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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: news

  • A New Prime Minister

    mayberetiredpastor

    A New Prime Minister

    Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

    Winston Churchill 1947 (1)

    … there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.

    Letter to the Romans 13:1 New Testament, The Bible

    The UK has a new Prime Minister. The appointment of Andy Burnham as Prime Minister has been unusual for recent parliaments because he did not enter office as the result of a General Election or, indeed, by an election of Labour Party (the party holding the majority in Parliament) members. He was elected unopposed as leader of the Labour Party by Labour MPs only. There has been considerable comment that he should submit himself to a General Election to obtain a mandate so that his premiership can be legitimised. Such arguments have been put by opposition parties, members of the public and, even, by seasoned political commentators. Whilst it is a viewpoint that could be held it is, to my mind, a mistaken understanding of our constitutional procedures.

    When I was taught basic constitutional theory at school, it was made very clear that we do not have a presidential system of democracy where supreme executive power is conferred via direct popular vote. We have a representative form of parliamentary democracy. We elect individual members of parliament who are our representatives and, crucially, not our delegates. They do not arrive in Parliament bound by a set of instructions given to them by the people who voted for them. Instead, as our representatives, they are expected to exercise their individual judgement on the various matters presented to them as members of parliament. One of those matters is the appointment of the government including the Prime Minister. Sir Keir Starmer had to step down as Prime Minister precisely because  he had lost the support of the Labour MP’s. Andy Burnham is Prime Minister because he has the overwhelming support of the Labour MP’s. His personal mandate is the same as every MP and every minister in government, it is from the parliamentary constituency which he represents. In his case, he was given a remarkable overall majority in a by-election turnout that was higher than in the last two general elections (2). Andy Burnham’s mandate is, indeed, stronger than many of his colleagues.  

    Democracy comes in many forms. It is unfortunate, that, for many people, the American form of presidential democracy is considered the norm. This has resulted in the steady transformation of UK governance from a collective, where the Prime Minister is merely the “first amongst equals”, to a presidency where the Prime Minister controls and dictates to the other members of the government. Charisma (or the lack of it) and power have come to replace collective wisdom. Winston Churchill’s 1947 quote above is a reminder that democracy is merely the best of a bad bunch and is subject to many weaknesses. The present American administration is the clearest example of one democratic system’s weaknesses.

    1. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/nov/11/parliament-bill PARLIAMENT BILL HC Deb 11 November 1947 vol 444 cc203-321 acc. 21.07.2026 13:00
    2. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/what-turnout-makerfield-election-34145624 acc. 21.07.2026 14:51

  • Where’s The Outrage?

    mayberetiredpastor

    Where’s The Outrage? – Reform’s Accidental Recruiter!

    To make an apt answer is a joy to anyone,
        and a word in season, how good it is!

    The Book of Proverbs 15:23, Old Testament, The Bible.

    The appalling performance of the Labour Party in the recent local elections in England  has resulted in a serious challenge to the Prime Minister’s leadership (1). The overwhelming message from voters during the local elections was that the Labour Party had been given a huge majority in the general election in order to bring about radical change. But, instead of radical change, what the country saw was just more of the same. And the blame was pinned clearly and solely on the Prime Minister. Consequently, there is now a leadership contest in progress (albeit with glacial slowness but soon to gather speed).

    Amidst all the commentary and analysis, one aspect of Keir Starmer’s (the Prime Minister) leadership since taking over the party leadership that has not received much comment is his clear bias (I believe unintentional) in favour of the Jewish community. His outrage and anger against any antisemitic activity is clear and public. But when it comes to other communities he is strangely subdued if not silent. Most conspicuously, of course, during the war against Gaza the very cautious criticism of Israel’s actions seemed ludicrously out-of-step with the enormity of the suffering being inflicted at will by Israel. One felt that, David Lammy, as the Foreign Secretary, was chafing at the bit in parliament, longing to go much further in his criticism yet constrained by his office and the Prime Minister.

