We walk along the Pennine Way, the loveliest walk we have completed since we mastered the pilgrims way connecting Winchester and Salisbury. On the way we saw a beautiful flock of grey very tough”Herdwick” sheep who come from the Lake District. The shepherd, a jolly man, Sam Sawyer, tells us that they will all have to be moved to cater for a scheme to hide electricity pylons. It all sounded very odd to us.
—
I caught the train at Glossop, a nice little place; pity about the station. The ticket machine was broken, the tickets sales people were on strike, the lavatories were all firmly locked and I was told by a man who looked rather desperate that no one knew where the key was. To cap it all, it was pouring with rain and a bitter wind stripped the flesh from my bones with great efficiency and then returned for the marrow. True that the weather wasn’t the fault of the railway network but it neatly added to my gloom and made me wonder why we choose. to live out our dreary little lives at the bottom of an UK well.

Red Tape

For guaranteeing sleepless nights, The Data Protection Act is in a class of its own. Extraordinary as it may seem, members of the public have won the right in law not to be contacted by charities outlining in graphic detail the effects of, say, starvation in Chad, a tsunami in Thailand, modern slavery or universal child abuse. If these citizens feel so strongly about it, why can’t they just bin the offending solicitations? No, they need a law to stop such unpleasantness crossing their doorstep in the first place.

No one has ever carefully explained to me why this law is necessary, or how it is that the USA gets on just fine without such regulation – but there it is. I would argue that instead of protection from solicitation, it would do the British public far more good if there were a “Legally Obliged to Read About Third-World Poverty And Other Disasters Six Times A Week Act”. Why not? After all, we are living in the UK. We are rich, fat and selfish (apart from ZANE donors, who are wonderful), and should be daily forced to read charity solicitations reminding us that most people living on this planet just aren’t so darn lucky as we are. For example, slow, silent starvation is a painful and rather miserable process. And being caught in the middle of a civil war is ghastly. No one in the UK should be permitted to turn a blind eye to such miseries, their insularity underpinned by statute.

Reality Check
Each time I go to Zimbabwe, I am reminded that its people have no state benefits of any kind and no public healthcare worth a damn: nothing at all. If you are ill and broke, you suffer, and then you die slowly or quickly. Bad luck, period.

When I get back to the UK, I am struck by how the political parties, especially during an election, are always trying to tell us just how much they love the NHS – and so much more than any other party. It’s childish. We know the public loves the NHS because “focus groups” tell us that in a society without God, the NHS has taken his (or her) place. And the NHS is only the start of it. My Zimbabwean friends who come to the UK tell me they are simply overwhelmed by the wealth of the houses, the profusion of goods in the shops, the fancy clothes people ponce about in (actually I think most of our fellow citizens look like temporary shelf stackers in Aldi, but let that pass), the unbelievable choice of the food stacked high in the stores, the very odour of wealth that hangs everywhere like a pall, and the overarching sense of safety and entitlement. One told me that a vast sign seems to hang over the UK: “Bad luck, Johnny Foreigner and other losers: the UK has won first prize in the lottery of life. We feel your pain, now go and get stuffed!”

Amidst this cornucopia of wealth and the blizzard of trashy entertainment that fills our lives, ZANE tries to raise a bit of money to alleviate the misery and poverty in Zimbabwe.

ZANE gets no official help: in fact, quite the reverse. I reckon that today it is more or less impossible to start a charity and obey all the rules that appear stacked against any charitable entrepreneur, and that’s just the start. For over a third of our administrative meetings each week, we are obliged to spend valuable time dealing with the rules, laws and codes that are designed to regulate – and in reality, make it far harder – to raise money from the British public. We have to deal with the “Fundraising Regulator”, the “Risk Register”, the “Annual Complaints Register”, and then our old friend “The Data Protection Act” – and on it goes. Of course, the rules are written by people – civil servants and MPs – who have probably never started a charity or tried to fundraise in their lives.

As a polite, well-ordered and law-abiding charity, we strive to obey these rules in spirit as well as letter. Of course, most of these regulations will never materially alter the behaviour of the real rogues who will just ignore them and laugh. Rules are a growth industry. As good manners, morality and trust decline, rules and regulations sprout everywhere to fill the vacuum. But knee-jerk reactions from our lawmakers – reacting to media pressure and high-profile cases like the very avoidable and absurd Kid’s Company collapse – have made life difficult for decent, law-abiding outfits like ZANE. Big charities of course have rooms filled with box tickers, but small charities like ZANE just have to manage it all with as good a grace and as much gallows humour as we can muster.

Ho Hum!

Freedom of Thought
Sad that no one who is a serious Christian with conventional views can hold a senior office in any political party. Your views will be analysed and you will be under attack; if your opinions fall short of what the liberal consensus thinks is “right”, you will be mocked, then destroyed.

I have no idea what ZANE donors believe or do not believe, but whatever your views, if they are not acceptable you will be deemed to be thick and bigoted.

Today we all have to more or less think the same thing. In particular we can’t be “pro-life” or against gay marriage. We all have to believe that there is no moral distinction between heterosexual and homosexual activity.

We have all forgotten what it means to be liberal in the best sense of the word: that is open-minded and generous to the views of others.

Off at seven thirty. A long day today and we are over half way, hooray! I have to nip to London later today  (Wednesday) for a vital ZANE meeting that will affect the lives of a great many people in our care so a break for me anyway as poor Jane goes on walking.

Warty Talkers

Jane tells me that nine times out of ten, when she sits next to a man – any man – at, say, a function or any casual dinner she is hardly ever asked anything about herself, her work, her family or her views but the man just more or less ignores her as a human being and simply talks about himself, his work, his stories; then he will give his often puerile and drivelling views in exhausting detail. It’s an interesting phenomenon that.  Is it all women most men simply ignore or just Jane? Are all (most) men simply incapable of holding a proper conversation which is surely to share information and politely listen to the stories of others? Were they never taught basic manners when they were children? After all Jane is a fascinating woman who has worked as a social worker specialising in mentally ill geriatrics ( do be aware that when she appears to be nice and friendly  she is actually professionally assessing you!);  she has started two charities, one for the mentally ill, the other one of the first UK food banks; she has been an MPs wife, mothered four interesting children,  yet all this is ignored. It’s not rude, just sad!

The US poet Don Marquis used to write about a toad called Warty Bliggens who used to sit under a tree and wonder that the sun and moon an stars were all created for him alone.

I recall that Marquis finished the poem about Warty by saying don’t laugh too much at Warty for most human beings think the same!

