‘Scientific bigots’ oppose the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

Cranmer does not read The Tablet for all manner of obvious reasons, but a communicant has drawn his attention to an article which warns of the unreliability of the of claims made for the research benefits of human-animal hybrid embryos, which is undoubtedly one of the most repugnant elements in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

This Bill is presently making its inexorable way onto the statute books, with the support of many of those Roman Catholics who had featured in the media for their strident opposition, except for Ruth Kelly, who absented herself from the Chamber when the vote was taken. Courage of conviction was never one of her fortes. It is a good job she is not contending against Robert Mugabe, in whose regime people of real conviction are suffering appalling persecution.

The article, ‘Beware false promises’, explains how the public have been duped by both government and scientists over the supposed benefits of embryonic stem cell research and specifically the creation of human/animal hybrids. We are told by scientists and politicians that research using human-animal hybrids ‘is vital to produce cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases’. The Bill ‘has the potential to either help the development of new treatments, or (if blocked) set us back decades’ with ‘a real risk that life-saving treatments could be lost’.

And Prime Minister Brown himself has caught something of this miracle cure as he assures us that this Bill will lead to treatments which ‘can save and improve the lives of thousands and over time millions of people’.

The Tablet continues:

Dazzled by the promises, the public stands by in awe of the science. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority allows everything: it has thus far not ultimately rejected a single embryo-research-related application. Pro-embryo-research scientists have a ready mouthpiece in politicians and journalists beguiled by the claims. How could anyone oppose these miraculous cures? What we have seen in the determined efforts of some of the bill's more politically motivated protagonists is a confusion of the issues and a classic sleight of hand - in two separate ways. Both need exposing if people of conscience are to form honestly informed views.

The first is tacitly to allow the exciting advances in adult stem-cell treatments to illustrate the far more speculative therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells; to use the former to justify the latter. Thus Gordon Brown: "With adult stem cells already being used as treatments for conditions including leukaemia, severe combined immunodeficiency, and heart disease, scientists are already close to the breakthroughs that will allow embryonic stem cells to be used to treat a much wider range of conditions. Medical researchers now believe that stem-cell therapy has the potential to change dramatically the treatment of many other human afflictions: including not only Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's but perhaps also cancer, spinal-cord injuries and muscle damage."

Another example was in last Saturday's edition of The Times, a 12-page supplement (sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and - hardly by coincidence - appearing 48 hours before the debate in Parliament), relentlessly trumpeting stem-cell therapies and research with heart-warming stories of stem-cell cures and exciting reports of scientific progress.

Yet quietly submerged was the fact that every one of the stories concerning patients was about adult stem cells; and every report concerning embryonic stem cells was an experimental or animal study, or one speculating on their possible future potential. Not a single patient has been treated, even in trials, with embryonic stem cells: it would be too dangerous.

Medically, these heavily camouflaged truths are hardly surprising. The facts speak for themselves. Embryonic stem cells have an innate and invariable propensity to form tumours. They have genetic and chromosomal instabilities and abnormalities. Donor-derived cells carry the serious double hazards of cross-infection (prion diseases, for example) and tissue incompatibility (rejection). It is impossible to envisage their use in patients in the foreseeable future. Three months ago the highly reputable New England Journal of Medicine - previously a stout defender of cloning and embryonic stem-cell research - lamented: "Perhaps, not surprisingly, the technical difficulties and ethical complexities of this approach [cloned human embryonic stem cells] were always likely to render it impractical."

Conversely, this week has seen yet another positive clinical trial of adult stem cells (controlling damaging immune reactions after tissue transplants). The relative accessibility of adult (say, bone marrow) cells, their known safety, and the ability to use patients' own cells (avoiding rejection and cross-infection) all help explain why successful clinical trials in diseases as diverse as myocardial infarction, diabetes, limb ischaemia, stress incontinence and blindness from corneal disease have already been completed.

But there is a deeper biological aspect to adult stem cells' advantage as therapies. Our scientific approach to regenerative medicine has changed markedly in the last few years. The basic properties of embryonic stem cells - to generate limitless numbers of cells, and to turn into any kind of specialised cell - were considered clearly advantageous only when we thought of cell therapy as simply the replacement of lost cells. In fact, this simplistic notion applies in very few clinical circumstances. Tissue repair is infinitely more complex than this. Expecting implanted stem-cell-derived neurons, for example, to cure Alzheimer's disease would be a little like packing a few cogs and wheels and springs into the back of a broken clock and waiting for it to start working again.

Adult stem cells, present in most if not all specialised organs, have evolved as cells for repair: that is their purpose, and they successfully achieve this in many ways. But all this is barely relevant to the new bill. For here lies the second sleight of hand. The debate has, falsely, been turned into a referendum on all embryonic stem-cell research. What is proposed is actually "only" the licensing of various forms of mixed animal-human embryos as possible new sources of stem cells. But all the justifications for experiments using cybrids (embryos that are largely human but contain a minute quantity of animal material) are based on the falsehood that they are vital for developing embryonic stem-cell-based cures for dreadful diseases as argued by Lord Patel and Gordon Brown.

A broader perspective quickly reveals this as pure spin. The Daily Telegraph's Roger Highfield (generally supportive of embryo research) has forcefully pointed out that cell biologists who understand the complexity of proposed cybrid embryos are profoundly sceptical that they could ever prove remotely informative about human disease.

As James Sherley, from the Program in Regenerative Biology and Cancer, Boston, has said: "Huge volumes of ... basic cellular and molecular biology must be ignored to justify [cybrid] research. Not a single new experiment is necessary to know with certainty that human-animal cloning will not provide faithful models for human-human cloning."

I strongly suspect that it is this false equation - defeat of the bill represents a defeat for all embryo research - that has dog-whistled the British scientific establishment in support of the bill. In truth, few serious embryonic stem-cell scientists will speak in support of cybrid embryos specifically on the basis of their intrinsic potential for therapeutic research; most (obviously) will speak in favour of embryo research in general. (Although even among these, a proportion defends the bill more on the principle that scientists should not have limits set on their work than on the specifics of embryonic stem-cell science.)

And the suggestion that there is "no alternative" to cybrids is not even close to the truth. Rather, clinical scientists around the world have been extraordinarily excited by the emergence in the last year of a new technique for producing so-called "inducible pluripotent stem cells" (IPSCs). Certain genes are artificially activated to make adult cells "de-differentiate", or turn their clock back. IPSCs are virtually identical to embryonic stem cells; and this is a far, far easier technique than human cloning (let alone cybrid cloning). And involves no embryos. IPSCs have already successfully treated mouse disease models, and there are reports that IPSCs have been made from patients with various diseases.

In other words, this approach has quickly and clearly overtaken the cybrid idea. And IPSCs are 100 per cent human. Scientists all over the world are turning to this approach; even British stem-cell scientists say it spells the end of human-embryo research. Nowhere else is the rather bizarre alternative of making cybrids - let alone hybrids - generating any serious interest.
Yet, when three Catholic Cabinet members stood up for their right to vote according to their conscience, there was a near-stampede of panicking scientists, journalists and politicians, railing against the Church. Why the flap? Surely there is little chance of the bill being defeated. Or is there?

The HFE bill is not a referendum on embryonic stem-cell research. Cybrid embryos are a small part of the bill - but a minuscule branch of stem-cell research; most likely a cul-de-sac of slight interest to the scientifically curious, but clinically irrelevant. The alternatives are considered by the overwhelming consensus to be superior. Defeating this part of the bill will have zero impact on the development of stem-cell therapies - and represent a triumph for common sense and for moral responsibility.

And Cranmer’s communicant asks: ‘Why don’t we find articles such as these in the mainstream press (and in other media)?’

Ah, but we do: here in The Times, and here in The Daily Telegraph. These are eloquent letters to which no fewer than 75 eminent scientists and professors are signatories. And these are not learned in random areas of expertise, but are all ‘actively involved in stem-cell research and regenerative medicine’. His Grace has not heard from 75 scientists in support of this Bill; simply from the media-savvy Professor Lord Winston who is routinely wheeled out by Labour whenever their plans are in need of a veneer of scientific credibility.

