Very very gutsy thing to do:
Rev Hayley Young's courageous (that word again) explanation to her church about her HIV diagnosis following an attack. Good piece here on the BBC, including the struggle of being someone who's supposed to have 'the answers'. "There are times when God feels far away, but ultimately that peace and that strength are there".
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Sunday, May 24, 2015
A month and a half of Sundays - Adrian Chiles' Lent Challenge
So, a mixed bag, as were the priests. A third of them I found to be great, with a handful quite life-changingly brilliant. Another third were sort of OK. The rest were pretty hopeless, not least because I often couldn't actually hear what they were saying. And a handful were grumpy to the point of malevolence.
Spiritually, if I'm to really "connect" at Mass, I need a good priest to help me. And by good I mean, first and foremost, that they should look pleased to be there and pleased that we're there. Often they speak of great "joy" while looking as bored as swimming pool attendants.
Secondly, with the liturgy - essentially the same script which they do day in, day out - the best of them find a way of making it sound fresh. As the inestimable Father Paul Addison of Our Lady of Delours in Kersal put it to me: "The clue's in the word; communion is all about communicating." And the same is obviously true of the sermon. One of the beauties of daily Mass is, frankly, its brevity - invariably less than half an hour. Sometimes the sermon is dispensed with altogether, but often it just takes the form of a thought or two, which I find much easier to get my head round than one of Sunday's lengthy orations.
Adrian Chiles on his 46 days in 46 different churches. Worth reading the whole thing, great perspectives. And encouraging that he concludes it was one of the most rewarding and quietly intense 46 days of my life.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Faith & Welfare, Saints and Safety Nets
Review of Greg Smith Faith, Progressive Localism and the Hol(e)y Welfare Safety Net
You wait weeks for a report on faith and welfare and then two come along at once. Actually, there have been plenty, and with the re-election of the Conservatives, I'm sure there'll be many more.
The William Temple Foundation asked me to review Greg Smiths 'Temple Tract' on faith and welfare. Two recent events made it worth the read. The election result was one: though a Labour government would have still faced some of the issues and realities that Smith describes. The other is the recent report from the Cinnamon Trust, highlighting the vast scale of faith-based social action, and encouraging churches and other faith groups to do more in partnership with other agencies, such as local authorities.
It's this relationship between faith groups and local authorities that Smith focuses on. With a track record in ecumenical work in deprived urban areas, and a key role in the Evangelical Alliances research programme, he brings together the findings of EA research with case studies of local partnership working, and the realities of the welfare state in austerity Britain. Whilst the Cinnamon Trust report encourages faith groups to get on and work in partnership with others, Smiths e-book raises some of the issues those faith groups will need to wrestle with.
Snith's main premise is that recent politics and economics have created a new environment for churches and faith groups. Recession has thrown more people into poverty, and austerity has resulted in a thinner 'safety net', with more means testing. Meanwhile the government has raised the profile of localism - in some cases devolving to local councils the responsibility for parts of the welfare system (e.g. emergency grants and financial aid). This gives both a new challenge, and a new opportunity, for faith groups to work in partnership with local authorities in welfare delivery.
The book splits down into several readable short sections:
- An outline of recent changes to welfare since 2010, and the current (frightening) picture of poverty and inequality
- The contribution of faith groups to welfare, with a particular focus on the responses to Evangelical Alliance surveys.
- A brief survey of 'progressive localism' - how a combination of austerity and local devolution is creating space for new partnership between faith groups and local authorities to provide welfare support.
- Case studies of what this looks like in Blackpool and Preston, with an honest survey of the relative strength and levels of co-operation among the churches, and between the churches/faith groups and the local council.
- 'Common values and sticky issues' - highlighting some of the hurdles to faith group and local authority partnership, and two of the ideologies which would challenge that partnership in the first place: neoliberalism (everyone must take individual responsibility, so don't help the 'undeserving poor') and secularism (faith groups have no part in the public sphere).
The e-book is a call for faith groups to work with local authorities in this new environment. However it also recognises that localism can degenerate into a postcode lottery - if more welfare provision is local, then it also becomes more dependent on the quality of local partnerships, personnel and delivery. The case studies highlight how much difference local factors can make to the quality and outcomes of support given by the faith sector.