    Because he is the Prime Minister, this bias has significant consequential  effects in the country. The running political story of this parliament has been the rise of Reform. Reform follows an ancient  path to achieving political success. By focussing on dissatisfaction and anxiety in the country and offering a simple scapegoat it draws large numbers of people. Fundamentally, Reform divides the country into “them” and “us”. Inevitably, this provides a forum for racist tinged thinking, and, sometimes, explicit racist comment.  What one looks for from the government of the day, is a counter-narrative that unites rather than divides. Unfortunately, Keir Starmer’s bias serves only to divide the nation further, not only through his personal comments but through the policy actions taken by his government.

    Strong condemnation of antisemitism is right and appropriate, but so is condemnation of Islamophobia. Keir Starmer’s consistent failure to condemn rising Islamophobia with the same vigour and outrage as he does antisemitism divides the nation as corrosively as Reform’s “them” and “us” populism.  The proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation by the Home Secretary at the time when Israel was visibly intent on destroying all Gaza will only be read in one way by those who watch with horror the destruction of Muslim lives. One journalist (2) has written of Keir Starmer’s “tin ear”. The terrible irony is that his tin ear can lead only to more acts of antisemitism and greater division within society. He is Reform’s great, accidental recruiter!

    1. English Local Council elections are similar to US mid-terms in so far as they provide an opportunity for the electorate to express their evaluation of the current government’s performance.

    2. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/13/keir-starmer-uk-china-menu-prime-minister-beijing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

  • The Strongest Democracy?

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Strongest Democracy?

    First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.

    1 Timothy 2:1-2 New Testament, The Bible

    We have been in the US since the beginning of the January on grandparent duties. Consequently, we have had a ringside seat as President Trump began his second term as president. It has been like watching a horror show – deeply disturbing yet fascinating at the same time! He has already done many things that have left us open-mouthed,  but the  most disturbing was the very first thing he did on taking office: the pardoning of those who had been convicted and sentenced for their actions in the January 6th attack on the Capitol building at the beginning of Biden’s presidency.

    I was astonished to realise that an American President apparently has untrammelled powers of pardon. Previously, I had assumed there were strict conditions on who could be pardoned and that this only happened rarely. But President Trump in an unceremonious flaunting of untrammelled power set aside mass convictions and sentences that had been imposed after due process of law. What we see here is the unravelling of the rule of law. The law is not perfect but it ensures that everyone is held equally accountable (in principle) before it. This was severely undermined by the Supreme Court ruling that a president cannot be held legally accountable for actions taken in the capacity of president and now, Trump, by overturning convictions he doesn’t like, has made the law subject to the personal whims of the president and there is nothing that can be done about it.

    This seems to me to be a major turning point in American democracy. Americans have delighted in boasting about the strength of their model of democracy. But now we see that, at its core, it is weak and, perhaps, now is crippled. Unspoken convention has been the thing that has held American democracy together, but now there is a president who pays no heed to unspoken convention and who is supported by a Congress that likewise has abandoned convention. The consequence is the crumbling of democratic rule. In it’s place we have the rule of a dictator – although I suspect Trump would prefer the title “King”. Which is ironic given the history of the US.

    Christians are commanded to pray for kings, governors and governments. This is sometimes read as simply praying for the well-being of the ruler(s). It is, in fact, a holding to account of all human rule. We ask that they be held to account and conformed to the standard of the heavenly court. Certainly, this is a time for prayer for Americans.

  • Migrants – Who Are the Real Criminals?

    mayberetiredpastor

    Migrants – Who Are the Real Criminals?

    28 Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; 29 the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.

    Deuteronomy 14:28-29

    Last week, the BBC featured an article in which they tracked down the person who provided the boat in which a young girl was suffocated as her family tried (with scores of others) to reach the UK from Calais. This was but one tragic story amongst the many as desperate people risk all to reach the UK. This particular story stood out because video footage was captured of the little girl with her father  getting into the boat. They had been living in Sweden and the children had been happily settled there for years but then they were deported (1). The moving interviews of the distraught father were a illustration of just how badly wrong our immigration system (or lack of it!) is.

    The identification and running down of the smuggler (2) was an impressive piece of investigative journalism but one was left wondering what was the point?  It would not solve the family’s problems or the sadness of the siblings. It would not alter the fact that people will continue to attempt the hazardous journey across the Channel. Unquestionably, the smuggler and others like him are exploiting a situation where they offer hope to desperate people, but the smugglers have not created the situation – they merely exploit it.