These eminent scientists insist that there are no miracle cures in the HFE Bill, and they talk of ‘false optimism’ and ‘unrealistic claims’ for unproven avenues of research. They state unequivocally that ‘there is no demonstrable scientific or medical case for insisting on creating, without any clear scientific precedent, a wide spectrum of human-non-human hybrid entities or “human admixed embryos”’. And so they question the ‘scientific validity of proposals to create such embryonic combinations currently before the UK Parliament’.

Referring to a committee of experts which considered the issue of chimeras, Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has stated that: ‘on the question of full-blown hybrids being created between animal gametes and human gametes, there was a degree of repugnance, even among scientists on the committee… and it was felt - and I think is still felt - that this would be something where there was no clear scientific benefit’.

And the scientists and professors concluded that ‘these proposals have no justification and threaten seriously to undermine public confidence in legitimate forms of research’.

When people of faith speak out against this Bill, they are termed ‘religious bigots’. Cranmer has never heard the term ‘scientific bigot’, but these bold 75 must so be.

Cranmer shall be deep in prayer this week, for this evil Bill needs to be defeated, and the battle must first be won in the heavenlies.

Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwe's incarnation of evil

WARNING: DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU MAY BE OFFENDED BY OR ARE SENSITIVE TO PICTURES OF EXTREME HUMAN SUFFERING

Cranmer is quite serious about this, for the pictures reproduced at the bottom of this article moved him to tears of rage and helpless frustration, and yet they speak far more eloquently and voluminously than any newspaper article or any superficial condemnation by the Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

The situation in Zimbabwe is indeed appalling, and the media has told us so on innumerable occasions. But self-censorship means that rarely does it show us so. That is now the role of the unshackled and unencumbered blogs.

This story of torture and suffering is recounted by Peter Oborne in The Daily Mail, and Cranmer reproduces his article below. It is one of depravity, and yet one of hope, for the victim’s spirit is not extinguished by her appalling experience, and out of her suffering comes a message of hope.

For those who insist that the Iraq invasion was a Just War because it resulted in the removal of a tyrant, then Robart Mugabe must be long past any rational threshold of even Christian forebearance. Of course it should be for other African nations to take a moral lead, in particular South Africa, for there is a legal basis for members of the African Union to intervene. But most of the African churches are too be obsessing with peripheral matters, and their governments simply turn a blind eye. What is the UK doing about it? Where is its ‘ethical foreign policy’? What is the EU doing about it? What is the UN doing about it?

God must weep.

Readers and communicants ARE STRONGLY WARNED that the pictures at the bottom of this article are shocking. They are reproduced from ConservativeHome after The Daily Mail, quite understandably, felt unable to publish them.

How one woman's extraordinary bravery is a haunting rebuke to a world that is ignoring Mugabe's genocide

Robert Mugabe's paid assassins came hunting for 22-year-old Memory, a married mother-of-two.

They burst into her home, seized her and her children, and took them to their temporary headquarters in the local village school.

Four men held down her arms and legs, while a fifth gripped her head, placing his hands over her mouth to prevent her screams being heard.

Two others, wielding heavy wooden poles, then took turns to thrash her on the buttocks in a beating that lasted half an hour.

I saw Memory in her hospital bed after she had been brought in from the bush more dead than alive a week ago last Monday, several days after her beating. She was lying on her front: it was obvious why.

Where her buttocks should have been was just a mess of raw flesh.

I watched as a blue-suited nurse removed one of the bandages.

Memory whimpered and moaned with pain. With me was a hardened welfare worker who had witnessed many terrible things.

She broke down in sobs. I must tell you that tears poured down my cheeks, too.
Memory was in far too much pain and shock to answer any questions.

I pressed her hand gently and left her.

The following day, I returned to the hospital and saw Memory's beautiful face and, since her pain was beginning to subside, heard her sweet, low voice for the first time.

She told me how on arrival at the school (which she had attended as a child), she had been ordered to sit in the playground with a group of supporters of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - the opposition party led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

On the dot of 8am, the beatings started. Groups of eight people at a time were ordered out for treatment at the hands of a band of around 200 members of Robert Mugabe's militia, each wearing Zanu-PF T-shirts and green, red and yellow bandanas signifying the national flag.
Many of them were high on drink or drugs.

She watched as four of her close friends were beaten and kicked to death. A fifth friend later died, and others remain unaccounted for.

The militiamen chanted songs and spat insults at Morgan Tsvangirai as they did their work.
They told Memory, whose farmer husband was away: "You and your husband are MDC members so we must beat you.' They said that she belonged 'to a party of animals".

Memory told me how she could hear her children screaming "Mamma, Mamma, Mamma!" during her beating. They were held back by female members of Zanu-PF.

Later, Memory was ordered to sit for two hours on her wounds. Mugabe's thugs told her she would be thrashed again if she moved a muscle.

"We spent the day without eating or water in the hot sun," she told me. "If we asked for water, they said: 'Get your water from Tsvangirai'."

Believe it or not, just by being alive, Memory is one of the lucky ones.

She is just one of tens of thousands of victims of the campaign of violence launched by Robert Mugabe after he comprehensively lost the presidential elections on March 29.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed to contest a new runoff against Mugabe, even though he knows he won outright in the first round and accuses Zanu-PF of blatant vote-rigging.

A stand-off over the MDC's demand for international observers and media to be given full access to ensure the vote is free and fair has brought matters to a standstill.

The decision last night to delay the poll until the end of July raised the terrifying spec-tre of Mugabe's Green Bomber youth militia carrying on their reign of terror for ten more weeks.
An MDC spokesman said last night the law change was "illegal and unfair".

Shamefully, as a result of the standoff, the world's attention has shifted away.

Now, with the focus no longer on him, Mugabe is free to continue this unprecedented campaign of electoral cleansing.

For the past week, having slipped into Zimbabwe as a businessman, I have seen the relentless increase in intimidation from government forces.

I can report that every day it is reaching a new level of intensity, sweeping like a killer virus through the country.

Even by Mugabe's standards, the scale and brutality is horrifying.

It's the worst seen since he ordered genocide in the west of Zimbabwe 25 years ago, when some 20,000 people were killed in an attempt to eradicate all political opposition.

The world turned a blind eye then. Tragically, it is doing so again now.

And make no mistake: there is nothing spontaneous about these attacks.

They have all been carefully and deliberately planned by Mugabe, his loathsome deputy Emerson Mnangagwa and the 15 or so senior military police and intelligence officers in the Joint Operation Command (JOC) which now runs Zimbabwe.

Their intention is to intimidate the supporters of the opposition so that they either cannot, or are too afraid, to vote in the run-off elections.

Mugabe has made it plain that he will never hand over power after 30 years as ruler - even if he loses the vote again.

According to senior security sources, government officials have been told that he intends to win the election by use of intimidation, backed up by ballot-rigging on a massive scale.
And if that does not work, the result will simply not be published.

Shockingly, the strategy of murder and retribution has the support of Mugabe's close friend, the despicable President Thabo Mbeki in neighbouring South Africa.

Through illegal methods, including the torture and blackmail of abducted opposition activists, Zanu-PF has obtained a list of all the polling agents and leading activists who work on behalf of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC.

Now, village by village, town by town, it is embarking on a savage campaign to eradicate them all.

The attacks happen at night or in the early morning. Typically, MDC supporters such as Memory are seized and subjected to terrible tortures. For example, boiling plastic is poured on their backs, their extremities are burnt, or they are nearly drowned in water tubs.

The aim is to force victims to betray the identities of those on their own side - thus providing human fodder for more attacks.

"We can trust nobody now, not even our friends," an MDC activist called John told me.
"You do not know if they have been turned."

Today, everyone in this tragic country lives in a state of permanent fear and suspicion. They believe that their phone lines are tapped, and that they are being watched by police informers and betrayed by their own friends.

Above all, they live in terror of the early morning knock on the door.

Mugabe's thugs are nothing if not imaginative in their methods.

One MDC organiser, Moses Bashitiyawo, was beaten by Zanu-PF activists and then forced to climb a tree with a rope round his neck before being told to jump to the ground, hanging himself.

Others are driven down mineshafts - as happened in the genocide of the 1980s.

I experienced a small element in this campaign of terror in the rural areas when, shortly after my arrival in Zimbabwe, I hired a guide to take me to his home village some 50 miles from Victoria Falls.