Smith also points out that most of the time, there are no issues with faith groups being involved. The main exception is ‘only when people of faith feel so committed to their beliefs that they explicitly present them as truth claims, and when the perceive their beliefs as normative or binding on others that there is real difficulty’
Here is his summary of the argument of the paper:
In other words, churches and faith groups both have new opportunities to serve, in partnership with local authorities, and new opportunities to bring the values of faith into the public square.
In the light of the Cinnamon Trust report I found this a useful booklet to read, provocative and challenging. It has a good summary of recent changes to welfare, is well researched and well referenced, and the combination of local case studies with the wider national picture works well. It was helpful to read the warning that discussions of 'the common good' from positions of power and institutional religion don't give voice to the actual experience of those who need, and are falling into (or through) the safety net.
Just a few quibbles - some page numbers with the index at the start would have been handy. I also was trying to work out who it was aimed at - a lot of Evangelical Alliance research was quoted, so parts of the booklet focused specifically on Evangelicals, in compare/contrast mode with other streams of belief and non-belief. But the main argument of the book seems to be directed at 'faith groups', and there's never an attempt to make a biblical or theological argument for evangelicals to be involved in the welfare state. If the audience was Evangelicals, then it needed more theology, and if it was faith groups in general, then the booklet probably needed less about Evangelicals in particular, and more research from other sections of the 'faith sector'.
I also found it a bit hard to follow Smiths definition of 'progressive localism'. I think I know what he was getting at, Progressive does not mean liberal or elitist. Rather it is something more fundamental than that: an attitude of mind or outlook on life that is, ‘outward looking and creates positive affinities between places and social groups negotiating global processes’. The term progressive has been used to emphasise that new alliances between different community and faith groups are not merely defensive, but ‘rather they are expansive in their geographical reach and productive of new relations between places and social groups. Such struggles can reconfigure existing communities around emergent agendas for social justice, participation and tolerance’. Progressive localism would be even less elitist if there was a clear definition of it that didn't rely on so many abstract nouns.
I was also surprised by the big leap in the final sentences to the conclusion that ‘for new times we need to see some fresh thinking. More democratic engagement, and a renewal and transformation of the major institutions of our society' It's not clear either what kind of transformation is required, or which institutions he's referring to. The radical final paragraphs seem to go way beyond the evidence and argument presented in the previous 20 pages, and I wondered if there was another booklets worth of thinking needed to unpack them!
It's the kind of thing I probably wouldn't have read without being asked, but I'm glad I did. It's made me think about what we do here in Yeovil, and that I need to do more to encourage and give a voice to those members of our church who are engaging at the sharp end of this. Many people have no idea of what's going on around the bottom rungs of the social ladder.
I don't know how the Temple Tracts work, but I'd really like to see a response to Smiths arguments from the Centre for Social Justice.
Faith, Progressive Localism and the Hol(e)y Welfare Safety Net is worth a read if you want something more chewy to put the Cinnamon Trust report into context, or for local church leaders involved in partnerships with their local authority, or wondering what that might involve. David Camerons re-election makes it even more relevant, and there are wider issues for the church here not just in provision, but in prophecy - how do we challenge the state when it neglects the most vulnerable, and how do we give a voice to those who are rendered even more vulnerable by a system which is supposed to be helping them.
The church, and faith groups in general, are not in a place where we can happily take welfare provision back from central government and say 'that's fine, we'll carry on where we left off in the 1940s'. The Cameron government is also showing a worrying tendency towards abdication: following the Lansley reforms the Health secretary is no longer responsible for the NHS, academies are devolving and breaking up the education system, and Eric Pickles has just received a knighthood for 5 years of asking local authorities to make bricks without straw, responsibility for more provision yet with fewer resources. I'm glad there's an increasing openness for the state, voluntary and faith sector to work together in supporting the vulnerable, but it's not enough to keep rescuing people from the river, we need to head upstream to find out why they are falling in.
You wait weeks for a report on faith and welfare and then two come along at once. Actually, there have been plenty, and with the re-election of the Conservatives, I'm sure there'll be many more.
The William Temple Foundation asked me to review Greg Smiths 'Temple Tract' on faith and welfare. Two recent events made it worth the read. The election result was one: though a Labour government would have still faced some of the issues and realities that Smith describes. The other is the recent report from the Cinnamon Trust, highlighting the vast scale of faith-based social action, and encouraging churches and other faith groups to do more in partnership with other agencies, such as local authorities.
