Recently, the discussion of opera came my way and I found that as attractive a proposition as it seemed there was an inherent constraint holding me back from being remotely interested in it. As a man more accustomed to the format of Match of the Day, than the great works of Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Britten it led me to think that there is still a great stigma, and a cultural deficit that is present in [...]
The issue of gay marriage has again reared its head in recent days, with the leaders of the Anglican and Catholic Churches in Britain announcing their united opposition to plans by both the Scottish and UK governments to use legislation to force Churches to carry out same-sex marriages. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric, has been especially scathing, bizarrely comparing gay marriage to slavery and claiming that Britain would be “shamed in [...]
In recent years there has been a significant trend in asking people in the public eye their opinions and ideas on a variety of topics no matter what their actual knowledge of the subject is or their life experience. The classic, but trivial example of this was last year when any and all celebrities interviewed by the British media were asked about the Royal Wedding, even though it was of little or no relevance to [...]
The recent controversy over prayers being on the agenda of a council meeting has brought into sharp focus the role of religion, specifically Christianity, in Britain, and whether in a modern multi-cultural society it has a place in public life. Secularists and atheists have taken the decision of the judge in the case of the council prayers to be a step along the road to separating religion and the Church from public life. Others have [...]
One of Labour’s favourite lines of attack on the present government is that it consists of predominantly middle-aged, relatively rich white men, and therefore they have little or no real understanding of reality. While it is undoubtedly true that the Coalition government does contain an unrepresentatively large number of rich and privileged individuals, this argument – when deployed by Labour – is entirely hypocritical, because almost all of the higher echelons of that Party share [...]
This post was going to be a short riposte to Schrader (Why incest is still the ultimate taboo and should remain so), but as my thinking developed I decided to put together a longer item. This post is both a critique of Schrader’s view and an exposition of an alternative; the first part directly addresses the Schrader position on the family, whilst the second part rises to the challenge that Schrader sets, even though I [...]
Although civil partnerships for homosexuals have been available since the 2004 Civil Partnership Act, there has been a feeling amongst gays and others, that it it falls short of being equal to marriage in some way. The Scots have just completed an extensive consultation on the matter, David Cameron has endorsed the idea of gay marriage at last year’s party conference and in an age of equality it seems reasonable that marriage should be available [...]
“‘Life is so unfair and its all the government’s fault, along with big business and bourgeois opression”. Do you think the idea has crossed the mind of the Occupy protesters that perhaps if they had spent the last few months in the Job Centre or handing out CVs then life wouldn’t be quite so unfair? I walk past the site of Occupy Nottingham every day and it makes me angry. Looking out over their sea [...]
Nadine Dorries MP has been left “extremely frustrated” again. The Tory MP for Mid-Bedfordshire’s controversial Sex Education (Required Content) Bill failed to get a Second Reading in the House of Commons last week. The 10-Minute Rule Bill would have forced schools to give young girls information and advice on abstinence from sexual activity. Alas, it did not even make it onto the Order Paper and Friday was the final day in the parliamentary calendar for [...]
No sector of the government spends more of taxpayers money than the Department of Work and Pensions, and as the House of Lords debates the proposed changes to the Welfare Programme it’s important to make it clear that cuts are necessary and vital to not only our economy but to British Culture; benefits must become ‘a hand up, not a hand out’. In terms of unemployment benefit the best proposal I’ve heard in a long [...]