The village head man told me there had been two Zanu-PF meetings there during the past 24 hours in which suspected MDC supporters had been driven away.

He also revealed that those who survive Mugabe's murderous purges are then subjected to food deprivation.

The village elder produced a ration card entitling each Zimbabwe family to 10kg of Mealie Meal (a kind of maize that is the national staple diet in a country plagued by food shortages) from a local relief organisation every month.

The months of February and March had been ticked off, showing that the food had been handed over.

But there were no ticks for April and May, revealing how hand-outs were stopped as a way of punishing Mugabe's political opponents.

The elder told me his children were away in the forest looking for wild fruits. "We are so hungry," he said.

"People are dying."

My guide took me to see his mother - a frightened woman who told me: "We don't sleep any more at night for fear of being caught in our beds."

The worst atrocities are concentrated in Mugabe's Mashona heartlands in the east of the country, where he is wreaking horrific revenge on the voters who opposed him during the March presidential election.

Here, the stories of burnt villages, casual massacres and roving statesponsored militia bands are all too reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Western Sudan.

Indeed, Mugabe's government is even using the language of ethnic cleansing. Augustine Chihuri, the country's hated police chief, says: "We must clean the country of the crawling maggots bent on destroying the economy."

Grotesque language such as this is widespread.

The violence, originally confined to rural areas, has been spreading into towns. Details are beginning to emerge of a police operation to close down Anglican churches in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

On Sunday, churchgoers were met by riot police barring the doors.

At Christchurch, in Harare's northern suburb of Borrowdale, parishioners found the church doors locked and groups of police waiting outside. Laymen who attempted to protest were beaten up, while the brave churchwarden was arrested.

Riot police also arrived at St Francis Church in the Waterfalls district, where Communion had already started.

Police charged to the altar and seized women worshippers, pulling them from the Communion rail and beating them senseless.

The reason? Mugabe's henchmen accuse the Anglican church of being in league with the MDC opposition.

It is all part of a cynical attempt to break the spirit of the Zimbabwean people.

In some cases, inevitably, the campaign of terror is working.

And I am ashamed to say the world's seeming indifference since its attention turned away from Zimbabwe is leaving Mugabe emboldened.

In one hospital, I spoke at length to a 35-year-old farmer called Felix.

He described how he and his wife had spent a week on the run from Zanu-PF thugs after they invaded his village. They managed to walk 70 kilometres to Harare, where they found refuge.
Friends have since told him that his home has been burnt down and his 15 cattle slaughtered. Worst of all, his mother and his children have disappeared. Despairingly, he says: "It would have been much better if they had killed me.

"My mother was always telling me to stop working for the MDC. She was always telling me I was putting our lives at risk. But I refused to comply with her."

Now, in a state of collapse, he is consumed with bitter regrets about joining the MDC.

A party activist, who was accompanying me, tried to comfort the farmer, telling him: "You did the right thing. There are a lot of brave people like you, and we're going to succeed.

"We are in a war where we are not allowed to fight and have guns. But we will win - because we have God on our side."

Again and again, during my visit to this country, I met ordinary Zimbabweans who shared this optimism, despite all the horror they are suffering.

As I stood up to leave the bedside of Memory, I asked if, despite all she had been through, she would still vote for Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential run-off.

Her face lit up with a wonderful, radiant, artless smile. "Oh, yes!" she said.

"I would. I will vote with confidence."

While this amazing spirit of courage and optimism remains, there is still hope this wonderful country could soon rid itself of its appalling despot Robert Mugabe - if only the world would stop averting its eyes and finally take the moral responsibility to help end this tragedy.

Ken Livingstone was ‘hit by Jewish rows’

Only a fool would insists that there is absolutely no correlation between religion and politics, and only a foolish politician in a democracy would purposely ignore or caricature a particular ethno-religious group to the extent that an entire constituency became alienated or offended by their words or actions.

But this is precisely what Ken Livingstone did to London’s Jews, and outgoing deputy mayor Nicky Gavron has acknowledged that ‘the Qaradawi and Finegold incidents had cost Ken Livingstone Jewish votes’. In Barnet and Camden — the constituency with the highest Jewish population — his vote dropped from 37.7 per cent in 2004 to 35.4 per cent.

Ms Gavron is herself Jewish – indeed, she was the only Jew on the London Assembly – and so one wonders why she did not urge Mr Livingstone to apologise a lot earlier than he did for comparing Jewish journalist Oliver Finegold to a concentration-camp guard. He would never have dared to compare a Muslim journalist to Chemical Ali or one of Saddam’s murderous republican guard, and so one can only conclude he was rather more concerned with courting the Muslim vote that the Jewish one.

Yet one also has to wonder where Ms Gavron was when in 2005 Mr Livingstone welcomed the radical Islamic cleric Sheikh Al Yusuf Qaradawi, who apparently advocates the murder of homosexuals and Israeli civilians and the beating-up of women. She was completely silent at the time, but now admits: ‘It was very damaging in relation to the Jewish vote… it did cause offence.’

It most certainly did, and not only to Jews, for the views of Sheikh Al Yusuf Qaradawi are offensive to reasonable people of all faiths. Indeed, there emerged a rainbow coalition of gays, lesbians, feminists, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, secularists and democrats, all ranged against Mayor Livingstone, but all he could do was apologise to the Sheikh for the ‘outbreak of xenophobia and hysteria’ and their ‘underlying ignorance of Islam’.

Ms Gavron’s numerous omissions in her duty to advise Mayor Livingstone lend credence to the assertion that London is best rid of them both, for had Mr Livingstone won a third term, she would undoubtedly have continued as his deputy. And she had been considering implementing ‘a green plan for London Jewry’. Neville Sassienie, chair of the Board of Deputies social-issues action group, said: ‘We were discussing co-operation over a scheme for greening London Jewry and beginning to work with the Greater London Authority’s environmental people. We very much hope it will continue under the new mayor.’

Cranmer rather hopes rather emphatically that it will not. He could not believe that Mayor Boris would wish to pander to any particular ethnic or faith group in such a fashion, but will instead treat all Londoners quite simply as Londoners.

What would the reaction be to ‘greening London’s Muslims’ or ‘greening London’s Sikhs’? Such a focus is not only offensive, patronising and alienating, but it suggests a degree of ethical deficiency on the part of the specified group.

Or how about the deliciously alliterative ‘greening London’s gays’?

But then perhaps green isn’t their colour.

‘Greening London’s Jewry’ is as divisive as anything in a Qaradawi rant, and London’s Jewry were evidently right to support Boris Johnson.

And so were London’s Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhist, Atheists and Jedi Knights, who can all rest asured that they shall be treated equally and respectfully under the new mayoralty.

MPs: Godlessness is ‘making us miserable’

Considering the view of Tony Blair that politicians who ‘do God’ are ‘nutters’, it is a brave group of MPs who dare to issue a report which concludes that Britons are unhappy not because they are materially poor but because they are in spiritual poverty. The Daily Telegraph continues:

A report by a cross-party group of Christian MPs says the country is wallowing in misery despite increasing wealth and emphasis on happiness in schools.

Their study states: "One impetus behind this project was our sense that there is a strong feeling of disaffection among the inhabitants of these islands. It seemed to us that our national sense of wellbeing is at a low ebb; people are wanting something more out of life.

"Given all the advances of recent years, we seek to understand why a sense of human wellbeing – happiness if you like – is not more widespread."

They claim society lacks a sense of well-being because of a loss of faith in God and religion.
They point to the large number of self-help books on happiness available in bookshops, and research which claims people are no happier than 50 years ago despite increased personal wealth.

The authors claim people are pursuing money at the expense of relationships, the environment and respect for each other.

The report continues: "Our solutions do not involve yet more law or increased taxes, but rather a call to re-examine the decisions taken in every sector of society in the light of crucial life-changing principles."

They say all companies and MPs should consider whether any proposed decision will improve relationships in people's families and communities, and whether it is socially and globally responsible.

The authors claim everyone's wellbeing would improve if Christian values were taken more seriously in society.

Gary Streeter, a Conservative MP and a member of the working party, said: "I think many policymakers sense these things, but don't know what to do about it.

"The faith communities have a great opportunity to lead here, but only if they stop carping and being against everything and start to be more positive. It is as much a message to the faith communities as other opinion formers."