Bolt-on B*****d

On our day free visited Bolton abbey, a peaceful retreat shattered for the monks by Thomas Cromwell acting under the orders of Henry 8th: what a total bastard he was. You only have too look at his piggy little eyes staring  straight at you out of the vast Holbein picture in the portrait Gallery to understand the sheer terror he must have instilled in everyone who served  him. He was Stalin in ermine. Poor Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s dutiful servant, who did everything for Henry and yet was executed anyway because he fell out with the nobles.

In the afternoon we went to Towton Moor, the UKs largest and bloodiest battleground where the Yorkists finally beat the Lancastrians in 1467 and thus ended the War of the Rose’s at a joint cost of about 24.000 hideous brain bashing  deaths. The Lancastrian were destined to win the battle but lost when the wind changed and blew their arrows short of the enemy. I often wonder what the poor bloody soldiers on both sides actually thought the battle was about, or how their miserable, brutal and violent lives might have been improved a single iota  if their guy won? I suppose  they fought because their chums fought and that was would be the end of it.
This is how it is in all battles since the world began. Of  course,  if they were on the side of the losing army they would  be massacred. Poor Lancastrians. Everything was going for them and still they blew it. Just like the last election really.

Mr Bean

Those of you who read my blog may recall my hapless attempt to teach volunteers in the Oxford Community Foodbank (CEF) how to solicit food outside Waitrose in Headington. As I was once a politician, I reckon I know how to persuade strangers. The volunteers were all set to watch the example of the master.

“All you have to do,” I said brightly, “is to be charming and persuasive like me!”

I then chose an attractive woman who looked as if she was just my sort of woman: she probably shopped at Harrods.

“Good afternoon, Madam,” I smiled winsomely. “Please will you contribute some food to the foodbank?”

Hardly breaking her step, she snapped, “Bugger off!” And so that was that.

Ol’ Twinkly Eyes

Undaunted, a few weeks back I gave an encore. I was worried – with, as it turned out, every reason – during the election that Jeremy Corbyn might slide into Downing Street because he is an excellent campaigner – better than Theresa May. I reckon that he and his team are just as dangerous as Donald Trump. Today’s young have little memory of our recent UK past and of course it’s horribly clear many of them voted for that nice old man with the twinkly eyes – because he made numbers of uncosted promises, particularly to the young.

But ZANE donors will recall the three-day week, the winter of discontent, the fact that leftish Labour policies have the opposite effect to that intended: rent controls mean fewer homes to rent, further employee “rights” and higher minimum wages bring unemployment, the unbridled power of trade unions is pernicious, nationalisation is costly, and raising taxation will bring less revenue. The idea that the prime minister should be a pacifist with past links to our nation’s enemies or that his would-be chancellor is a Marxist is profoundly upsetting. (Let’s forget about Diane Abbott for this is a family blog.)

Bullingdon Boy

So, I persuaded myself that the great Benyon had a duty to warn public hustings of the dangers that might lie ahead. And the main danger was that although Labour candidates like Sir Keir Starmer, Frank Field and Dan Jarvis are maybe excellent moderate people, they are of course also standing as proxies for Corbyn and his crew. If enough people voted for the moderates – and they nearly did so – we’d have Corbyn in charge.

The well-attended meeting was addressed by three women candidates. When I arose to make my points, I forgot that my voice when raised is a mix of Bullingdon and Montgomery lecturing troops before Alamein. If I had been addressing Ed Balls in a bar somewhere, it would have been fine, but as it was –in a room full of Remainers in deep mourning over Brexit – the tone could hardly have been worse.

Then to my horror I saw my dilemma was actually far worse than first imagined. The Labour candidate I was aiming at was delightful… and she had no hands. The whole room was murmuring admiration for her overcoming her ghastly disability, and rightly so.

Half a sentence in, I now know what the Titanic navigator must have felt like when he saw the iceberg. The temperature in the room dropped and furious faces glowered at me for being profoundly ungallant – as far as they were concerned, I was attempting to kick a disabled woman to death before their outraged eyes. As I struggled through a question and a half, it became clear that my performance was a hog-whimpering disaster. The excellent chairman knew I was way past the point of no return but what could he do anyway? He was kind later.

As I slouched out, I was cross with everyone, then with myself. I was then informed that my flies were undone.

After apologising to anyone with a pulse, I asked a friend (do I have any left?) what he thought of it all?

“You came over as a total prick,” he said.

Probably an understatement.

Gobstoppers

Am I rare in thoroughly disliking bus passes, free TV licences, child benefit and fuel allowances? It’s all so darn patronising. And as it’s our money that is being expensively recycled, it’s a total, costly con. If we are entitled for help with our families, why was it nicked in the first place? Tax allowances should have enabled us to keep our own money safely in the bank.

The “left” governments taxed us mercilessly, then the “right” inadvertently left this nonsense in place because they wanted to virtue signal what a “nice” and caring party was by leaning to the left. So when some chancellor tries to simplify the ghastly mess that is our tax system, Middle England, like Violet Elizabeth Bott, stamps her foot and threatens to be sick.

The trouble is that once a democracy makes a concession, it’s impossible even to trim it. I recall way back during the three-day week and the miner’s strike, Ted Heath decided to bribe voters with a £10 “Christmas bonus” (he lost power anyway). Years later, a new chancellor failed to take it away as the cries of pain indicated the impossibility of Baby UK ever living within its means.

Gordon Brown was the worst practitioner of the dark art of bribery. He thought that because we are children of the state, pocket money should be doled out to us whenever he felt in the mood. In this way he succeeded in making us dependent on government pocket money so we would beg for the next gobstopper and vote Labour. And for a while it worked. Now child benefit is paid on behalf of 14 million children, and 45 per cent of all non-retired households receive government handouts – an increase of almost one million over the last 10 years.

HMRC gives with one hand and snatches back with the other. Reform is essential before muddle overwhelms us.

I recall a row between a one time friend and his younger sister. He accused her of stealing his mother’s Tupperware after her death and so he pledged never to talk to her again. Clement and Lucian Freud didn’t speak for forty years after they fell out after a race across  Hampstead Heath. But the strangest story arose when a friend’s sister inherited magnificent walnut chest on a stand.  He lusted after that chest. After he established that his sister didn’t want it he offered to buy it. But she insisted that it went to public auction. So Fred was forced to buy it under the hammer in Sotheby’s then he paraded it proudly in his dining room and asked his sister to dinner. He set the table especially so she was compelled to stare at the chest all dinner.

And neither of them commented. Beat that for English reserve.

We walked through Barnsley and Grimethorpe. I recall when I last lambasted somewhere for being dreary and run down,  someone gently reminded me that all sorts of kindly acts and quiet heroism  goes on behind the closed doors of ugly properties. This is true and I am silenced.

