In a Times op-ed on Monday of this week, William Rees-Mogg defended Pope Benedict for having spiced up a lecture last week with a quotation describing Islam as a violent religion. Despite recognising the quotation to be offensive to Muslims, Rees-Mogg defended the Pope for including the quotation in his talk on the grounds that… [Read More]
After a fortnight of concern about the ‘state’ of childhood, the Archbishop of Canterbury has stepped in: to warn us about the huge pressures that children are under. A key strain Rowan Williams highlighted in an interview this morning with BBC Breakfast, was the ‘relentless’ testing children are now subject to, which starts from a… [Read More]
Some deep-seated problems, including high crime, falling education standards, unsustainable immigration, the low quality of the NHS, and rising welfare dependency are not being properly confronted by our political leaders. In particular, political discussion of public services like health and education still seems wedged halfway between the age of collectivism and a more consumer-friendly alternative.… [Read More]
In what threatens to be a rerun — mercifully, on only a more sedate and much smaller scale — of last year’s Danish cartoons furore, an ecumenical group calling itself the Churches Advertising Network (CAN) is rapidly becoming the centre of controversy over a poster it commissioned for display this coming Christmas. The poster is… [Read More]
A batch of newly published educational statistics reported in today’s Times makes troublesome reading. They show boys are progressively falling behind girls at school in the 3R’s. Neither boys nor girls, however, would appear to have much to write home about concerning their respective attainment levels in these areas, assuming, that is, they know how… [Read More]
Today’s Times contains a report about a former University of Cambridge Chaplain and ordained Anglican priest whom the Church of England has apparently given license to continue to officiate at its services, despite his having converted to Hinduism, having changed his name to Ananda, and his having gone in for blessing daily a Hindu congregation… [Read More]
In a display of rhetorical prowess that would doubtless immediately qualify him for the award of an A-level in Logic should this subject be offered at that level, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev has recently strung together an astonishing series of non sequiturs in support of his country and Romania being allowed to enter the… [Read More]
One picture is said to be worth a thousand words. So, the images shown by clicking on the first link below, first shown by a German television station last Sunday, do much to augment the information provided by clicking on the second link, to explain why Israel is so determined to do all in its… [Read More]
Last Friday, the government was widely reported to have recently requested local councils and primary health trusts specially to target black and mixed race Caribbean youngsters in an attempt to reduce their comparatively high rates of teen-age pregnancy which do so much to make Britain top of the European league-tables for teenage-conception and teenage-motherhood. In… [Read More]
David Cameron made a speech yesterday in which he unveiled the main new policies that he intends to implement if his party wins the next election. He will, he said, provide voters with more leisure rather than tax cuts, as well as opportunity to use that increased leisure in ways he claimed are more life-enhancing… [Read More]