But Cranmer is shamed by the ‘political correctness’ and multi-faith-pussy-footing-around that this report appears to promulgate. There is no ‘loss of faith in God and religion’ in the UK; indeed, according to the last census and the rising numbers of those attending mosques, gurdwaras and mandirs, religion is thriving. And these religions would deem that they all practice ‘Christian values’, as would many non-believers. And so the report calls for leadership from ‘the faith communities’ who must ‘stop carping and being against everything’.

Well, Mr Streeter, your view of faith communities is somewhat limited by your own experience of them, and that cannot be very great. If this ‘carping’ and ‘being against everything’ is supposed to refer to campaigns likes those of prominent Roman Catholic clerics against human/animal hybrids, or of Nadine Dorries against abortion, you might like to consider the scriptural injunctions to contend for the faith, and contention is what the faith demands, for we are not concerned with our popularity in the world, but with the approval of God.

And this God is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, with whom the Son is consubstantial, co-eternal and indivisible. And the report omitted to mention that the religion which is being lost is the Christian religion, and the God who is set aside is the Christian God, and the only holy book which is impugned is the Bible, and the only fellowship of believers who are treated with contempt is the Church.

And Cranmer thinks this to be worthy indeed of more than a little carping.

Turkey and Pork

As Her Majesty the Queen lays a wreath at at the tomb of Kemal Attaturk, the founder of modern ‘secular’ Turkey, she could be forgiven for failing to notice that there is something of a constitutional crisis going on.

The Turkish constitution separates religion from party politics in order to preserve democracy. But Prime Minister Erdoğan has abused this separation, evidenced primarily in the erosion of the distinction between religious and secular public education. He has also embarked on a programme of obligatory retirement of thousands of secular judges - which amounts to those who dared to question his interpretation of the constitution - and replaced them with AKP apparatchiks. He also has instituted an interview process - controlled by party loyalists - designed to evaluate government technocrats on the basis of religiosity rather than merit. Turkish Air employees, for example, have even been questioned on their belief in the Qur’an.

Prime Minister Erdoğan also displays unprecedented (in Turkey) hostility towards the press. He has sued dozens of journalists and editors, and has confiscated whole newspapers - such as Sabah, the national daily - which he deemed too critical or independent, and transferred their control to political allies. Journalists such as Vatan's Can Ataklı and Reha Muhtar, television commentator Nihat Genç, Sky Turk's Serdar Akinan, and Kanal Türk's Tuncay Özkan are now under fire either for their own criticism or, in the case of the television announcers, for their guests' criticism of the ruling party.

Prime Minister Erdoğan has treated courts, both international and domestic, with disdain. After the European Court of Human Rights decided against permitting headscarves in Turkish universities, he declared that ‘only ulama (Islamic religious scholars) could’ issue such a judgment. In several instances, Erdoğan has refused to uphold the Supreme Court's decisions when it ruled against the AKP's confiscation of political opponents' property. In a moment reminiscent of Henry II, a follower gunned down a justice after the prime minister launched a fusillade against the Court.

If all this were deemed insufficient evidence of a distinct agenda, it is reported that the nation’s pork farmers and butchers are being singled out for special treatment, all in the name of EU harmonisation.

Eating pork, which is of course forbidden in Islam, became very popular in secular high society. But ‘religious dictates have begun creeping into their lives since a government led by devout Muslims took power’. Turkey's pork industry is now ‘on the brink of extinction’ as Christians ‘have long since left or been forced out’.

Butchers are being prevented from slaughtering pigs by the Agriculture Ministry, which is simply refusing to renew abattoir licences because they ‘do not meet strict new regulations’. And curiously, it is only the slaughter houses that deal with pork which are failing: those that deal with beef, chicken or lamb are passing with flying colours.

And one butcher confides that ‘none of us dares speak out’ because ‘it's all about Islam’.

He says: ‘Most people are more religious these days. They don't want to eat pork, and they don't let others produce it either.’ And another reveals: ‘The government doesn't announce out loud that it has banned the pig farms, but at the end of the day, that's what's happened here. They're trying to send a message to their religious constituents.’

Ironically, this is all ‘to bring Turkey up to European standards’ of Enlightenment.

And the affirmation of Her Majesty is just the sort of high-level and prestigious support Prime Minister Erdoğan has sought for his quest to join the EU.

Cranmer hopes they enjoy their state banquet. Doubtless pork chops shall not be on the menu.

Abortion: the largest cause of death in Europe

“We condemn torture, rape - anything that uses another's body for our own purpose. Shouldn't we show embryos similar respect?”

So asks the Archbishop of Canterbury.

As the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is debated in detail in the House of Commons, they shall consider ‘saviour siblings’, and animal/human hybrid embryos. And some shall ask why ‘religious bigots’ should seek to impose their irrational views on the enlightened part of society, while those of a religious hue (joined undoubtedly by many concerned non-believers) shall ask why science presumes to instruct legislators and dispense with the conscience.

Dr Williams asserts: ‘Conscientious objections about the Bill are not a matter of blind superstition. They arise from serious concerns about where the direction of some sorts of research might lead society. "Slippery slope" arguments don't settle the question, but they can't be ignored. And I, for one, am grateful that both scientists and politicians are willing to recognise there is a serious debate to be had on these matters of conscience, and more is at stake than just a set of irrational prejudices.”

The Archbishop also notes ‘the pressure from some quarters to take this opportunity to reduce the time limits for abortion’.

And this is to be a very interesting battle, and one which is worthy of cross-party support. But in the blue corner is Nadine Dorries MP with her demand for a reduction to 20 weeks, and in the red corner is a Labour counter-amendment, demanding a reduction to 22 weeks. Never has a division on a point of morality assured such mutual destruction, and it is madness. One might think, if Labour members were really concerned with this, that they would have supported the Dorries amendment, but no. They have made the issue party political, seeking to bring in their own (much less effective) amendment, and a house divided against itself cannot stand.

And this comes amidst a report that establishes that there is a marital breakdown and an abortion in Europe almost every 30 seconds:

‘Marriage and birth rates are falling dramatically, pensioners now outnumber teenagers, and more and more people are living alone, says the Institute for family policy in a survey of life in the 27 EU countries.’

And perversely ‘one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion’, which amounts to 1.2 million a year - equivalent to the population of Slovenia. This makes abortion the largest single cause of death in Europe.

And so almost one million (920,089) fewer babies were born in the 27 EU countries last year than in 1980. There are six million more over-65s than under-14s in Europe, compared with 36 million more children than pensioners in 1980.

And this demographic time-bomb is suffixed with the observation that ‘the fact that the number of EU inhabitants has increased at all is largely due to immigration’. It transpires that ‘84 per cent of population growth in 2000-2007 is attributable to arrivals from beyond EU borders’.

And one wonders why there are concerns that the EU has passed a resolution announcing that children have a 'right' to abortion (or rather 'sexual and reproductive health and family planning education and services') and that this 'must' be an 'integral part of thje future EU strategy on the rights of the child'.

One wonders if there is any point expending energy in opposing the EU, for it is clearly intent on its own self-destruction.

The importance of teaching the ‘real history’ of Britain

The Daily Mail reports on the story of the headmaster of an independent school who has scrapped the ‘PC syllabus' in order ‘to teach pupils the REAL (sic) history of Britishness’. In particular, the school is addressing the deficiencies in the teaching of religious education, history and geography, because they ‘fail to give pupils a proper understanding of Britain's past’.

While Cranmer is wholly supportive of this headmaster, he is a little puzzled by the inference of a pedagogical revelation, and also by the suggestion that this constitutes a minor revolution in private education, for private schools have never been bound by the limitations of the National Curriculum, and have never therefore been obliged to conform to any ‘PC syllabus’.

Headmaster Richard Cairns said children ‘loved being told historical stories’ but the ‘official curriculum had reduced traditional subjects to a collection of “bite-sized” topics and skills’. Again, the ‘official curriculum’ is denigrated, while a very great deal would be down to individual teachers. ‘Bite-sized’ teachers tend to deliver ‘bite-sized’ lessons, and it is poor teaching, not the ‘official curriculum’, which is to blame for the fact that ‘around a quarter of children believed Winston Churchill was a fictional character and many more were unable to place countries such as Afghanistan on a map’.