Ministry of Truth

Rewriting the truth was highlighted by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Ministry of Truth was a state engine for propaganda based on his experiences with the BBC.

Apparently today, some teachers in South African universities are preparing their own agendas for students, rewriting details of the wicked British colonial past in such a way that it does not offend African sensibilities. The colonials were all rapacious, cruel and racist and the Africans were exploited, robbed and often slaughtered. The fact that Messrs Rhodes and Beit – in fact the Bill Gates and Warren Buffets of their time – chose to give away the totality of their fortunes for the good of humanity is forgotten, while the question, “Which African leader has ever given away tuppence to any entity other than his own Swiss bank account?” is never asked.

Witch Hunt

However, it’s considered dangerous to contradict the apostles of the new truths even though their nonsense may pollute our children. The truth rewriters are using violent protest to force their case and generate publicity, and the numbers of protests are rising fast. Earlier this year, for example, leading sociologist Charles Murray was shouted down by student activists when giving a talk at Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. His book The Bell Curve just mentions ethnic variations in average IQ. He doesn’t actually say this is due to genetic differences but he discusses the arguments for and against this hypothesis. For this heresy, the students – who seem not to be there to learn but to destroy any opposition to their arguments – labelled Murray a “white supremacist”. The students then went on to assault both him and his host, Professor Angela Stranger, who was bravely trying to protect him.

Other universities have been comparing notes and it seems there is a ritualized progress to these protests: they involve chanting, and they bear a resemblance to a witch hunt. One said that this has all the hallmarks of a new fundamentalist religion.

This faith believes that important racial differences are not derived from genes but from the environment. If you claim that race is a valid biological concept or that there are gender differences, both are deemed to be “social constructs” –  the idea that they have any validity is said to be “fiction”, designed to protect “white male privilege.”

The sad truth is that anyone who dissents from this orthodoxy – and apparently dissenters include nearly all who are seriously studying human variances – is deemed to be a heretic. To indicate the role genes play in human behaviour is committing blasphemy. The fact that there is a mountain of evidence to support the belief that genes do of course play a part in racial differences just strengthens the resolve of the witch hunters to double their protests.

One of the characteristics of religious fundamentalists is that the more crazy their views may appear to the outside world, the more their adherents cling to them as they damn all apostates.

Curriculum Vitae

When I have visited care and nursing homes, I have sometimes had to remind myself that the ancient husks listlessly watching bingo on TV – now grey, wrinkled and demented – were once virile and lusty lovers. They weren’t always hobbling or peering out in fear and dependent on us. Perhaps it would be valuable for each to have a picture of what they looked like, say, on their wedding day hanging on a hook at the end of their bed. And a mini CV. Perhaps that would help us keep in touch with our humanity.

I see that Archbishop Welby has waded into the political arena with a suggestion that forming some sort of committee of all the talents might take the toxicity out of Brexit.

I think he hopes that Brexit might be capable of compromise. As I understand it unless we leave the Customs and Trading Union we would be unable to control our borders  or trade agreements with potential trading partners.

Whether you voted to leave or stay, let’s at least tell the truth. I really dislike the nonsense talked about leaving the EU. We have had a referendum – whether you like or dislike the result you must agree that we have to live with it- let’s stop moaning and make it a success.

When we leave we must be able to control our borders for if we are unable to control them we stop being a home and stay as an hotel.

Then we are told that we have to be in the single market to trade with it. Rubbish! Most of the world seems to be surviving well enough outside it, why can’t we?

And why do all our businesses have to have a tariff free access? The tariffs are low and with currency adjustments we will be able to live with them just fine.

And why would trading under World Trade Organisation rules be a such disaster? Our businesses already trade with a over 100 countries under these rules and we know exactly what we are doing. It’s a commonplace.

Then we are told by experts that we will be palpably poorer outside the EU. Sorry but I don’t believe the experts, they are the same people who told us that we should join the Euro.

And my friends in universities tell us that our institutions and universities will be denied access to the finest minds. Nonsense! No one in HMG wants to stop the coming and going of talent. In fact, I understand that outside the EU our talent pool will be wider.

And why will we be turning our back on the largest market in the world? Of course we will continue to trade with our European friends, yes, we both need each other but heck, the EU is not that successful. In the last fifteen years the Eurozone has grown by 27% and the UK has grown by 40%.

Roosevelt told the American people that they had nothing to fear but fear itself.  That surely applies to us today.

Millennial Snowflakery

My generation was taught the merits of a stiff upper lip. For example, when eight-year old Quintin Hailsham (one-time Lord Chancellor) arrived at his prep school, the bigger boys at once cut up his teddy bear before his weeping face and whooping with glee, flushed it down the lavatory.

Okay my education was not quite as nasty as that – for one thing, I didn’t have a teddy to cut up – but compared to today’s pampering, it was merciless enough. And I’ll bet, dear Reader, that yours was pretty razor-edged as well. I recall vividly that from an early age, any physical peculiarities or pustular eruptions were highlighted by schoolmates who then teased out our character weaknesses and paraded them at every opportunity. One windy friend was called “Farty” for four long years… My time in the army was equally challenging: the Sandhurst staff roared their opinions at top tempo about our physical and mental inadequacies to anyone prepared to listen.

“You ghastly inadequate bastard! ” was the least of the abuse. Just imagine our young tolerating that kind of treatment today.

Harsh Truths

There were rules that governed our behaviour – and anyone who breached the unwritten codes was cast in outer darkness. The lesson was that emotional continence was not an option, it was essential. It was no use complaining or moaning, and to let others see you were unduly sensitive spelt disaster – for if weaknesses could be identified, the sharks would swiftly move in for the kill.

On reflection, I reckon it did no lasting harm: we were toughened to cope with life’s slings and arrows.

But today’s young are obsessed with sensitivity and self. What on earth has happened to us all? Is it raging feminism and political correctness that has reduced the young to a laundry box of big girl’s blouses?

How’s this for offended sensibilities? A student was admitted to hospital for a week having read a novel that was part of her course.  She claimed to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) apparently triggered by the book. While I accept, of course, that PTSD can occur amongst solders who have been on active duty, I reject the idea that our peacetime life is so traumatic that ordinary citizens need to be treated like shell-shocked veterans of war. That sums it up really:  20 million deaths in the First World War, 62 million deaths in the Second World War. There was no counselling then but here is a weeping student overwhelmed by a daft novel.