It's this relationship between faith groups and local authorities that Smith focuses on. With a track record in ecumenical work in deprived urban areas, and a key role in the Evangelical Alliances research programme, he brings together the findings of EA research with case studies of local partnership working, and the realities of the welfare state in austerity Britain. Whilst the Cinnamon Trust report encourages faith groups to get on and work in partnership with others, Smiths e-book raises some of the issues those faith groups will need to wrestle with.
Snith's main premise is that recent politics and economics have created a new environment for churches and faith groups. Recession has thrown more people into poverty, and austerity has resulted in a thinner 'safety net', with more means testing. Meanwhile the government has raised the profile of localism - in some cases devolving to local councils the responsibility for parts of the welfare system (e.g. emergency grants and financial aid). This gives both a new challenge, and a new opportunity, for faith groups to work in partnership with local authorities in welfare delivery.
The book splits down into several readable short sections:
- An outline of recent changes to welfare since 2010, and the current (frightening) picture of poverty and inequality
- The contribution of faith groups to welfare, with a particular focus on the responses to Evangelical Alliance surveys.
- A brief survey of 'progressive localism' - how a combination of austerity and local devolution is creating space for new partnership between faith groups and local authorities to provide welfare support.
- Case studies of what this looks like in Blackpool and Preston, with an honest survey of the relative strength and levels of co-operation among the churches, and between the churches/faith groups and the local council.
- 'Common values and sticky issues' - highlighting some of the hurdles to faith group and local authority partnership, and two of the ideologies which would challenge that partnership in the first place: neoliberalism (everyone must take individual responsibility, so don't help the 'undeserving poor') and secularism (faith groups have no part in the public sphere).
The e-book is a call for faith groups to work with local authorities in this new environment. However it also recognises that localism can degenerate into a postcode lottery - if more welfare provision is local, then it also becomes more dependent on the quality of local partnerships, personnel and delivery. The case studies highlight how much difference local factors can make to the quality and outcomes of support given by the faith sector.
Smith also points out that most of the time, there are no issues with faith groups being involved. The main exception is ‘only when people of faith feel so committed to their beliefs that they explicitly present them as truth claims, and when the perceive their beliefs as normative or binding on others that there is real difficulty’
Here is his summary of the argument of the paper:
I have argued that the growth of poverty and inequality and the
neo-liberal project to roll back the hard fought for protections of citizens
via state welfare, have led to a constructive reaction by churches, people of
faith and others of goodwill, to fill the holes in the welfare safety net. But
a holy safety net on its own is hardly sufficient to meet that need. Where
central government has delegated, or more truthfully abandoned, many of its
responsibilities to local authorities, without providing sufficient resources
for the task, there are opportunities for creative partnerships. And in a
context of post-secular progressive localism there are public spaces in which
values and beliefs can be publicly articulated and where apologetics and
religious dialogue can take place.
In other words, churches and faith groups both have new opportunities to serve, in partnership with local authorities, and new opportunities to bring the values of faith into the public square.
In the light of the Cinnamon Trust report I found this a useful booklet to read, provocative and challenging. It has a good summary of recent changes to welfare, is well researched and well referenced, and the combination of local case studies with the wider national picture works well. It was helpful to read the warning that discussions of 'the common good' from positions of power and institutional religion don't give voice to the actual experience of those who need, and are falling into (or through) the safety net.
Just a few quibbles - some page numbers with the index at the start would have been handy. I also was trying to work out who it was aimed at - a lot of Evangelical Alliance research was quoted, so parts of the booklet focused specifically on Evangelicals, in compare/contrast mode with other streams of belief and non-belief. But the main argument of the book seems to be directed at 'faith groups', and there's never an attempt to make a biblical or theological argument for evangelicals to be involved in the welfare state. If the audience was Evangelicals, then it needed more theology, and if it was faith groups in general, then the booklet probably needed less about Evangelicals in particular, and more research from other sections of the 'faith sector'.