And so Mr Cairns’ new curriculum is called ‘From Nero to Ground Zero’, and intends to cover ‘the broad sweep of history from zero AD to the 21st century over six lessons a week’. We are told: ‘Geography and RE would be introduced for example through studying volcanoes while covering Pompeii or Jewish immigration to Britain in the 19th century’.

How can teaching on volcanoes have ever been ‘PC’? Is the flow of lava subject to gender? Was Vesuvius portrayed as a judgement on the homosexual orgies of Pompeii? In geography, Cranmer is more concerned with the brainwashing of the nation’s children against capitalism, the reams of free ‘information’ being poured into the nation’s schools by the EU with an unquestioning adherence to the CAP, the warped perspectives of ‘child exploitation’ in the third world, and the exaltation of the green agenda with the ‘truth’ of global warming. Geography teachers tend to be pathological Europhiliac, U.N.-supporting Socialists, and any questioning of their learning is met with derision.

Cranmer agrees with Mr Cairns when he observes that too many children ‘have no sense of their history, no sense of their past and no sense of the historical landscape that surrounds them every day’. He observes: ‘We go to great lengths in England quite rightly to understand the culture of others who have come to England but don't provide as much time as we should for children to understand our own culture. We should stop being ashamed of being British. We very hesitant about talking about the past because obviously in the past in every society people did things we would not do today. Slavery existed - that was wrong. But Britain had an important role in the development of the world for good or ill.’

And is music to the ears that he has the support of the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Michael Gove MP, who suggests ‘trendy 1960s and 1970s teaching theories were still prevalent in schools and even gaining ground in subjects such as history and science’.

He observes that too much teaching was ‘child centred’ and failed to pass on to pupils core bodies of knowledge. Children are ‘instead being encouraged to master "skills" and empathise with historical characters’. He states: “Part of the problem with the way the history curriculum has developed is that it doesn't give people a proper understanding of how this country has developed. The history curriculum doesn't give people the opportunity to take pride in this country's story. I don't think there has been such an emphasis on narrative and causality because there has been too much emphasis on empathy and skills."

And all of this Mr Gove attributes to ‘progressive educational theories’ which have ‘damaged the prospects of generations’. And yet these are ‘still in favour across much of the so-called "educational establishment".’

And his remedy is that ‘children needed to be taught knowledge as well as skills so they could "truly become masters of the best that's been thought, spoken and written".’

And it is this ‘knowledge’ which will present problems, for there are so few teachers familiar with the notion of epistemological tensions that they genuinely believe that their opinion is fact, and they are blindly content to dispense the perspectives of one textbook (or the degree they earned 20 years ago) as if it were revealed scripture. And when one reads accounts of the conferences of the National Union of Teachers, it is certain that something needs to be done, for it is indeed the ‘educational establishment’ that will hold back much-needed reform in education.

Is there just a hint in Mr Gove’s analysis that he is considering abolishing the National Curriculum, and that he intends to take on the National Union of Teachers in the same fashion as Margaret Thatcher took on the National Union of Mineworkers?

One lives in hope, and that hope certainly keeps one joyful (Rom 12:12).

And Cranmer wishes all his readers and communicants richest blessings on this glorious Whitsun (the significance of which is also no longer taught in the nation's schools, though all children will doubtless be familiar with Eid and Diwali).

EU invokes God for the salvation of Mother Earth

It is a supreme irony that an institution built on the rock of Roman Catholic social doctrine is sliding toward the shifting sand of secularism, and it is a secularism that is syncretically fused with all manner of ad hoc multi-faith spirituality that there is certain to be something that appeals to everyone

- except the discerning.

The latest Brussels religio-political initiative is concerned with spreading the green gospel for the propagation of an ‘environmentally friendly society’, and so invitations were sent out to the four corners of the earth for religious VIPs to assist in this climate change evangelism. The convened meeting would also usefully promote ‘tolerance between different confessions in Europe’.

They are not that different, though, since the élite consists of 19 men and one woman from European Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations. While the gender imbalance should have alerted the EU’s equalities watchdog, it has to be observed that this was a distinctly Abrahamic gathering, with no Hindus, no Sikhs, and no Buddhists, which is rather strange considering that these are the faiths to whose karmic doctrine the Mother Earth agenda is intrinsic. The Scientologists were also a little peeved to have received no invitation. And the Jedi Knight fraternity are yet to appoint a spokesperson.

The meeting was chaired by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who told a press conference that ‘churches, mosques and temples could all play an important role in identifying and implementing solutions to the challenge of climate change’.

Well, actually, no. Not least because they do not all accept the premise that global warming is scientifically proven, and Pope Benedict himself has had the good sense to refute the assertions and observe the emergence of a pseudo-cult of Mother Earth worship.

But this is not stopping President Barroso, who, speaking of the EU’s religious élite, intones: “Thanks to their moral authority, their outreach and their structure, they are well placed to make a valuable contribution, mobilising our societies for a sustainable future.”

Prime Minister Jansa (of Slovenia), referring to both the Bible and the Qur’an, said: "Earth was created and given to man, and man has to be respectful of what he has been given," and called for what the late Pope John Paul II described as an ‘ecological conversion’.

"The success in the fights against climate change relies to a great extent on changes in our habits, in our philosophies in our world outlook and the consumer society that has created superficial needs - needs that justify consumption."

But the president of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences (COMECE) – an exclusively Roman Catholic conference – is ignoring the wise concerns of His Holiness, and has called for the appointment of a ‘High Representative for Future Generations’.

Cranmer would rather they worry about the considerable problems of today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

According the the EUObserver report, some MEPs have in the past questioned the presence of religious figures in strictly political fora in Brussels: ‘The parliament's Party Working Group on the Separation of Religion and Politics in a letter to Hans-Gert Poettering last year wrote: "It is unbecoming for any of the EU institutions to provide an exclusive platform to any particular grouping, including religions, in particular as the majority of European citizens are not religious or no longer practice their religion. Thus millions of individual citizens do not have a voice in the dialogue.”’

Cranmer rather doubts the assertion that ‘the majority of European citizens are not religious’, but it is to be observed that the only exclusive platform which is affirmed by this Working Group is the secular one – and there is nothing remotely alienating or insular about that: it is, of course, supremely neutral, tolerant, and just.

Gerald Howarth MP: ‘This is a Christian country and that we owe everything to our Christian tradition.’

While Labour are intent on the systematic eradication of every last vestige of Christian expression from public life, it has fallen to the Conservative Party to advocate on behalf of sincere and worried believers the length and breadth of the country, who collectively have the undeniable impression that their faith is under siege. Cranmer was enthralled by the debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday concerning amendments to abolish the common law criminal offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. The debate touched on secularism, Islam, disestablishment, and the merits and demerits of maintaining a distinctly Christian national identity. The whole debate may be read in Hansard, and there were excellent contributions from Edward Leigh, Ann Widdecombe, Bill Cash, and Gerald Howarth (with predictable opposition from John Bercow and Dr Evan Harris). But until Mr Howarth rose to speak, it was the amusing observation of Edward Leigh that all those who had spoken in favour of the Established Church of England had been exclusively Roman Catholic, there being so few convicted Anglicans in the House.

It was heartening to hear such a grasp of history and an appreciation of Anglican theology on the Conservative benches, and Cranmer would like to share Gerald Howarth’s speech (minus interventions):

Mr. Gerald Howarth: “I am a simple sort of chap, and a member of the Church of England. I think I am the first member of the Church of England to speak in support of the maintenance of this law—a view I have come to on balance, not slavishly.

“I start from the premise of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) that this is a Christian country and that we owe everything to our Christian tradition. This nation has been forged and fashioned down the centuries by its Christian tradition. Every Act of Parliament is prefaced by reference to the support of the Lords temporal and spiritual and the Commons assembled. That indicates that our Christian faith has played a hugely important part. Therefore, while I have enjoyed the frivolities of this evening’s proceedings, we should be under no illusions that a serious issue is at stake. I am afraid that I am not interested in the Joint Committee on Human Rights or the European Court of Human Rights; I am interested in my views and beliefs, which are profoundly held and shared by a lot of people in this country.