And it’s not just our introspection either. Political correctness prevents our telling one another hard truths because we are terrified of giving offence. So doctors daren’t tell patients that unless they – or their children – shed some blubber, they will wear out their hips, hearts and attract diabetes. Who is brave enough to tell a friend they smell? Who dares advise a chum if he drinks any more, he will die an early death? Do we dare tell a friend that if he leaves his wife and infant children to shack up with a Thai girl he found on the Internet, it is bound to end in mayhem with lives destroyed? And he will be sucked dry of money.

The educated middle classes have abandoned the moral authority they once had. What morality is and who holds it is today hotly contested, so we shrug and walk away. Our liberal ideology has persuaded us to abandon the imposition of moral teaching, even formal education on children; so we daren’t teach girls how to cook decent food or even set out clearly what constitutes a nutritious meal. Apparently it is considered to be ”sexist” to teach girls how to cook, so parents let their children choose what they want to eat with disastrous results.

In a local school play, everyone had a part (it was more a crowd control exercise than a “performance”). Out of the hundred or so children, there were three – around eight years old  – who were larded in fat. When the play ended, they waddled out with their parents like tugs towing a steamer. I suppose neither the headmistress nor the school doctor would dare risk the vicious row if they warned of future health hazards.

I reckon that letting your children grow obese is a form of child abuse.

Life and Death

The idea that no one should criticise anyone else can have grave results. Take the ghastly case of baby “P”, beaten to death by his parents. Shortly before his death, Peter was seen by a social worker. However, his face was a mess of chocolate. The social worker was so affected by political correctness that she failed to insist the child be cleaned in case she caused “offence”.  Had the child been cleaned, of course the deep bruises would have been visible ­– and perhaps a life might have been saved. How terrible is that story?

And consider that in the last few years, the industrial rape of young girls in Northern towns by Asian men continued unabated because the social workers and the police chose to turn a blind eye towards the abuse rather than run the risk of being thought to be “raaaacist”.

Some even thought that children should be allowed to choose prostitution as a “lifestyle” choice.

Go figure. How craven and marshmallow-soft have we become?

Walking through West Yorkshire I wondered why the litter was even worse than anywhere else we have been to recently. Why are the footpaths unkempt? When I saw the sign that read: ” West Yorkshire: working for peace” (true, I kid you not), I knew why .

Is this a stupid gesture of council virtue signalling? Or has the CEO gone totally bonkers? As I walked I imagined the letter this pompous ass must have sent round his colleagues:

“Dear Comrade,

My administrative assistants and I have decided that instead of doing boring and mundane things such as looking after the roads and schools and keeping litter collected we are to serve society in the Noble cause of peace keeping. Unlike East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Central Yorkshire, and what do you expect from the likes of them?!

We consider that the UN and NATO are inadequate on their own and the world needs the West Yorkshire CC to bring peace in our time.

To that end we propose to send a stern letter to Vladimir Putin and that plump  little git with the funny haircut in N Korea saying that if they decide to bomb the UK please remember that West Yorkshire is neutral and working for peace.

If West Yorkshire is attacked I have asked Councillor Vera Bootle – who stands five feet high and weighs eighteen stone – to walk to the county border,  remove her clothes and moon at the oncoming tanks. We are convinced that  that sight will stop them in their tracks.

At the same time we will erect a vast sign in the football stadium  to be read by passing bombers  that says  “We surrender” made from litter culled from nearby roads.  We have decided not to collect this in past months just  in case it was needed for this purpose.

I am also going to visit the 799 twins with our county (club class) to make speeches about peace. I will bring with me all the councillors who agree with me about everything as well as my new administrative assistant.”

What a pretentious ass the CEO has to be. Please get back to the day job.

Love and Kisses

Have you noticed how often cheeks are turned for the mandatory kiss – often by people you hardly know? Let’s be frank, at least half of the time I’m sure many of us would choose to remain chaste (if that were an option).

But when the cheekbone is presented, what can you do – for it’s expected now, isn’t it? So instead of extending a hand, we cave in and go “mwah mwah” along with everyone else. But it doesn’t stop there, does it? When did you last end a letter with “love from…”  – and to someone you have no particular affection for or have hardly ever met? If we end our letters with the quite solemn and serious word “love” to people we don’t love, how are we supposed to end letters to people we do love? Perhaps to our loved ones, we should now seal our letters – as they apparently did in the last war – with “SWALK”: “Sealed With A loving Kiss” adorned on the envelope. There were other acronyms that even in these rude times seem unprintable (even worse that BURML – Be undressed and Ready My Love!). But at least the soldiers then had the excuse that they were terminally frustrated.

My point is, perhaps we should reserve the world “love” for people we really do care about deeply.

Real Heroes

But there is another serious dumbing down of a word: “hero”. The media continually blurs the distinction between a victim who may have suffered a ghastly mishap or accident, and a real hero. To anyone who thinks about it seriously, a hero is someone who has gone out of his or her way selflessly to try and save someone else’s life – or indeed a community – for a higher purpose. The media on the other hand will add the soubriquet “hero”, for example, to someone who safely lands a stricken plane with passengers (whilst all they were really doing was saving their own life alongside others). Or, they will make a hero out of a soldier who has their leg blown off in a war zone. The truth of the matter is that soldiers sign up voluntarily to take that risk, and becoming a casualty doesn’t make someone a hero (sorry about that). And, yes, the charity title, “Help for Heroes” has always made me cringe. It stems from our peacetime snivelling need, whilst drinking in the pub, to indulge in some recreational grief.

Anyone who served in a perfunctory action as, say, the Afghanistan or Iraq wars, and who was subsequently caught up in a car crash or a court action (for example), will be described in media reports as a “war hero”. Such a precious word should be kept for the real thing – and heroes are as common as hen’s teeth. The Dam Buster, Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO (and bar) was an undoubted hero, as was the great Audie Murphy, the highest decorated US soldier in the Second World War. Then my favourite hero, Sergeant Major Stan Hollis VC, charges in. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Stan three times attacked German positions that were holding up the battalion advance. He charged them alone with a Sten gun and grenades, and he killed or took the defenders prisoners. After the war, his commanding officer said, “Hollis is the only man I met between 1939–45 who felt that winning the war was his personal responsibility.”

It’s only a tiny minority who have the sense of responsibility or a deep-rooted personal anger that stirs them to heroic actions. They are usually serving among the bulk of their colleagues who resent being shown up by what they perceive as dangerous “gong” hunters. The majority of soldiers would much rather be at home, and have no wish to be “brave” or run the risk of being killed or maimed.

Lord Macaulay’s “Horatius” demanded:

“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?”        

But that’s a minority belief. Those stirred by that sentiment will be the real McCoy.