I also found it a bit hard to follow Smiths definition of 'progressive localism'. I think I know what he was getting at, Progressive does not mean liberal or elitist. Rather it is something more fundamental than that: an attitude of mind or outlook on life that is, ‘outward looking and creates positive affinities between places and social groups negotiating global processes’. The term progressive has been used to emphasise that new alliances between different community and faith groups are not merely defensive, but ‘rather they are expansive in their geographical reach and productive of new relations between places and social groups. Such struggles can reconfigure existing communities around emergent agendas for social justice, participation and tolerance’. Progressive localism would be even less elitist if there was a clear definition of it that didn't rely on so many abstract nouns.
I was also surprised by the big leap in the final sentences to the conclusion that ‘for new times we need to see some fresh thinking. More democratic engagement, and a renewal and transformation of the major institutions of our society' It's not clear either what kind of transformation is required, or which institutions he's referring to. The radical final paragraphs seem to go way beyond the evidence and argument presented in the previous 20 pages, and I wondered if there was another booklets worth of thinking needed to unpack them!
It's the kind of thing I probably wouldn't have read without being asked, but I'm glad I did. It's made me think about what we do here in Yeovil, and that I need to do more to encourage and give a voice to those members of our church who are engaging at the sharp end of this. Many people have no idea of what's going on around the bottom rungs of the social ladder.
I don't know how the Temple Tracts work, but I'd really like to see a response to Smiths arguments from the Centre for Social Justice.
Faith, Progressive Localism and the Hol(e)y Welfare Safety Net is worth a read if you want something more chewy to put the Cinnamon Trust report into context, or for local church leaders involved in partnerships with their local authority, or wondering what that might involve. David Camerons re-election makes it even more relevant, and there are wider issues for the church here not just in provision, but in prophecy - how do we challenge the state when it neglects the most vulnerable, and how do we give a voice to those who are rendered even more vulnerable by a system which is supposed to be helping them.
The church, and faith groups in general, are not in a place where we can happily take welfare provision back from central government and say 'that's fine, we'll carry on where we left off in the 1940s'. The Cameron government is also showing a worrying tendency towards abdication: following the Lansley reforms the Health secretary is no longer responsible for the NHS, academies are devolving and breaking up the education system, and Eric Pickles has just received a knighthood for 5 years of asking local authorities to make bricks without straw, responsibility for more provision yet with fewer resources. I'm glad there's an increasing openness for the state, voluntary and faith sector to work together in supporting the vulnerable, but it's not enough to keep rescuing people from the river, we need to head upstream to find out why they are falling in.
Conversation Killers?
Gravetalk looks interesting....
It’s not easy to think about your own funeral. Talking about death, dying and funerals raises big questions that we need to face at some point, but it’s hard to talk to family and friends.
The Church of England has been helping people think about these questions for centuries. GraveTalk is a café space, organised by a local church, where people can talk about these big questions. The conversation is helped along by GraveTalk conversation cards – 52 questions covering 5 key areas.
I've used the Table Talk questions in a few settings - e.g. baptism preparation - and found them very helpful, so this could be a good variation on that theme, and a good way to approach what's often a taboo topic.
I'm pleased to see the way the CofE is thinking more deeply around baptisms, weddings and funerals: the Weddings Project has been very helpful, with the new yourchurchwedding website, and there's been some work on baptisms/christenings and the best way to approach and prepare for those.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
What Happens When Anglicans Pray
Excellent stuff from the artist formerly known as MadPriest. Sometimes I find myself getting like this, please stop me if you hear me pray something waffly. I used to be the kind of person who got twitchy during CofE prayers, and wanted to shout out 'but what are you actually praying for!??' Sadly I've got used to it over time. But give me a short, direct prayer any time. Maybe I should try some of them myself.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Christian Liberals
Tim Farron:
You would do well to find a public figure who will more passionately and articulately talk about their faith. Farron became a Christian aged 18, a decision he describes as "the most massive choice I have made," and his faith seems as powerful and fresh as ever: Speaking at the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in 2013, he said: "Christianity, I am convinced, is not 'a bit' true. It is either not true, or it is so compellingly utterly true, that almost nothing else matters...if it is [true], it's the most important thing in the universe bar nothing; and if it isn't, we should close all the churches and sell them off for something else. There is no middle way."
and a friend of mine in Yeovil who joined the Libdems after an election night all-nighter at the house of a local vicar. I wonder who that could have been?