“There is a message coming through here, particularly from the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), who treated us to something that was more in the way of a Cambridge union debate than dealing with the practicalities of the concerns of the people of this country. Those of other religions who have come here down the centuries have done so in the full knowledge that this is a Christian country. One of the reasons why they come here is that our Christian faith is a tolerant faith—one that allows mosques to be built and that allows people to observe their traditions, to bring those traditions with them and to practise them. It is a mistake that some of them should now assert that, because they have come here in rather large numbers, they should be entitled to overturn centuries of tradition in this country. That is a mistake that we should resist…

“The hon. Member for Cambridge suggested that people less exalted than us are in fear that their Christianity is under threat. He is absolutely right - they do think that, and they are alarmed that the Government of the day appear to be completely preoccupied with minorities and take no account of their genuinely felt concerns. What they are looking for is somebody who is going to stand up for their concerns and articulate them in simple language, saying, “This is a Christian country—this is the way we do it here. My friend, if you don’t like it, go and do it somewhere else.” It is all perfectly straightforward.

“The Minister relied, as Ministers of course do, on the assertion of the Government’s new religion, which is discrimination: anything that is discriminatory is to be resisted, if not completely rejected. Her case is completely destroyed. Of course the law of blasphemy is discriminatory—but then, as was pointed out to her, so is the fact that the Church of England is the established Church. That discriminates against everybody else. It is a discrimination that unless one is a member of the House of Hanover, now the House of Windsor, one cannot ascend to the throne. That discriminates against every Eagle, every Smith, every Howarth in the land. Discrimination is there; it is in our midst. We are discriminating every day of our lives; we discriminate when we go to the shops. The idea that the Government should somehow rest their case on discrimination is a mistake and indicates that they are going down the wrong track.

“Furthermore and as has also been pointed out, we have Christian prayers in this place, which you, Mr. Speaker, of course preside over. I have been waiting for the day when there are calls to end this practice. I shall resist that for all the reasons I have just given; we should maintain these traditional prayers…

“Clearly, this is an undisguised attempt at promoting the case for the disestablishment of the Church of England. One of the reasons why this is a serious issue is, as my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) expressed it—he did so articulately, as ever— because some Christians feel under threat. However, the promotion of the Church of England as the established Church in this country is important for other reasons. I can tell him that a Jewish headmistress, whom I was sitting next to at a lunch—I believe that it was for the Conservative Friends of Israel, so a huge number of people attended—said, “It is very important to our school that there continues to be an established Church, because it provides some protection to us in the practising of our religion.” That message must not be forgotten.

“Talking of messages, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) rightly pointed out that we are dealing not simply with a law that is perhaps anachronistic and perhaps has had difficulty being interpreted in the courts—I am at one with the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) that a lack of will was the reason why “Jerry Springer: The Opera” escaped what should have been a proper prosecution that led to conviction—but with a law that is symbolic.

“The act of abolition in which the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon wishes to rejoice will send out a signal to the entire nation. It is a dreadful time for this House to indicate that it no longer feels that religion is important and that the Church of England has a central role to play in our life in this country. It is a time when we desperately need to reassert moral values in this country. The fact that the archbishops have deserted the field is unfortunate, because that again sends out the wrong message, but my simple role in the Church is as a mere church warden. The Minister is wrong to suggest that no drift to secularisation is likely to flow from this proposal, because that is what will happen—indeed, it is happening—and it is an important time to reassert moral values.

“Furthermore, this act of abolishing the law of blasphemy also carries with it a risk that nothing is sacred in our country and that nothing ought to be given some sort of special protection. Our children will not understand if this House says that it is not important, because why then should anything be sacred? That would send a dreadful message to the young people of our country…

“I think that this is no time to be abolishing the law of blasphemy. I say that not necessarily because prosecutions of tomorrow will be denied, but because abolition would send a dangerous signal to this nation at a very difficult time for it.”

It is people like Gerald Howarth, and indeed all those who spoke eloquently in defence of the nation's Christian heritage, who deserve our prayers. They are manifestly the 'salt of the earth', which may irritate, but it also cleanses and heals. They know to do good, and so they do it, irrespective of the humiliating taunts and ridicule they receive at the hands of the likes of Mssrs Bercow and Evans.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

The UN on Israel’s human rights record

Cranmer has received notification from the Anglican Friends of Israel of the first ever UK 'Salute to Israel' parade. He also received the following missive. He finds it curious the intolerance, hate and irrational invective he receives whenever he posts on Israel, that he cannot resist but to do so again:

"Sixty years after its birth, Israel continues to test the proposition that reality counts for more than perception.

"The Web site eyeontheun.org keeps a running tally of all United Nations resolutions, decisions and reports condemning this or that country for this or that human rights violation (real or alleged). Between January 2003 and March 2008, tiny Israel - its population not half that of metropolitan Cairo's - was condemned no fewer than 635 times. The runners-up were Sudan at 280, the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 209, and Burma at 183. North Korea was cited a mere 60 times, a third as many as the United States.

"Is Israel the world's foremost abuser of human rights? A considerable segment of world opinion thinks that it is, while an equally considerable segment of elite opinion thinks that, even if it isn't, its behaviour is nonetheless reprehensible by civilized standards.

"I would argue the opposite: that no other country has been so circumspect in using force against the provocations of its enemies. Nor has any so consistently preserved the civil liberties of its own citizens. That goes double in a country so constantly beset by so many threats to its existence that its government would long ago have been justified in imposing a perpetual state of emergency.

"For reasons both telling and mysterious, Israel has become unpopular among that segment of public opinion that calls itself progressive. This is the same progressive segment that believes in women's rights, gay rights, the rights to a fair trial and to appeal, freedom of speech and conscience, judicial checks on parliamentary authority. These are rights that exist in Israel and nowhere else in the Middle East. So why is it that the country that is most sympathetic to progressive values gets the least of progressive sympathies?

"The answer, it is said, is that as democratic as Israel may be in its domestic politics, it is nothing but bloody-minded as far as its foes are concerned. In May 2002, at the height of the so-called al-Aqsa Intifada, I reviewed Israeli and Palestinian casualty figures, sticking to Palestinian sources for Palestinian numbers and Israeli sources for Israeli ones. Much was then being made in the Western media of the fact that three times as many Palestinians as Israelis had been killed in the conflict - evidence, supposedly, that despite the suicide bombings, lynchings and roadside ambushes perpetrated daily against Israelis, Palestinians were the ones who really were getting it in the neck.

"But drilling down into the data, something interesting turned up. At the time, 1,296 Palestinians had been killed by Israelis - of whom a grand total of 37, or 2.8%, were female. By contrast, of the 496 Israelis killed by Palestinians (including 138 soldiers and policemen), there were 126 female fatalities, or 25%.

"To be female is a fairly reliable indicator of being a non-combatant. Females are also half the population. If Israel had been guilty of indiscriminate violence against Palestinians, the ratio of male-to-female fatalities would not have been 35-1.

"These are not complicated facts. Yet the effort to think them through is rarely made. Is it laziness? I think not, because the image of demonic Israel, presented in copiously footnoted and ingeniously mendacious books like "The Israel Lobby," is the product of a great deal of effort.

"Is it anti-Semitism? One dare not suggest it, since the standard by which anti-Jewish bigotry is judged today is considerably stricter than what is usually used in the face of allegations of racism, sexism or homophobia.

"But whatever it is, the constant assault on Israel's morality has had its effect. Beyond Hamas, beyond Hezbollah, beyond the competition between Jewish and Arab numbers west of the Jordan River and the ever-growing number of Iranian centrifuges spinning a nuclear future for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israel is beset by the fear that, being unloved, it is unworthy. "The anti-Semite makes the Jew," said Jean-Paul Sartre, as if Jewishness was something conferred rather than practised.

"A sibling notion, seemingly benign but insidious, is that Israel's right to exist rests ultimately with the acquiescence of others, which in turn is a function of their perceptions. This is also known as "legitimacy."

"Perhaps not surprisingly for a state that was born of a U.N. resolution (which the U.N. has never since ceased trying to disavow), Israel has been uniquely mindful of how it is perceived. Yet a nation that constantly feels the need to demonstrate its right to exist, rather than simply assert it, puts itself to an endless test, which it may someday fail.

