Proud of my Flag

 The Union Jack is a 4-way blend of:

 - The St George Cross, commemorating a Christian saint from Lydda/Lod, at the time a Roman colony and now in modern day Israel, (his father was from Cappdocia in modern day Turkey). George was, probably, a Roman soldier who was martyred for his faith around the turn of the 3rd/4th century.

 - The St Andrew Cross, commemorating a young fisherman, one of the first two disciples of Jesus, instrumental in introducing his brother Peter to the Lord. The cross is a saltire, an X, as tradition has it that Andrew was crucified on a cross in this form. 

 - The St Patrick Cross, commemorating a Northerner from Britain who was captured into slavery by Irish pirates, escaped, and then returned to Ireland as a missionary and led many to Christ. 

 - The symbol of the cross, where God the Son gave his life as the ultimate act of love and sacrifice, where death was defeated, and from which everyone is invited to recognise, embrace and respond to God's love. It's what unites these 3 men from different ethnic backgrounds, eras, language groups and life experiences: a Jewish working man in an occupied land, a coloniser - a member of the occupying military, and a victim of people trafficking. 

It's a good flag to be proud of, its such a shame its become something else. 

What we don't talk about when we talk about migration

 "There's a lot of talk about this next song. Too much talk in fact." (Bono on 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'). You could say the same about immigration, which has gone from nobody wanting to talk about it, to everyone wanting to talk about it. 

But amidst all the talk, there are several facets of the debate that are getting way more airtime than others. For example: within the eye-watering levels of legal migration we currently have, why is it ok for the UK to poach trained medical staff in large numbers from countries which need them way more than we do? Why are we not training and deploying more of our own, when Medicine courses are vastly oversubscribed every year, and medic graduates often struggle to find work placements?

Here's another: Ian Paul has just published a thoughtful piece here in response to an intervention by the Archbishop of York, to which I posted the following comment:

Thankyou – there are so many angles to this question, and one which concerns me for my grandchildren is the effect of immigration on the religious mix of the UK. The combination of a high Muslim birth rate, and a high annual number of Muslim immigrants, will push the Muslim population of the UK over 10m by 2050. The last general election saw the first MPs elected on a Muslim ticket, and the government is exploring a legal definition of ‘Islamophobia’ – a term popularised in order to set Islam above challenge and criticism in Western countries.

When Islam ends up in a majority, or with significant political power within a country, it rarely ends well for Christians. 14 of the 20 worst countries for Christian persecution are Islamic states https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/ . If we sleepwalk into increased Islamic influence on government, culture and society by welcoming unsustainable numbers of Muslim immigrants – legal and illegal – who we can’t integrate, and therefore form their own subcultures, then we are storing up trouble for the future of the gospel in this country.

And for 'gospel' you could substitute other things, such as 'womens rights', 'freedom of speech', 'democracy' and most of the things which we value within our culture and ethos as a nation. Islam is, in its roots, a religion of conquest. Yes it can reform, but where Islam becomes a significant, powerful or majority grouping, it doesn't seem to do power-sharing. Is this a conversation we're afraid of having? 

Cornwall relocated to 'The North'

 The Guido Fawkes blog, which prides itself on doing a better job than the mainstream media, posted this earlier today: 

Writing this from Somerset, I was fascinated to discover that anything 'outside London' is Northern. And yes, Labour does have MPs in Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, all of which are at least 200 miles from the borders of The Blessed Yorkshire. 

Perhaps Guido should get out more?