Though, to be fair, I never did say I was a hero…! Reader, what would you have done?

By the Way…

I was told that the rings of Saturn are not astral dust at all, but are actually made up of airline lost luggage forever circling the planet.

A far better day if only because the sun shone and the paths didn’t tie themselves into reef knots with hidden holes every few hundred yards. We walked at a pace

—

Sad that so many of the churches seem to be shut. Even the majestic St Laurence Priory, Snaith was shut to the world yet strewn with bunting so I presume it is still used for occasional weddings, the default position for a secular society that does not take the faith seriously but who wants the pretty pictures of a ‘”church'” wedding.

So we are losing our faith with the speed of a hot air balloon spilling air whilst the Muslim community are building mosques financed by Saudi Arabia at an astonishing speed. 259 in Germany in 2015 and 180 in the U.K. so this is an European phenomenon. Do we all understand what is happening here under our uncomprehending noses? The trouble is that anyone who raises concern is called “racist”,and how do you prove a negative? I am bothered that the culture of the UK is altering and no one has been asked whether they want that. Our politicians seem to think that the UK’s traditional liberal outlook on for example women’s equality, gay rights, our democracy,  our freedom of speech, our regard for human rights and our Christian values ( from which much of the above stems) will be absorbed and agreed by the immigrant community. Dream on.

House Rules

When I am King or Emperor – roll on the day – I will make the rules about who can enter the UK and who cannot, and who can stay and who has to leave, crystal clear. I am tired of political correctness, and I refuse to worry about whether or not I offend some individual and their culture.

Here is the letter that I, as prime minister, would send all immigrants when they arrive in the UK.

Dear Would-be Citizen,

Please note that we are really very pleased to see you. Here are some points for you to think about.

First, entry as a citizen into the United Kingdom is a privilege and not a right.

The UK is our home, it is not a hotel.

Our nation’s culture has been developed over many centuries, and it has emerged – bloodstained – from many ghastly struggles, trials and tribulations along the way. Brave men and women have selflessly fought for our freedoms over the centuries, and much blood and treasure have been spent in learning painful lessons. For example, we have learned the hard way how to be a peaceful society, and how to be good British citizens, friends and neighbours. So please respect our ways. And take note: Sharia Law is not recognised in any part of the UK and it never will be.

We speak English… We do not speak Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, French or any other language. Therefore if you want to become a fruitful member of our society, please take the trouble to learn the language – or kindly leave.

Most of the people in the UK, however vaguely, believe in a Christian God; our nation’s structures and institutions are founded on Christian principles and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to parade the essence of our Christian inheritance on the walls of our schools and universities. If this offends you, I suggest you consider making another part of the world your home, because our Christian inheritance is part of our DNA.

We are a very tolerant society: we will accept your beliefs – provided of course they do not involve breaking our laws. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live with us in harmony and peace.

We are proud of our history and indeed our colonial past. We accept that like all human constructs, our empire wasn’t perfect – it was a mixture of good and not so good. But if you want to vociferously protest and march against our history and culture, or criticise our heroes, please do so somewhere else.

We expect you to be law abiding. Kindly note that if you prove to be a serial law breaker, you will run the real risk of being sent back from whence you came.

This is our country, our land and our lifestyle. We will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this as we warmly welcome you. But if you are one of those who want to complain and moan about our way of life, our culture, our religion or our proud history, I encourage you to take advantage of one of our great liberties, namely “The Right to Leave.”

You are most welcome in this country – but you really will need to accept us warts and all!

Yours sincerely,

Prime Minister

Another miserable day marching from somewhere called Drax to Norton trying to wade through rights of way now turned into a jungle by neglectful landowners and councils. Okay, why bother to make these paths walkable? I suppose judging from their vast size that the locals never walk. They must spend their time lolling in front of their tellies eating pan fried Mars bars. Sorry about that but it’s true. The NHS will sink soon in a welter of worn out hip joints, cases of diabetes and heart attacks; everyone saw this health tsunami coming but we did more or less nothing about it.

Like the “where the sod are we bird” Jane and I go round and round in ever decreasing circles.  I expect to find myself jammed up my own backside at any moment. Seriously after trying to find the track we end up in the garden of a rich farmer’s hideously red  house and find ourselves faced by two enormous “sod off” gates with no visible means of leaving the darned place. We had to retrace our steps and we had  a further mile added to our tally.

Poor George Carey. Such a good man too. I know him from way back and I like him. It must be so galling to find yourself caught out like that after so many years. George made his judgments – pre the ghastly Savile rows –  in 1990. Author LP Hartley wrote: “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. Quite so. George is being judged in hindsight by 2017 rules, our having learned a few things along the way. I will write to him when I get back. I learned a while ago that when a friend is in trouble always ring or write or visit. Don’t hesitate, just do it.

Happy Person Here!

I wish I had a happy face! But even when I am feeling on top of the world, in quiet repose my face just looks grumpy. People ask me, “What on earth’s wrong?” But when I say, “I’m feeling just fine thank you,” they back away looking bemused. I know lots of mouldy people whose faces look happy. It’s most unfair.

What makes us happy? It has to be more than a warm puppy. It’s not that man doesn’t try to be happy. We put prodigious effort into the search, but like the end of the rainbow, the goal appears elusive.

Futile Pursuit

French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote about man’s great experiment: simply to prove that chasing after money, sex and power would lead to happiness. For countless years, he wrote, man (and of course women too) has tried to make the experiment work – but it always results in failure.

In any other scientific field, this ridiculous experiment would have been junked years ago. But generation after generation tries to make it work all over again.

Of course, money doesn’t bring happiness – in fact quite the reverse is true. It took me years to learn that lesson, but it is now firmly embedded in my skull.

Do people really change? Rarely. Once a philanderer always a philanderer, and the same is true of a liar. Was Monica Lewinsky a one-off conquest for Bill Clinton? Well how credulous can you get?

Vital Ingredients

Freud thought that work and love are essential to happiness. Noel Coward wrote that working was more fun than fun, and I like that. I wrote in an earlier blog that every man needs a maiden to woo, a battle to fight and a cause bigger than himself to live for, and that’s a useful starting point.

Good health is important to the state of happiness, but I have met people who, although permanently bedridden, appeared to live thoroughly fulfilling lives despite all their ghastly drawbacks. Being reasonably attractive helps as people are inclined to be warm towards you. But extreme beauty can be a drawback. The poet Yeats wrote in his poem “Prayer for my Daughter” that he hoped God would give her beauty but not “…such beauty that makes a stranger’s eyes distraught.” The wrong sort of beauty destroyed Marylyn Monroe and countless others besides.