    The language which is used of irregular migrants frames the issue as a legal matter. So, people providing the means of transport across the Channel are smugglers, migrants adopting irregular means of entry are illegal, and – under legislation proposed and carried out under the now last UK government – such migrants run the risk of immediate deportation to a third country (the Rwanda plan) and are treated effectively as criminals such that they are detained, denied work, and potentially, permanently denied the right to apply for entry to the UK. Making this a matter of criminal law conveniently provides a framework for justifying the exclusion of migrants regardless of circumstances and avoiding our moral responsibility to another human being. They are criminals and so they are at fault. We, on the other hand, have no fault and so are free of moral obligation.

    The UK, of course, is not alone in this approach. Europe and the US, bastions of the liberal, democratic order, take the same approach. It is a convenient washing of the hands, an excuse for refusing to develop decent, humane, well thought-out immigration policies that address the desperate circumstances of migrants and fairness to the resident population. It enables us to turn a blind eye to the underlying causes of international poverty, inequality and the impact of power politics by the self-same nations and their rivals.

    Returning to the specific issue of the Calais migrants, it baffles me that we (the UK) do not simply set-up a visa processing unit close to the migrant camps. Surely that would be cheaper than deploying boats to police the Channel, paying the French police to monitor (not very effectively) the beaches, and building a big fence! This would remove the need for migrants to make the hazardous crossing and eliminate the opportunity for the smugglers and, perhaps, no more little girls will need to suffocate at the bottom of an overcrowded small boat.

    1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68930088 acc. 6 Jul 24 13:26
    2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx77l5ej2yyo acc. 6 Jul 24 13:28

  • Interesting Times

    mayberetiredpastor

    Interesting Times

    20 “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

    Mark 13:20-22, The New Testament

    We, unfortunately, live in interesting times as the apocryphal Chinese curse goes (1). For all their appeal to a mythical  “Great Britain” that used to be, the far right of contemporary politics is steadily eroding the ethical and moral underpinnings of the post-World War II  consensus that never again should the horrors of Belsen and Auschwitz, and the ideologies and policies leading to them, be seen. Out of that conviction the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, closely followed by the European Declaration of Human Rights, was born. Giving effect to these declarations the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were established. But we see senior Conservative politicians openly campaigning to repudiate the ECHR so that we can treat desperate migrants in any way we wish, unconstrained by the very laws that Britain itself helped to establish after the war. The cry is that we as a nation should be able to determine what is right and what is wrong without interference by an outside body (the irony is completely lost on the Far Right!). Two generations on from those who marched in horror into Belsen this generation of politicians has forgotten that countries can go badly wrong and bodies such as the ECHR were established to prevent that from happening.

    This drifting away from the ethical and moral anchors of the post-War years is no more clearly illustrated than by the decision of the Prime Minister to absent himself from the main D-Day Landings event for world leaders.  I feel sure it wasn’t deliberately intended as a signal that Britain was now distancing itself from those anchors, but it demonstrates the relative importance in his mind, and of the advisors around him, of that post-War consensus.

    Why does this matter? If one of the major architects of the post-War consensus is seen to be now walking away from that consensus and detaching itself from the moral and ethical anchors of that consensus then others will feel able to do the same. The result is that Putin felt able to invade Ukraine and once again wage war on European soil after decades of peace. It means that Israel has been able to inflict huge suffering on civilians in Gaza with impunity in its pursuit of the destruction of Hamas. It means that the moral force of the EHCR and the ICC is necessarily weakened. Nations and their governments feel free to behave as they please without accountability of any kind.

    It is the greatest irony that the nation that had a central role in overturning the worldwide norm that slavery was simply a regrettable fact of life, and which was a major architect of the system that holds governments and nations to account for their actions  should be turning its back on the latter. These two are the diamonds in the history of Britain that could justify the epithet “Great” as the politicians of the right like to use it, and yet they are seeking to consign at least one of them to the rubbish heap of history!