With a nominal Anglican heading the Conservatives, and a Catholic current favourite in the Labour leadership race, we could end up with the 3 main parties being led by Christians of one stripe or another by the autumn. Who'll be in charge of UKIP is anybody's guess.
You would do well to find a public figure who will more passionately and articulately talk about their faith. Farron became a Christian aged 18, a decision he describes as "the most massive choice I have made," and his faith seems as powerful and fresh as ever: Speaking at the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in 2013, he said: "Christianity, I am convinced, is not 'a bit' true. It is either not true, or it is so compellingly utterly true, that almost nothing else matters...if it is [true], it's the most important thing in the universe bar nothing; and if it isn't, we should close all the churches and sell them off for something else. There is no middle way."
and a friend of mine in Yeovil who joined the Libdems after an election night all-nighter at the house of a local vicar. I wonder who that could have been?
Mr Wilson watched the election with friends at the house of his local Church of England vicar.
“I had voted Lib Dem,” he said, “and spent a good part of the day after the election feeling down. It wasn’t just the national picture: in Yeovil we had lost David Laws, a very good local MP.
“But then, in the evening, I said: ‘No, I am going to turn this into something good.’ I went online and joined.”
Mr Wilson laughs when asked why. “Probably for the same reason I joined the Anglican church. It might be something psychological." (haha! Anglican mind manipulation techniques, works every time)
With a nominal Anglican heading the Conservatives, and a Catholic current favourite in the Labour leadership race, we could end up with the 3 main parties being led by Christians of one stripe or another by the autumn. Who'll be in charge of UKIP is anybody's guess.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Depression: this is 'courageous', but it shouldn't be.
...I am going to talk about what I know – depression and anxiety. I find it hard to fully describe what happens in my brain because honestly, I don’t know what is normal and what is not, but I will give it a go.
Getting up in the morning is the hardest part of any day, not because I am lazy, but because waking up hurts. I am so tired every minute of every day, that there is always a need for more sleep, but, I have to get up so I do. This is the first battle I face each day....
Part of the point of Mental Health awareness week is that we no longer have to use words like 'courageous' for people speaking about what it's like to be mentally ill. After all, if someone describes what it's like to have the flu', or a broken leg, we don't call them courageous for describing it.
Update: Katherine Welby has written for the Telegraph too, worth reading. And a piece from the CofE comms people about the church and mental health, and how we can do a better job supporting people.
Update: Katherine Welby has written for the Telegraph too, worth reading. And a piece from the CofE comms people about the church and mental health, and how we can do a better job supporting people.
Saturday, May 09, 2015
Election Reflection
It still seems a bit like a dream, but that's a combination of sleep deprivation and reading too many opinion polls. Congratulations to everyone who was succesful on Thursday, and for those who weren't, 'comiserations' doesn't really cover it. MPs who have put their heart and soul into a constituency for years suddenly thrown out.
A few post-election thoughts.
1. Brace yourselves. This is always the season when the things that weren't front page, or indeed any page, on the manifesto get brought in.
2. The Conservatives won the election partly by taking credit for Libdem policies which they'd been converted to - e.g. on tax thresholds. I hope that continues - they could do worse than starting with Libdem policies on mental health and climate change, which are streets ahead of anything the other parties have offered.
3. The electoral system is a mess. If people are losing faith with our political system, they will lose even more if you have to cast 3.5m votes to get one MP, and then have this dismissed by those who win on the current system (as Francis Maude did on Question Time last night)
4. Unless there was some serious methodology error committed by pollsters, then voters are just as deceitful as politicians. Either that or a lot of people changed their mind at the last minute.
5. I'm deeply troubled by the fact that a country with epidemic levels of mental illness and family breakdown, in the process of bequeathing a broken planet to its grandchildren, with around 1m people using food banks, didn't really engage with any of this during the election. Instead we were told by politicians (and encouraged by the media) to think only of how awful it would be if Scots were involved in government.
6. I worry that David Cameron has a track record of using key political processes to party advantage: from the last minute attempt to unseat the House of Commons speaker, to the promise to put election promises into law to make sure they're kept (?) to exploiting the Scottish referendum vote, which in turn let the SNP genie out of the bottle. Without a set of coalition partners to explain, defend and agree with, my fear is that we will get more of this; policies and knee-jerk reactions that haven't been fully thought through. After all, it hasn't done him any harm so far...