I once employed a woman with an incredibly beautiful face and body. Men immediately thought that she was “up for it” and so would leer at her at every opportunity. However, in character she was as pure as any woman I have ever met, and she hated the looks and inevitable groping she attracted.

Apparently statistics indicate that first-born children have a tendency to happiness, as do children with two parents at home, and men who are married. People can be happy fighting in war because there is the band-of-brothers element, a strong sense of common purpose and the feeling that they are involved in something useful and bigger than themselves. Often those engaged in war are testing themselves. That seems to be important too. And note that happy people are rarely gloomily sitting on a “Lazee-boy” sofa watching daytime TV. They are usually involved in some ongoing interchange with life, however inconsequential that may look at first sight.

Happy people often have work that is a love affair, a passion. Teachers can be like that, and so are vicars. And, of course, actors – you have to be in love with the stage to put up with the insecurity and the rotten money. You can’t accuse anyone engaged in these difficult professions that they are doing it to get rich. But if you actually enjoy your work then you are profoundly lucky, for a passion can see us through the dark periods in life.

Finding your inner leaf

Oh yes, and I read somewhere that we all have to be a “leaf on a tree.” We should be individuals with a sense that we really matter, yet at the same time we need to be part of something bigger than ourselves – a family, a community, a regiment, a hospital, a theatre group, a political party… A leaf that has fallen off a tree has the advantage that it can float around a bit; but then it becomes disconnected, decays and dies. Far better to be an evergreen leaf that hangs on!

It seems that the people who are best protected from anger and heart disease are those who are socially involved. They are socially attractive because they are not introverted – they are the ones asking the questions and they want to know about other people’s lives. If you are complicated or socially needy, people will choose to avoid you. It’s best to avoid introspection – so ask others about themselves, and stop talking about yourself all the time!

Next, embrace change. I’m not suggesting you should move house every second year but have enough change in your life to keep things interesting. Boat rocking can be good for our health while uniformity is a great threat to happiness – so don’t “take care”, instead “take a risk”.

Live for the moment. Focus on the things that you want to do, and then get on and do them (if you reckon they’re worthwhile). If gardening is a pleasure, then garden away. Spend less time working on the family finances, talk to friends and family, and listen to the opera (if that is the thing that floats your boat).

Then audit your happiness. Why do things that make you unhappy? And if you are happy, then tell your face and keep on smiling at others – for it transmits a signal: “Happy person here!” If you feel negative, just tell yourself that you have to be positive.

Act, play the part, listen to Julie Andrews: “Whistle a little tune” and then put on a happy face. If you are feeling miserable, tell yourself to feel happy instead: that in itself can trigger a change in how we feel. A wise old preacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones, once said that one of the greatest tragedies is to say of someone: “He was born a man yet he died a doctor.”  This means don’t let your career eat you alive so you lose your humanity: you are a human being, not a human doing. I know retired headmasters, senior civil servants and generals, and some seem to be stuck like chicken in aspic, stuck where they used to be. It’s essential to be able to reinvent yourself.

Wheat Fields

After George Osborne was introduced on the Andrew Marr show as the MP for Schadenfreude North, he told viewers that Theresa May had boasted that the worst thing she had ever done was to “run through a wheat field.”

As George glanced down to look at the election results, he commented, “Well, she won’t be able to say that anymore, will she?”

A long walk from Yokefleet to Drax, which I was excitedly told houses the biggest power station in England – although what you are meant to do with that sort of information beats me. A dreary place mouldering under indifferent countryside, set off with dirty sheet skies, all accompanied by an intermittent drizzle; the mix matched my mood to a tee. Whose daft idea is this sodding route? Jane was bustling along and as usual issued me with a string of breezy exhortations: ” Come on, Tom, please cheer up for Heaven’s sake and stop being so totally dreary,” Some hope.

Kind hosts last night in Pocklington who kindly made a picnic for us. As it was belting with rain we ate it in the car. Nothing like misted windows, farmyard smells and slanting rain to raise the appetite.

In deep thought all day about the ghastly spot dear Theresa has managed to paint herself into. Poor woman. What a dreadful job she now has. She is surrounded by critics and by people who call themselves friends but who want to ruin her and probably will.

Group Therapy

 I have commented before on the intrusive way the media tries to probe our emotions to enable its readers and viewers to indulge in some recreational grief. It’s a sort of emotional pornography.

“Mrs Peabody,” they ask with a camera up close: “What exactly was your reaction when you heard that your daughter had been killed by a mad axeman?” This is a line of questioning that always makes me want to reach for the sick bag. I always want someone to answer, “Mind your own sodding business!” – but they never do. The media and the public are hungry for emotional outpouring, so why indulge this appetite?

Westminster Weeping

The escalation of our national emotional incontinence became apparent late last year when there was a debate in the Commons about women losing a child in infancy. Some MPs were apparently weeping and others joined in with their sad stories, as if the debate was some sort of group therapy. Is that what the House of Commons is for? Can you imagine the Iron Lady doing such a thing, or the late Barbara Castle, or Theresa May for that matter?

Infant death was a commonplace in previous centuries through poor medical treatment; and then, of course, young sons were slaughtered on an industrial scale in war, and the pulling down of blinds was ubiquitous. These generations had to face their heartbreaks with a considerable degree of stoicism because sadness was everywhere. The prevailing mood was just to get on with it, keep your upper lip stiff, then grin and remember the Sir Harry Lauder’s song: “Keep right on till the end of the road”. (Lauder’s son was killed in the First World War).

You can still see this today, but it is becoming uncommon. When my friend Daily Telegraph columnist Cassandra Jardine sadly died, her actor husband performed on stage that very night. He knew that was what she would have wanted. He didn’t weep on stage and ask for pity: he just did his job. And when home secretary Amber Rudd’s father died, just three days later she appeared on the election leader’s debate on television. Good for her, I’m sure that’s just what her father would have wanted.

Keep Calm and Carry On

There was a time when emotional restraint was considered to be a high form of courage. I think that this general need for public acknowledgement of distress weakens respect.

Reader, we have all had ghastly problems to live with, haven’t we?  However, as Bear Grylls recently said, “When life kicks the shit out of us all, we have to get on with it for Buddha’s ‘Life is Suffering’ is a hole in one.” So when the shit hits our particular fan, we can either give way to despair and self-pity, or we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start all over again.

Would we rate our Police Chief, Commissioner Cressida Dick, more highly and sleep better in bed at night if we knew the detail of her heartbreaks? (I should add I know nothing of the good lady, all I am saying is we all have our miseries and failures, even she).

