Displaying items by tag: United Kingdom

Tory MP Danny Kruger, a Christian, says his faith makes him unfashionable and is likely to affect his political career. He grew up in an atheist home but 'always felt that wasn't adequate', and converted aged 28 after reading Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. The former political secretary to Boris Johnson said, ‘The religion of our culture at the moment, I'm afraid, is liberal individualism. It's not Christianity. I'm not part of the governing faith of our country at the moment.’ Kruger caused controversy by speaking out against abortion. He pointed out that ‘somewhere along the journey towards birth the foetus or baby acquires rights of its own’. Regarding assisted dying, he said, ‘If somebody is standing on the cliff edge or on a bridge intending to throw themselves off, we try to stop them. We don't say, ”It's your absolute autonomy to end your life”. We think that it's a bad move to commit suicide.’

The Church of England is considering alternatives to referring to God as ‘he’ after some priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead. The Church is launching a new project on the matter in the spring to decide whether to propose changes or not. Any alterations would mark a departure from traditional Jewish and Christian teachings dating back millennia. The Rt Rev Dr Michael Ipgrave, vice-chair of the liturgical commission responsible for this, said the Church had been exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years. In common with other potential changes to authorised liturgical provision, changing the wording and number of authorised forms of absolution would require a full Synodical process for approval. It is unclear what would replace the term ‘Our Father’ in the Lord’s Prayer, the central Christian prayer which Jesus instructed his followers to say together down through the generations.

William Shawcross was appointed to review the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy in January 2021. Last week he concluded that Prevent concentrated too much on the far right and not enough on Islamist extremism. But he only attended six of the thousands of review panels examining the more extreme cases. A more intensive support, known as Channel, is needed for the small proportion of individuals seen as being at greatest risk. Between April 2021 and March 2022 almost 1,500 assessments for Channel took place. But Shawcross’s attendance at such a small number of these raises questions over how thorough his research was. Britain’s former top counter-terrorism officer, Neil Basu, said parts of the government-backed report appeared to be inspired by right-wing ideology and were ‘insulting’ to professionals fighting to tackle extremism.

A study of 315 staff working for MPs found that 42% met the clinical definition of experiencing psychological distress, three times higher than in the general population. They face similar levels of psychological distress as frontline NHS workers, amid a ‘toxic’ workload and fears for their safety. MPs’ caseworkers said there was a ‘worrying upturn’ in the number of actively suicidal people seeking help in the past year. Two-thirds described their work as emotionally draining and one in ten said it was ‘harrowing’. It was not unusual for them to open horrifying mail detailing child abuse or containing pictures of maimed or dead children.

Rishi Sunak has reshaped the government. Grant Shapps is secretary of state for energy, security and net zero - a new department. The government wants us to be a science superpower, but science has regularly moved departments, with many different ministers. Creating a new department enables it to be represented in cabinet. Kemi Badenoch becomes the new business secretary. Rachel Maclean is the new housing minister, the sixth person to hold the post in 12 months. She is tasked with solving the UK's housing crisis. Other government departments have also seen high turnovers since 2010, with twelve prisons ministers and ten immigration ministers. There have been five schools ministers, but Nick Gibb occupied the role on three separate occasions. Appointing Lee Anderson as vice-chairman sparked worries: he vigorously backs the death penalty and a Channel naval standoff, and believes food bank clients do not budget properly. See

A Christian Aid poll reveals 53% of British adults agree that the government should be a leader in providing humanitarian aid and commit to financing a peace process in South Sudan. The leaders of Christian Aid, CAFOD, and Tearfund have written a joint open letter to the PM after the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited South Sudan last week. The charities warned of South Sudan’s growing hunger crisis with 54% of the population already living with crisis-level food insecurity. Despite the worsening situation, the UK's aid budget for South Sudan was cut by 59% in 2021. This triggered cuts to critical peacebuilding and resilience work with communities. CAFOD’s director said that the people of South Sudan have suffered much due to conflict and instability, but instead of being able to rely on UK support, the UK has cut its funding.

Volodymyr Zelensky's surprise visit to the UK included meeting Rishi Sunak, making a speech in Parliament and having an audience with King Charles. He arrived as Downing Street announced that the UK will train Ukrainian pilots to fly NATO-standard fighter jets in the future, as requested by Ukraine. It is also expected the UK will announce fresh sanctions on Russia. Downing Street added that British training would be scaled up by training a further 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Mr Zelensky next visited Brussels, having urged France, Germany and the UK to provide fighter jets for the war against Russia. ‘Europe will always remain free as long as we are together,’ he told the European Parliament. He will meet all MEPs at a summit of EU leaders, on his second trip abroad since the war began. See Ukraine has received signals from Poland and the Netherlands to say that they are ready to supply RAF Typhoons and F-16 fighters.

The Church of England has backed proposals to allow prayers of blessing for same sex couples. Its position on gay marriage will not change, and same-sex couples will still be unable to marry in church. The plans, set out by bishops last month, have been criticised both by those who think they go too far and those who think they don’t go far enough: but the motion was passed in all three of synod's 'houses'. Priests will be allowed to bless gay couples, but can opt out: the first blessings could be in the summer. The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, said the Church was ‘in a better place’ as a result of the vote. However, he and the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged that ‘deep differences’ remained. The CofE Evangelical Council said it was ‘deeply saddened and profoundly grieved’ by the move. A spokesman said, ‘The Church of England now appears set on a course of action that rejects our historic and biblical understanding of sex and marriage. This seems to us to be a lose-lose position for everyone.’

Tate Britain will host a drag queen story hour in half term hosted by ‘queer hero of literature’, neuro-divergent drag queen Aida H Dee. Catholic commentator Caroline Farrow has launched a petition for the Tate to stop ‘promoting gender ideology to children’ through its half-term free event. Her petition received over 8,000 signatures on its first day. She said drag queens are a form of adult entertainment mainly found in gay nightclubs, presenting a highly demeaning and distorted vision of women, which many find offensive. Drag acts do not constitute education and do not teach tolerance. Their aim is to expose children to sexualised and political messaging regarding the LGBTQ+ movement. Caroline is also concerned that the Tate produces a teaching and guidance resource for teachers and schools. It is co-authored with a transgender lobby group, is full of gender ideology, and encourages educational professionals to break the law.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has called for churchgoers and people of faith to become blood donors, especially those from ethnic minority backgrounds. Donors of Black heritage are urgently needed to help those with sickle cell, UK’s fastest-growing genetic blood disorder. Mr Khan, who donated blood himself at an event at City Hall, said he held a huge respect and admiration for church leaders and recognised their importance in encouraging people in their congregations to give blood and become organ donors. He said, ‘One of the things about our Christian neighbourhoods is the amount of good they do for their communities: the charity work, the food banks, homeless shelters and the work they did during the pandemic.’ Around 135,000 new donors are needed per year to meet demand; at least 40,000 new blood donors a year are needed in London over the next five years to keep being able to supply blood for lifesaving treatments.