Then again, look at the headlines in the copy of the May 16, 1948, Palestine (later Jerusalem) Post, reproduced nearby. That was a nation in far greater peril than the one that exists today. For 60 years, it has survived mainly through courageous and improbable acts of assertion, yielding an unfolding set of realities that defied perception. It's the only formula by which Israel's next 60 years may be assured."

Greetings from President Shimon Peres on Israel’s 60th anniversary

Dear Friends,

As we stand poised to celebrate Israel's 60th Anniversary, we can only but look back on our achievements with a great deal of pride. From its inception, practically rising from the ashes of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, Israel has had to fight for its survival through 7 wars and relentless attacks on its very existence. Yet we persisted in turning the vision of a homeland for the Jewish people into reality.

We have created a model democracy, an independent judiciary system and set ourselves at the forefront of fields such as science and technology, hi-tech, agriculture and medicine, to name but some of the areas in which Israel excels.

But we should not allow ourselves to rest on our laurels. We must seek to educate our younger generation for leadership roles in our 3 Tomorrows:

The Israel Tomorrow, The Jewish Tomorrow and The Global Tomorrow.

We must bridge the growing social gaps in our country. We must cultivate stronger ties with the Jewish Diaspora and engage the young in these communities to connect with Israel. We must initiate breakthroughs in spheres such as nano-technology, desalination to alleviate water shortages, find alternative sources of energy, green the desert and make inroads in ever more sophisticated medical applications. During these years, we have made peace with Egypt and Jordan and hope that the peace negotiations with the Palestinians will bear fruit.

We must be true to the values dictated by our Prophets, a legacy that has united the Jewish people through the ages and that must continue to serve as our beacon for the generations to come.

As Israel celebrates 60 years of independence I wish the citizens of our country, the Jewish people and our friends throughout the world a peaceful and prosperous anniversary year.

Shimon Peres
President of the State of Israel

Cardinal Kasper: Anglicans must choose between Protestantism and Catholicism

The Times reports on this ultimatum, delivered to the Anglican Communion by Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity. It is, he asserts, time for the Anglican Church to choose between Catholicism and Orthodoxy of the first millennium, or Protestantism of the 16th century. It is time for Anglicanism to ‘clarify its identity’ because it is presently unacceptably ‘somewhere in between’.

While one is tempted to wonder if Cardinal Kasper is locked in a time-warp (what about a church of relevance to the 21st century?), one certainly has to ask what kind of pastor whose heart genuinely seeks Christian unity issues such an offensive ultimatum? This is exemplary diplomacy from the Vatican, displaying an alarming ignorance of Anglicanism, and manifestly timed perfectly to coincide with the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to His Holiness.

But it is an affront to Anglicans worldwide. It ranks with the declaration of Cardinal Ratzinger that the Church of England is ‘not a church in the proper sense’, and qualifies merely as an ‘ecclesial community’.

Who does Cardinal Kasper think he is to issue such a demand? He cannot possibly be speaking with the approval of His Holiness, who is too eminent a theologian and knowledgeable a historian to pontificate in such absolutes. Certainly, the Anglican Communion is in a state of paralysis between the Rt Rev Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, but the conservative / liberal factions have coexisted in the via media for centuries, and this is the essence of the Elizabethan settlement which has suited England since its inception. The Cardinal ought to heed the wise observations of many Roman Catholics in the House of Commons last night, who were unanimous in their support for the Church of England and marvelled at a via media which permits the coronation ceremony of a Protestant monarch to be organised and presided over by the Earl Marshal the Duke of Norfolk who is a Roman Catholic and the Premier Duke in the peerage of England. It is ambiguous; it is a compromise, but it works in practice if not in theory.

Cardinal Kasper might also like to consider that it is the contention of the Church of England that it is both Catholic and Reformed, and his dissent from this assertion does not make it not so. It is not necessary to conform to Rome’s narrow capacity for definition, for there is little latitude in its dogma. And even the Church of Rome is divided between its conservatives and liberals - there are few who would assert that The Tablet articulates the same adherence to doctrine as The Catholic Herald - but no ultimatum has been issued demanding unity of voice, for that would require a meeting of minds between His Holiness and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. And Cranmer cannot quite envisage that. Indeed, most of the Roman Catholic bishops in England appear to be pathologically antipathetic to all that Pope Benedict XVI stands for, so Cardinal Kasper may care to lecture his own house before presuming to instruct the Anglicans.

Roman Catholicism is literally a broad church, and the gulf between its disparate factions are tolerated because they can coexist in tension, in the imperfect communion that is exemplified in the suffering of the cross. And so it is with the Church of England.

Of course there are immense concerns over the ordination of homosexuals and women priests and bishops, and it may even be time to lay the worldwide Anglican Communion to rest, but it is not for any Cardinal to dictate to the Church of England what it must and must not do, for that is contrary to the Constitution of the United Kingdom, and is hardly conducive to ecumenical progress.

The Church of England need not ‘clarify its identity’ for any foreign prince, prelate or potentate, because its Anglo-Catholic wing and its Evangelical Protestant wing constitute a whole, and without each other the body would be wounded, possibly mortally so.

But perhaps that is the Cardinal’s real agenda.

Muslim PC removed from Tony Blair’s security claims damages

Meet PC Amjad Farooq. He is presently suing on the grounds of discrimination for being removed from his job of guarding Tony Blair when he was prime minister. Mr Farooq was transferred from the Diplomatic Protection Group on 'national security grounds' after MI5 had carried out a number of checks on him. As a consequence, he claims that he suffered ‘racial and religious discrimination’.

Religious, quite possibly, but racial, not at all.

Ironically, PC Farooq was recruited to the Metropolitan Police as part of its campaign to increase the number of black and minority ethnic officers and staff. And this is the stereotypical thanks they can expect.

It is all to do with the Jamia mosque that PC Farooq and his family attended in Swindon. There is an alleged link between a former imam and the Sipah-e-Sahaba terror group in Pakistan, which is believed to be a part of the Al-Qaeda network. PC Farooq's two sons, then aged nine and 11, attended this mosque for religious studies.

While PC Farooq insists he did not associate with any Islamist extremists at the mosque, he is, like Barack Obama with his fiery pastor, somewhat tarnished by association. But this association is deemed to constitute ‘evidence’ to justify the refusal of his counter-terrorism clearance. And when PC Farooq appealed to the Security Vetting Appeal Panel, which is run by the Cabinet Office, he was refused any details on the grounds of ‘national security’. He was simply told that ‘his presence might upset the U.S. secret service which works with the Met's close-protection unit that guards Downing Street and the U.S. Embassy’.

So it is all to do with appeasing the US secret service.

While the Metropolitan Police insists that its decision was ‘proportionate and justified’, unless clear evidence was discovered of a link between PC Farooq and certain madrassas in Pakistan, this is manifestly a case of religious discrimination.

And if one is now to be denied a position on the grounds of the views of one’s religious leader, Cranmer fears for all adherents of the Church of England.

How Gordon Brown really went down in the USA

In today’s Daily Telegraph is a tediously boring article explaining how Prime Minister Brown intends ‘to refocus on food and homes’. He appears not to have a clue about economics, the free market, or even wisely-apportioned compassion. It is all predictable leftish waffle, principally aimed at shoring up Jacqui Smith’s slender majority, and also those of numerous other Labour MPs who are facing redundancy.

But a communicant has drawn Cranmer’s attention to an excellent comment by one Mr Paul Wilcox, who offers real insight into how Mr Brown was really received in the United States. Food and homes are ‘not the issues that are important’, he says, because ‘the US press have Brown sussed out precisely’:

It's a good thing that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's U.S. visit was upstaged by the dramatic reception Americans gave Pope Benedict XVI. Brown might have been booed if he hadn't delivered what aides called his "signature" speech within the cloistered walls of Harvard's Kennedy Center.

Brown's tedious, hour-long speech impudently demanded that we issue a "Declaration of Interdependence" in order to submit to global governance. That's another way of calling on us to repeal our Declaration of Independence.

No thanks for the advice, Mr. Brown. Brave Americans rose up and rejected Britain's royalist rule in 1776, and we've gotten along mighty well without transatlantic interference in our government for more than two centuries. We certainly don't want to reinstate any foreign supervision today.