Would we feel more secure and respect our generals and admirals – those who are charged with the onerous task of our national security and the protection of our country – more highly if they were seen weeping over the ghastly scenes of carnage and horror in Afghanistan or Syria. Or would we feel less safe?

I would much prefer Theresa May to be tough, gimlet-eyed and unemotional as she negotiates the Brexit road ahead than weeping with stress in Number 10 and asking us to feel her pain. And emotional continence should not be mixed up with a ruthless determination to show the people she is on their side. It’s plain sad she seems unable to do this naturally. Churchill mixed with the crowds during the Blitz as did the royal family. Shyness and caution may cost Theresa her job.

Virtue Signalling

Emotional outpouring was given astonishing momentum at the time of the faux grief expressed when Princess Diana died. I never understood who the weeping donors thought would benefit from their tons of flowers (other than florists and manufacturers of cellophane), for Diana – like Old Marley from A Christmas Carol – was as dead as a doornail.

For a while, the poor Queen was under considerable pressure for not demonstrating that she “cared” enough to satisfy the public’s taste for weeping and the rending of garments. She was obliged to leave Balmoral for London, and make a broadcast to confirm that she did indeed “care”. It’s beyond conceit, of course, for the public to assume to know how someone feels, but’s that’s exactly what happened. Once upon a time, you were once considered to be a good person if you acted honourably according to generally accepted codes of conduct. But today all this has collapsed in favour of individual expression and “feelings”; the public demonstration of suffering becomes necessary as a badge of honour, as it makes a person morally untouchable.

The audience signals its virtue by displaying compassion towards suffering people  – “I feel your pain” – to show how warm and kind they are. Anyone who says this is sentimental and self-indulgent hogwash is accused of being unkind and unfeeling.

Slippery Slope

The young Royals seem to want to try and rebrand the monarchy and let emotion spill out. They seem much more like their mother and father in this respect than their grandparents. It was Charles who, like a big girl’s blouse, began to moan to the press about the way the media was making his life difficult “under the burdens of great privilege.” And can you ever forget Diana endlessly blethering on about depression, bulimia and her emotional longings?

Today William, Kate and Harry appear to have forgotten the words of Walter Bagehot who warned, “not to let daylight in upon magic.” That means preserving the mystery of the monarchy. I read that Prince Harry was pictured kissing his girlfriend Meghan Markle at a polo match: “The first public snog!” screamed the headlines. Then Kate was pictured topless in some foreign magazine, and both Harry and William decided to talk publicly about the pain of their mother’s death. On top of that, they set up “Heads Together” where they all sat on a beach and pretended to talk as normal human beings. They claimed it’s not about them, they were speaking to help others: but there is a lot of virtue signalling going on there, and it was all about them really wasn’t it?

Is all this wise? I think not. Apparently the Palace didn’t approve and the young Royals were told to stop emoting in public. Can you see the Duke of Edinburgh parading his heart on his sleeve, or the Queen?  And have they been successful custodians of the Monarchy or not these past 60 years?  The Queen knows she is hugely popular partly because she doesn’t go on about what is in her head. Nor does the Duke. Can you imagine his retort if he were asked how he felt when Mountbatten was assassinated or when his children got divorced?

The Queen and the Duke are wise old birds and they know instinctively that the public don’t want the Royals to be too familiar. The Queen and the Dukes’ reticence should be copied. If the young Royals go on sharing their pain with us and seeking sympathy, then one fine day, the capricious public will suddenly grow tired… Talk of slinging them out will slowly begin in the very newspapers that have been exploiting them by parading their pain, and pictures of wannabe President John Prescott or Diane Abbot will suddenly swim grinning into focus before our appalled eyes.

The Tale of Two Cities

Yesterday we walked through Hull past the magnificent Humber Bridge which was wrapped in early morning mist. We walked the line of the old docks and read some history. I had no idea of the key role played by Hull and Liverpool between 1836-1914 as gateway to 2.2m European emigrants fleeing religious turmoil and grinding hardship as they fled to the the New World. They arrived in Hull then to Liverpool to the ship that took them terrified but hopeful to the States. These people were the original “huddled masses yearning to be free.”

We lunched in Ferriby and saw the outlines of two 4,000 year old ships, the oldest vessels ever to sail our coasts.

Two helpful cops were wondering if we are bonkers by telling them we are walking to Liverpool. “It’s a long way you know,” said one hesitatingly checking if we were out on day release. I reassured him we know what we are  doing. I don’t think he believed me.

I asked them if they had read Senior policeman John Sutherland’s excellent book “Blue: Keeping the Peace While Falling to Pieces.” John suggested that police do such a difficult job that we should thank them. I did so. He looked even more astonished as he drove off.

The Great Divide

I am well aware that the subject of Brexit leads to argument and ill feeling, which is why I am still not going to say how I voted. I found the choice conflicting and my family divided. There were clearly arguments to be made on either side of the fence, and at the time I wished that Cameron hadn’t called a referendum at all.  However, now that we are Brexit-bound, we had just better get on with it.

The next couple of years aren’t going to be easy: staying in had problems, and leaving will hurt. I reckon that the EU needed us as much as we needed them. The younger democracies benefited from our wisdom as a nation state and we have the best civil service in the world. That may sound a bit patronising but it’s undeniably true – and now these countries have something of a wisdom deficit. From now on there are bound to be large road bumps ahead for us all; stops and starts, good days and dreadful ones. Buckle your seat belts and hope for the best.

Counting the Plusses

However, the UK has certain things going for it that make me optimistic. First, we are an immensely resilient people; we have faced vast and intractable difficulties in the past and we have always surmounted them – and so will we now. Second, whatever Jean Claude Junker says – and with his gross style, he was hardly a valuable advocate to the remain campaign – the world speaks English. It’s the language of commerce, the arts, diplomacy, international science and sport. English is spoken in the USA, Canada, Australia (after a fashion), New Zealand, in much of Africa and in South America  – and it won’t be replaced by Esperanto anytime soon.

Third, we are sited smack on the most favourable time zone for the rest of the world to do business with. Fourth, people enjoy working in the UK and some even like our weather! We are an immensely stable old democracy and it takes a lot to shiver us to our foundations. Thank goodness, despite the efforts of Heseltine, Blair and Mandelson, we never found ourselves wedged in the Euro – which is headed towards disaster. The reason is that countries are only willing to bail out or subsidise parts of their own country – for example, West Germany made vast capital transfers to East Germany, yet German voters refused point blank to bail out another country in the Eurozone bloc however desperate the need (look at the plight of Greece). Yes, such transfers have to be made. It is only a matter of time before the Euro fails, and when that happens, we will be grateful to be like Macavity… just not there.

