is not a trivial point of inconsequential levity.

While the Church of England has been content to do nothing to defend itself against foreign princes and potentates (indeed, it has been complicit in its own destruction), the Mosque of England might be a little less inclined to be told what it must and must not teach and whom it may or may not employ.

Will this Labour Government, consumed and distracted by its agonising death throes, ram this Bill through Parliament regardless of the views of the Lords Temporal and Spiritual?

Since the Archbishop of Canterbury has (again) gone Trappist, will the mosques assert the primacy of the Law of (the) God over the laws of man?

Will this England, which was wont to save herself by her exertions, now be saved by the example of Islam?

This is rather brilliant.

We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits

(Bless you, Mr Morus)

Cranmer is not sure what the BBC is up to with this absurd (?) analysis, but he can guess.

The corporation produces a magazine called ‘Focus’ – ‘a magazine of science, technology and the future’. In latest edition (Feb 2010), there is an article on whether or not nature has ‘programmed’ mankind to be sinful.

The article is entitled 'Born to sin. Why nature wants you to be bad', and it examines parts of the brain that purport to wire people to commit the seven deadly sins. The article then asks which is the most sinful nation on earth and concludes it is the Australians.

Cranmer has never liked ‘Neighbours’, and (he must confess), finds Castlemaine XXXX, Crocodile Dundee, Kylie and Dame Edna all a little tiresome.

But he is baffled that the authors should conclude that Australia is ‘the most sinful nation’ on the planet when there are others who are waging civil war, murdering their own, letting millions starve, aborting their own children if they happen to be the wrong gender...

And the United Kingdom only comes sixth.

Sixth!

Just above Sodom.

And, of course, the United States is right up the top for ‘gluttony’.

For each of the seven deadly sins the rankings are

Lust: 1st South Korea (UK is out of the top 10)
Gluttony: 1st USA (UK 5th)
Greed: 1st Mexico (UK 6th)
Sloth: 1st Iceland (UK is out of the top 10)
Wrath; 1st South Africa (UK 5th)
Envy: 1st Australia (UK 5th)
Pride: 1st Iceland (UK is out of the top 10)

The analysts then allocated 10 marks to the first, then 9 mark to the second and so on with no marks to any nation outside the top 10.

And so Australia comes top with 46 points, USA second with 32, Canada third with 24 with the UK sixth with 17 measly points.

A bit of fun, perhaps.

Yet it is a little strange that taxpayers’ money is being used on this sort of quantitative (just) research which effectively says that sin is part of a perfectly natural national psyche and therefore quite beyond the control of a population and government: ie, God/‘nature’ has fore-ordained the United States to gluttonous excess.

There is no point resisting the will of God.

It is reported that Ali Hassan al-Majid (aka ‘Chemical Ali’) has been executed by hanging.

He was notoriously responsible for the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, in which around 5000 men, women and children were murdered. He was also implicated in the murder of thousands of Shi’a Muslims in the Sadr City district of Baghdad in 1999. His capacity for genocide and crimes against humanity puts him among the world’s most notorious tyrants. And now he has gone to meet Allah.

Cranmer is not in favour of the death penalty.

But not dogmatically so.

There are some who might deserve it.

When one has tortured, slaughtered and butchered so many innocent people, why should one not be executed?

Yet the state-sanctioned killing of people like ‘Chemical Ali’ pushes many on the Left to ideological consternation.

It has been said numerous times (whichever party is in power) that ‘the British government does not support the use of the death penalty (in Iraq or anywhere else). We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime.’

But today you will not hear much opposition in the UK to the hanging of ‘Chemical Ali’.

Is it because he is Muslim?

Or because his name has been rendered quite literally toxic?

It is a serious question.

If we were talking about the execution of Alistair Hardcastle, the Prime Minister would doubtless issue the usual condemnation. But we are concerned here with one Ali Hassan al-Majid.

And the sanctity of his life might not be quite so inviolable.

In the UK, the Left generally berate anyone on the Right who supports capital punishment: they are, quite naturally, 'extremist'. Yet the hypocrisy of the Left is manifest when most of them hold the morally vacuous position of opposing it domestically while justifying exemptions in other countries (usually by going Trappist).

Cranmer recalls Tony Blair’s silence on the news that Saddam Hussein had been hanged. With his typically inimitable ‘Third Way’ resolution of an otherwise intractable dichotomy, he appeared to simultaneously hold mutually-exclusive positions. Margaret Beckett said on his behalf:

I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. He has now been held to account. We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation.

It is a curious moral philosophy which can simultaneously welcome the fact that Ali Hassan al-Majid ‘has now been held to account’ whilst insisting that the United Kingdom, along with the rest of the European Union, opposes the death penalty in all circumstances.

Or are there exceptions?