7. Fellow Yeovil Church leader Adam Dyer wrote this:
today we survey a new landscape. A landscape of increasing poverty. Not just financial poverty, but social poverty, emotional poverty, spiritual poverty and political poverty. Poverty tells us that it will always be like this. Nothing will ever change. I will always be poor. It will always be each man for himself. I will always be alone. It will always be an unfair system.
Poverty disempowers.
A few post-election thoughts.
1. Brace yourselves. This is always the season when the things that weren't front page, or indeed any page, on the manifesto get brought in.
2. The Conservatives won the election partly by taking credit for Libdem policies which they'd been converted to - e.g. on tax thresholds. I hope that continues - they could do worse than starting with Libdem policies on mental health and climate change, which are streets ahead of anything the other parties have offered.
3. The electoral system is a mess. If people are losing faith with our political system, they will lose even more if you have to cast 3.5m votes to get one MP, and then have this dismissed by those who win on the current system (as Francis Maude did on Question Time last night)
4. Unless there was some serious methodology error committed by pollsters, then voters are just as deceitful as politicians. Either that or a lot of people changed their mind at the last minute.
5. I'm deeply troubled by the fact that a country with epidemic levels of mental illness and family breakdown, in the process of bequeathing a broken planet to its grandchildren, with around 1m people using food banks, didn't really engage with any of this during the election. Instead we were told by politicians (and encouraged by the media) to think only of how awful it would be if Scots were involved in government.
6. I worry that David Cameron has a track record of using key political processes to party advantage: from the last minute attempt to unseat the House of Commons speaker, to the promise to put election promises into law to make sure they're kept (?) to exploiting the Scottish referendum vote, which in turn let the SNP genie out of the bottle. Without a set of coalition partners to explain, defend and agree with, my fear is that we will get more of this; policies and knee-jerk reactions that haven't been fully thought through. After all, it hasn't done him any harm so far...
7. Fellow Yeovil Church leader Adam Dyer wrote this:
today we survey a new landscape. A landscape of increasing poverty. Not just financial poverty, but social poverty, emotional poverty, spiritual poverty and political poverty. Poverty tells us that it will always be like this. Nothing will ever change. I will always be poor. It will always be each man for himself. I will always be alone. It will always be an unfair system.
Poverty disempowers.
But the antidote to poverty is not just money, the antidote to poverty in all its forms is hope. A belief that this is not the end of the story. This is good news for the church, because hope is the currency we trade in.
Finally, having prayed for the election, it's now time pray for wisdom for the new government.
They need it. So do we.
Finally, having prayed for the election, it's now time pray for wisdom for the new government.
They need it. So do we.
Wednesday, May 06, 2015
Pre-Election Prayer
"The Bible says Submit to the authorities for they are God’s
servants who give their full time to governing.
This was the prayer that closed our Hustings on Tuesday night, and I asked for a copy of it. A good thing to pray for a general election.
Politicians: How To Keep a Promise
You have 4 options
1. Make a promise, then make another promise to pass a law making it illegal for you to break the first promise, unless you bring forward another law to overturn the law you passed originally.
2. Make a promise, then carve it into a massive great rock and put it in your back garden, to remind you of the promise you made.
3. Make a promise, then put it into a large document, and use red lines to mark out the promises you're really going to keep, as opposed to the ones that are neither here nor there. Note: get the right sort of red, infra-red is invisible. Mind you, you'll probably wish you'd used infra red after all.
4. Make a promise. Keep it.
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Yeovil Election Hustings
Tues 5th May: Its hustings night tonight in Yeovil, 7.30pm at the Gateway. In case any of the candidates are reading this, here's some advance notice on the questions I'll be submitting.
(on behalf of someone who can't make it to the event) "What would you do to improve public transport?" If you can't drive, afford the taxi rates, or not able to walk far and rely on public transport (fine during the day, if you're in town, but useless in the evenings, Sundays, or going to and from a village...) then it's very poor.
Why are rates of mental illness increasing, and what are you going to do about it?
76% of young people in custody are from fatherless families, and family breakdown costs the UK £46 bn a year. Is there a conspiracy amongst the political parties not to talk about this, or have you just given up trying to do anything about it?