    Britain has not yet broken entirely with the consensus it helped to establish after the Second World War, but one wonders if, after this General Election, the new government will seek to repair Britain’s commitment to that consensus or whether the rot which has set-in under the outgoing Conservative government will be allowed to continue. Will we hold to the ethical and moral anchors of the post-War years or will we yield to the Siren calls of those who would unleash our baser instincts?

    1. The supposed Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times” appears to have no basis in fact, or, at least, there is no record of such a curse that has been found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times acc. 27 Jun 2024 16:04

  • Reform the House of Commons

    mayberetiredpastor

    Reform the House of Commons

    At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.

    Daniel 6:4

    So, the manifestos of the major parties have been published and some of you may be wondering if I secretly authored the Green Party manifesto. The answer is no – but maybe they’ve been reading my blogs! I have voted Labour consistently all of my adult life (with one or two exceptions) but you might have noticed that I’m unimpressed with the present offering of Labour. Therein lies a problem with our democracy.

    At school, I was taught that government proposes and parliament (i.e the House of Commons) disposes – that is, the government proposes the laws it wants to enact and the House of Commons decides whether or not to allow the government to enact those laws. But in our modern parliament that is a myth. In reality, the government both proposes and disposes, that is, whatever the government decides it wants to do it can if it has a parliamentary majority, and because of our first-past-the-post system of election governments almost always have a majority.

    Government gets its way because MPs are completely beholden to their political parties. Individual MPs rarely actually read or examine the proposed legislation (that only happens in the Lords!). The parties instruct their MPs how to vote and MPs are punished if they step out of line. The only path to progression as an MP is through the patronage of your party. If you constantly go against the party line you do not progress as an MP and may even be refused permission to stand as a candidate at the next election (witness the Labour Party debacle over Diane Abbott). The patronage of the political parties is wielded over the whole career of the individual MP from consideration as a candidate right through to whether you can hold position in government or one of the powerful committees in Parliament.

    Before 1832 there was a system of “rotten boroughs” in the UK. The MPs for those boroughs were nominated by powerful people who owned the boroughs and consequently the MPs were beholden to those powerful people. This particular system no longer exists but has been effectively replaced by the patronage of our two party system. The MPs we elect are not answerable to us but to their party. This is every bit as corrupt as the old system of rotten boroughs.

    Constitutional reform is not on the agenda of any party (Why would it be? It’s not in their interests!) but that we need it to properly reflect our views and achieve better governance and management of the country is, in my view, unanswerable. But what sort of reform do we need?

    Parties as prospective governments need to be separated from MPs as representatives. Much as in the US, we should vote directly for whichever party we believe should be entrusted with government, but MPs need to be elected separately to parliament. Candidates for MPs should be funded and overseen by the state and not by the parties and their election should be by a form of proportional voting. Political parties offer themselves for election as the government by first-past-the-post voting. Once in government they can propose their legislative programme to MPs who are no longer beholden to their parties (if they are members of a party) and neither parties nor government can require MPs to vote in any particular way.

     This is just the barest sketch of a reform. For very many people, including myself, our present system does not work very well. No party programme entirely satisfies all our aspirations for ourselves or our communities, and we have no genuine representation by our MPs who, as individuals, might give the nuances  to legislative discussion that we desire. We need constitutional reform, but what needs to be reformed is not the House of Lords but the House of Commons.

  • Abolish the House of Commons and not the House of Lords!

    mayberetiredpastor

    Abolish the House of Commons and not the House of Lords!

    So, surprise, surprise, the Rwanda Bill has become law with none of the amendments proposed by the House of Lords having been incorporated. The amendments inserted by the Lords sought to ensure that our country respects international law and protect fundamental matters of individual justice. The Lords pushed the process to the limit of their powers. They were clearly unhappy with the shape of the bill as presented by the government. But the Rwanda Bill has become so much the lynch pin of the government’s immigration policy that no amendments by the House of the Lords which, in their view, will “weaken” (i.e make less unjust!) it could be accepted, and, inevitably, the government has forced it through the House of Commons and it is now law.