And finally, the UK is a basically honest country. If you want to do business, the UK is a top choice, for our courts are incorrupt, and in the main our financial exchanges are well policed and honest. Put it this way, I think I would rather transact business in the UK than in Africa, China, India, South America, Russia, anywhere with “stan” in its name, and many parts of the EU that recently emerged from communism in the 1990s.

Let’s face it, we have plenty of advantages. I am sure we’ll survive somehow – and maybe even prosper.

Total Nonsense

How has such a fully-fledged ass as Alan Wilson become a bishop in the Church of England? I heard him in the box recently, talking about the row in the early 1980s caused by John Smyth QC – who was accused of causing grievous bodily harm to a number of Christian youths by flogging them unmercifully. At the same time, Smyth was apparently involved in an evangelical group responsible for teaching the gospel to mainly young men.

I have never met Smyth or attended the camps, but at least 3,000 young men attended and many progressed to serve the Anglican Church. Among their number was the great John Stott, Canon John Collins, Canon David MacInnes, Canon David Cook and many other holy men.

There is no doubt that the teaching was gospel-based and fundamental to the success of their subsequent ministry.

Bishop Wilson claims that the non-liberal teaching taught in the camp in some way spurred Smyth to behave as he did. What total nonsense. Smyth is obviously a one-off weirdo. Let’s hope he will be extradited from South Africa, where he now lives, tried, and jailed. But does Bishop Wilson honestly believe that over the years, there have been no sexual crimes committed by liberal vicars? And if he does believe this, when will he be certified?

Well it’s a roasting day for walking from Hull to Liverpool and it’s best not to think of the distance. I hum the Harry Lauder theme tune as I walk: “Keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end, though you’re tired and weary still travel on etc”. Lauder lost a son in WW1 – the war that has been long been lost to memory: everyone who fought in it has long since died. Poor Lauder never really recovered from his loss. Of course none of us would, I think it would be like losing a limb. Another forgotten war and forgotten warriors.

The Forgotten Legion

We are walking for the benefit of the forgotten people of Zimbabwe, the poorest of the poor living in a sad country whose troubles the UK wants to forget about. But ZANE is in business to ensure that they are not forgotten. These brave people must be allowed to live out their lives in some dignity, especially members of the Forgotten Legion. These are the old soldiers who fought in old wars such as Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Aden and they are living on a meal a day with no medical cover whatsoever. There are still a few like the Duke of Edinburgh who fought in WW2 but they are increasingly few left now. But today’s young are obsessed with Facebook and social media and they read no history, or anything much for that matter. So perhaps someone should remind them whether they are aware of this or not, that their comfortable lives rest on the shoulders of those who lived and served before they were born. These are the old warriors who have made our lives today a little bit more peaceful and better than they otherwise would have been. If that duty falls to me and Jane and our dog, Moses, then perhaps that’s a worthwhile cause to walk for.

The View That Dares Not Speak Its Name

I watched Tim Farron of the Lib Dems struggle with the Inquisition about whether he believed “gay sex” was sinful? Not the tendency to homosexuality –easy to answer – but homosexual sex acts, red in tooth and claw.

Tim has now resigned as leader on grounds that it is no longer possible for practising Christians to head up political parties in the UK. He is a brave and principled man. He was caught by a crew of sanctimonious journalists who hounded him from office. There was no escape; if he answered “incorrectly” in the eyes of the liberal media, it was obvious it would be Good Night Sweet Prince for his career and damaging for his party too.

The question of whether homosexual sex acts are sinful or not has snowed up the CoE for many years and as it wearily tries to shovel itself to freedom, it finds it’s digging in ever decreasing circles. Who knows when or if the Church will ever emerge from the drifts. Poor old Farron wrestled with his questioners for months. Apparently he’s a committed Christian, a serious man and we all know what the Good Book says, don’t we just. At first, he probably hoped that by keeping shtum, the questioners would go away. But then it must have dawned on him that our country is in the grip of an all-powerful metropolitan liberal elite in sole charge of the snide newspaper columns and shrieking headlines that dominate our society.

Theresa May agreed the same thing on the Andrew Marr Show. I don’t know whether anyone bothered to ask Jeremy Corbyn, but perhaps we know that the only act he considers truly sinful is to vote Tory – meaning no one bothered to pop him the question.

Damned If You Do…

Now personally I am tired of the gay subject that has consumed so much of the time and energy of the CoE over past years, and has generated so much ill feeling. I wish we could move on, but round we go. And no! I am not going to give my personal view. Perhaps you’d be surprised by what I think – but either way I’d offend at least half of ZANE’s donors, so I might as well keep my own counsel.

However, I am exercised by the thought police who demand that everyone must have the same opinion, and if you don’t agree you’re forever damned as bigot meat. This is neither liberal or democratic, so poor old Tim. But the liberal consensus questioners appear to be cowards. Why don’t they ask the same question to Muslim politicians?

A glance at the Muslim website indicates a hard line. According to “JustAskIslam” for example, homosexuality is a crime against man’s sexuality (no space is given for women’s views). Homosexual acts are therefore to be punished by either 100 whip lashes for the unmarried or death by stoning for the married. Occasionally for hardliners, Sharia law states that death should be for both partners. What does the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan think?

For all I know, at least half of public opinion may be out of tune with the liberal consensus on gay sex. I think that today many practising Catholics would be unhappy that the debate appears to have been stolen by the liberal elite. They will be joined by many members of most of the Christian churches and many in the Jewish and Muslim communities too. Perhaps there are many secular humanists who don’t support the liberal consensus either? However, no one dares speak out because who wants to be targeted as a bigot, and lose preferment at work or even their job?

It’s surely odd that the archbishops of our established Church have decided to sit on their mitres and perhaps brood about the agenda of the next Lambeth Conference instead of supporting the rights of elected politicians to hold private views without being given the ghastly Star Chamber treatment.

Perhaps our church leaders think it’s prudent not to challenge the liberal consensus. But of course we must remember that Jesus rarely spoke his mind in case he embarrassed the Pharisees… or maybe I’ve got that wrong?

One “I”

Author Joseph Connolly was at a book signing at Hatchards, and after the first hundred customers or so, was looking forward to his lunch. Growing bored, he went on autopilot, and signed away without looking up at the queue of book owners who came for a scribble.

“To whom am I inscribing it?” he asked one man who identified himself as Ian.

“Is that one “I” or two?” Connolly asked.

There was a stony silence until eventually Connolly looked up.

“The guy only had one eye,” Connolly later said.