After getting in to power, every party launches a major new policy that wasn't in their manifesto - VAT rises, independence of the Bank of England, NHS reorganisation etc. What are you not telling us this time?
The CofE bishops pastoral letter on the election argues that we are becoming a society of strangers, rather than a community of communities. Does an election campaign based on fear – of foreigners, scots, or just the other lot – make us a better society, or a worse one?
“The different parties have failed to offer attractive visions of the kind of society and culture they wish to see, or distinctive goals they might pursue. Instead, we are subjected to sterile arguments about who might manage the existing system best. There is no idealism in this manifesto” (from the Bishops letter) please comment
Weds 6th May: update: I ended up asking the a question about mental health, which got half a proper answer from the Libdems and Greens, and the public transport question was asked by the chair. About 12 questions were asked in all, to a packed house at the Gateway (400-450 people?). There must have been getting on for 100 questions submitted on the night, so choosing a representative selection was quite a job in itself. The chair did a great job keeping it civilised and on time, and fair play to all the candidates - answering questions off the cuff in front of a big audience is a real challenge.
I felt a bit sorry for the Labour candidate, who got first go on both the first question (on supporting marriage) and on euthanasia - the other candiates then copied her answer! Interesting to hear Libdem David Laws say he'd vote against assisted dying (good), and the Greens Emily McIvor came across very well, and probably got the most applause from neutrals.
(on behalf of someone who can't make it to the event) "What would you do to improve public transport?" If you can't drive, afford the taxi rates, or not able to walk far and rely on public transport (fine during the day, if you're in town, but useless in the evenings, Sundays, or going to and from a village...) then it's very poor.
Why are rates of mental illness increasing, and what are you going to do about it?
76% of young people in custody are from fatherless families, and family breakdown costs the UK £46 bn a year. Is there a conspiracy amongst the political parties not to talk about this, or have you just given up trying to do anything about it?
After getting in to power, every party launches a major new policy that wasn't in their manifesto - VAT rises, independence of the Bank of England, NHS reorganisation etc. What are you not telling us this time?
The CofE bishops pastoral letter on the election argues that we are becoming a society of strangers, rather than a community of communities. Does an election campaign based on fear – of foreigners, scots, or just the other lot – make us a better society, or a worse one?
“The different parties have failed to offer attractive visions of the kind of society and culture they wish to see, or distinctive goals they might pursue. Instead, we are subjected to sterile arguments about who might manage the existing system best. There is no idealism in this manifesto” (from the Bishops letter) please comment
Weds 6th May: update: I ended up asking the a question about mental health, which got half a proper answer from the Libdems and Greens, and the public transport question was asked by the chair. About 12 questions were asked in all, to a packed house at the Gateway (400-450 people?). There must have been getting on for 100 questions submitted on the night, so choosing a representative selection was quite a job in itself. The chair did a great job keeping it civilised and on time, and fair play to all the candidates - answering questions off the cuff in front of a big audience is a real challenge.
I felt a bit sorry for the Labour candidate, who got first go on both the first question (on supporting marriage) and on euthanasia - the other candiates then copied her answer! Interesting to hear Libdem David Laws say he'd vote against assisted dying (good), and the Greens Emily McIvor came across very well, and probably got the most applause from neutrals.
Well done to the Gateway for having us and for all the microphones working well - perhaps the Libdems will do their next manifesto launch here! Good to see lots of people, and lots of Christians, engaging with the election and thinking through the issues.
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Saturday Strangeness
In the country with the biggest obesity problem on the planet, 11,500 turn up to watch 2 people get weighed. I wonder how many burgers they got through between them?
A welcome relief from the election campaign, instead of talking about a posh bloke, Labour and what the outcome will be, we can talk about a posh bloke, labour and what the outcome will be.
The boxing match in LA will generate over £250m. You'd like to think that some of it would find its way to Nepal. I hope that some of the folk who spend £30-60k to climb Everest would think it more worthwhile to spend that money saving Nepali lives.
A welcome relief from the election campaign, instead of talking about a posh bloke, Labour and what the outcome will be, we can talk about a posh bloke, labour and what the outcome will be.
The boxing match in LA will generate over £250m. You'd like to think that some of it would find its way to Nepal. I hope that some of the folk who spend £30-60k to climb Everest would think it more worthwhile to spend that money saving Nepali lives.
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