    Some people will think “what’s the point of the House of Lords then?” and then think that the Lords needs radical reform even abolition. Certainly, many think that the unelected Lords does not sit well within a democratic society. Such views are mistaken. Of all the institutions  of our democracy the House of the Lords is the one that actually works! In its present form, it is intended to review and revise proposed legislation by the House of Commons. It is appointed and not elected so that it can draw together individuals who have deep experience of the many areas of civic life and expertise in the many areas of our society. It runs an “expert” and “well-informed” eye over proposed legislation and proposes amendments to improve or safeguard important principles. This is exactly what the Lords did with the Rwanda Bill. Just because the Commons decided to reject the amendments by the Lords does not mean that it has failed of its purpose. And, precisely because the Lords is unelected, the Commons always has the last word.

    Contrary to what most people think, the least democratic and least effective institution in our democracy is the House of Commons. We think we are electing MP’s to represent our views. This is false. We are not electing representatives, we are electing voting fodder for the political parties. MPs do not vote on legislation because they think it is good or right, they vote because they are told to vote by their parties. Hence, we have seen that no amendments seriously reducing the arbitrary powers of the Rwanda Bill have passed in the Commons because the Tory MPs were told to vote for it by the government. The House of Commons is not a democratic institution. It is a machine designed to provide a democratic gloss for government legislation.

  • Paula Vennells

    mayberetiredpastor

    Paula Vennells

    God has made me a byword to everyone, a man in whose face people spit.

    Job 17:6

    Paula Vennells is a Christian minister who was the chief executive of the Post Office during the period when it was most vigorously denying any wrong doing regarding the prosecutions of hundreds of its own sub-post masters (the ordinary people who run the local post offices). In the face of public outcry against the injustice perpetrated by the Post Office – it has been described as the “most widespread miscarriage of justice … in British legal history”1 – she has expressed her sorrow2 for the suffering of those wrongfully treated by the Post Office and has returned the CBE she was awarded when she left the Post Office in 2019. This surely falls far short of what is required.

    The chief executive of an organisation is responsible for the actions of the organisation. This is part of the raison d’etre of the office and a major reason why they are substantially rewarded. The chief executive shares in the glory of the organisation but also its shame. Paula Vennells was rewarded and honoured for turning the Post Office from loss to profit. She shared in its glory. But this was before the true extent of the injustices perpetrated by the Post Office were known. With the exposure of those gross injustices the Post Office is rightly shamed. Paula Vennells shares in that shame. But so far she has not owned that shame nor owned the fault.  It maybe that, privately, she feels it, but that is not enough. She has to publicly own and confess it.

    But, she is also a Christian minister who, it is said, was at one time even considered for the Bishopric of London.  As a minister of God she is held to a higher standard than others (see e.g. the letter of James 3:1  in the Bible). It maybe that part of her silence is due to legal advice not to say anything in case she incriminate herself. The Court of Appeal described the actions of the Post Office as “so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the “Horizon cases” an affront to the conscience of the court”3 . But she is accountable to a higher court than any mere human judge and she must do what is right before Him. Publicly confessing that she failed, as the CEO, to ensure that the Post Office acted in a just manner and apologising to those who have suffered as a consequence is the first step of repentance and of putting herself right with God and with all those who have suffered through her failure. This is regardless of the details of how well she understood what was going on, whether her subordinates deceived or misled her, or any other internal matter. It is as the CEO of the organisation that she has to respond.

    To be a byword is not a good thing in the biblical Old Testament.  It is the sign of God’s judgement on a wayward and unrepentant Israel and Job applies it personally to himself as he mourns the condition he finds himself in. Paula Vennels has, sadly, become a byword for corporate injustice on an enormous scale. She will be referred to and studied in business management courses, in theological courses, in Christian leadership courses, as an example of what not to do as a leader.  She can, however, still affect the final chapter of this tale by what she does before she testifies to the public inquiry.

    1The CCRC and Post Office/ Horizon cases https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/the-ccrc-and-post-office-horizon-cases/  acc. 13/02/2024

    2 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/post-office-scandal-paula-vennells-bates-b2475635.html acc. 14/2/2024

    3IN THE MATTER OF A REFERENCE BY THE CRIMINAL CASES REVIEW COMMISSION Between: JOSEPHINE HAMILTON & OTHERS Appellants – and – POST OFFICE LIMITED Respondent https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Hamilton-Others-v-Post-Office-judgment-230421.pdf acc. 13/02/24