The redundancy of Brown's outrageous semantics was oppressive. His speech used the word global 69 times, globalization 7 times, and interdependence 13 times. He referred to Kennedy 19 times, lavishing fulsome praise on John F. ("his influence abides everywhere"), Robert (he sent forth "ripples of hope"), and Ted ("one of the greatest Senators in more than two centuries").

Brown rejected the traditional concept of national sovereignty, which means an independent nation not subservient to any outside control, telling us to replace it with "responsible sovereignty," which he defined as accepting what he calls our global "obligations." Hold on to your pocketbook.

Brown admitted that his "main argument" is that we must accept "new global rules," "new global institutions," and "global networks." Brown's global rules include massive U.S. cash handouts and opening U.S. borders to the world.

Brown's use of well-known American political phrases was tacky. He tried to morph FDR's New Deal into a "New Global Deal," and JFK's New Frontier into "the New Frontier is that there is no frontier."

Brown even slipped in an attempt at thought control: "Americans must learn to think inter-continentally." He declaimed, "We are all internationalists now."

Using the rhetorical device of inevitability, Brown warned us that his vision of the globalist future is "irreversible transformation." He wants to "transcend states" and "transcend borders" as he builds the "architecture of a global society."

Brown peddled the nonsense that the peoples of the world "subscribe to similar ideals." He tried to tell us that all religions (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists) have "common values" and "similar ideals." No, they certainly do not.

Brown wants to increase the power of the United Nations to become the source of "an international stand-by capacity of trained civilian experts, ready to go anywhere at any time," and even be able to exercise "military force." Americans do not intend to cede such authority to the corrupt UN.

The silliest part of Brown's ponderous speech was his claim that "a global society" is "advancing democracy widely across the world." In fact, he doesn't even practice democracy in his own country.

Brown refused to allow the British people to vote on whether or not they want to accept the European Union (EU) constitution. He acquiesced in the plot of the constitution's author, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, to put the EU constitution into effect by calling it a treaty so it did not have to be voted on by the people.

Brown was chicken about the treaty subterfuge and did not permit a photographic record of his participation. He sent his Foreign Secretary to perform the official treaty signing in front of cameras.

The EU constitution, now called the Treaty of Lisbon, requires all signers to surrender their sovereignty and democracy to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and judges in Strasbourg. The EU constitution takes away England's right to pass its own laws, forces England to surrender more than 60 UK vetoes of EU decisions, and gives the EU bureaucracy and tribunals total control over England's immigration policy.

Instead of a self-governing nation whose democratic system was developed over centuries, England is now ruled by what Margaret Thatcher called "the paper pushers in Brussels."

Brown made his globalism speech emphatic by repeatedly invoking the words "New World Order." The New World Order Brown tries to con the United States into accepting would mean taxing Americans for foreign handouts so immense they would make the Marshall Plan look puny, global warming rules to drastically reduce our standard of living, and putting American workers in a common labor pool with the world's billions who subsist on less than $2 a day.

Gordon Brown invited us to march forward to globalism "where there is no path." He's correct that there is no path on which we can expect globalism to lead us to a better world; in fact every path toward global government is a surrender of our liberty and our prosperity.

Gordon Brown should go back home and study up on how Americans refused to accept orders from King George III.

This is a most excellent debunking of a patronising and utterly pretentious speech, which must leave Americans wondering why Labour politically assassinated Tony Blair. But the phrase ‘New World Order’ is one that readers and communicants will hear again and again, whoever is in power in the UK, for it is teleologically inescapable.

The nations of the world are ready to surrender their kingdoms to any man who will offer a solution to the problems of the world - the real ones and the fabricated ones. All he needs is ‘sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all the people and to lift us up out of the economic morass into which we are sinking’. Stature, charisma, compassion, credibility, experience, political skill, spirituality, a global profile – that man is not Gordon Brown, but Gordon Brown knows who it is.

Election fraud: ‘Labour failed to act’, say MPs

When one considers that more than 500,000 postal votes were sent out in the election for the office of Mayor of London, and that this method of voting has been shown time and again to be less than secure with one judge referring to UK elections being no better than those in a ‘banana republic’, one might have thought that HM Government would be doing all that lies within its power to root out corruption in the electoral process. But one must remember that the Government is Labour, and that such corruption tends to be favourable to its electoral ends.

And The Guardian explains a further unsavoury dimension to Labour’s inaction, as a ‘senior backbencher’ states that the principal reason the issue is not being addressed is that ‘they fear stirring up controversy in ethnic minority communities’. This leaves us to conclude that most of the abuse of the system is to be found amongst the minority communities.

It is a brave group of MPs indeed who have dared to broach this subject, but the Labour-controlled public administration select committee is genuinely more concerned about openness and honesty than it is about offending ethnic minorities or depressing the Labour vote.

Quite why The Guardian begins with an air of anonymity for its ‘senior backbencher’ is a mystery, for it goes on to disclose the name of Tony Wright MP, chairman of the committee, and quote him at length. No doubt the collapse in support for Prime Minister Brown will yield more of these emboldened backbenchers over the coming months - like John Cruddas, John McDonnell, or Frank Field...

Mr Wright is demanding the introduction of some form of individual - rather than household - registration, which would require photo ID. And he calls for an end to ‘Labour silence’ on one source of the problem: “Almost all the abuse cases that we have had have involved minority communities. We should not be mealy-mouthed about it. It is importing cultural practices from one place to another, and if we are serious about Britishness, surely one of the things we have to got to be serious about it is telling everybody that lives here about the integrity of democratic politics.

"If we are honest about it, we have been so anxious to get turn-out up that we have been rather casual about some of the implications ... I think we have (been) casual because we have resisted individual voter registration."

These ‘cultural practices’ are, of course, Asian. They are not specifically Muslim, Sikh, or Hindu, though these religions have certainly influenced the cultural practice. And the practice to which Mr Wright principally refers is that of patriarchal supremacy and the oppression of women. While the West has gradually moved towards equality and non-discrimination, very many Asian families sustain segregation and propagate the suppression of female members of the household. This is not only evident in practices like assisted/arranged marriages or the limiting of female education and career options, but is seen quite clearly in postal voting. Frequently, the father of a household will vote on behalf of all members of that household - which may be a large and extended household - and hand the cards over en masse to a helpful party worker (which is itself a breach of regulations). Thus one voter expresses the will of 7, 10, 15, or 26, as Gordon Prentice MP discovered in his constituency of Pendle. The whole system simply requires male ‘community leaders’ to speak to the men.

Kelvin Hopkins, Labour MP for Luton North, favours individual voter registration, but admits that ‘one of the reasons our party is reluctant to do this, is because it might actually dent our support in certain areas’.

And the final word is left to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which states that ‘greater use of postal voting has made the UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large scale fraud’, and then concedes that there is ‘anecdotal evidence that Pakistani clan politics played a role in some of the fraud’.

It is all hushed up, of course, for fear of aggravating racial tensions or causing offence.

And then the 'mainstream parties' wonder why the BNP wins a seat on the London Assembly.

'Mayor Johnson' - what music to the ears!

Cranmer's readers and communicants will have to indulge him a little today, for he has not felt so good in centuries. And such euphoria has the tendency to cloud the mind more than a little, and render one intoxicated with such unalloyed joy that one is temporarily incapable of writing much that is either spiritually or politically edifying.


Ah, victory... just a taste of things to come.

Boris takes London as UK moves to ‘No Overall Control’

Cranmer is praising in the pulpit and dancing in the aisles at the news that Boris Johnson has become Mayor of London, and the Conservative Party has triumphed in local elections the length and breadth of the land. Ken Livingstone is definitely gone, and Gordon Brown is now certainly going. It is the culmination of months of fervent prayer and intercession, and Cranmer is humbled that the Lord has answered his prayers.

Winning the London mayoral contest is the delectable icing on the luscious cake of this historic day in Conservative Party fortunes. Labour have been humiliated into third place – their worst result in local elections since Harold Wilson was prime minister - and their share of the vote was worse even than that achieved by Michael Foot. The Conservative Party’s vote was 20 percentage points ahead of the Labour vote, and that augurs well for the next general election.

But Cranmer would like to point out that Boris Johnson now wields more executive power than any other Conservative in Britain.

He has promised Londoners he will phase out bendy buses, ban alcohol on the Tube and set up a Mayor's Fund. His winning manifesto pledges include:

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