Category: Books & Articles

Recently there has been plenty of discussion about reviving the UK economy after Covid to create new (and “greener”) jobs, especially to “level up” former “Red Wall” parts of the country, and “Build Back Better”.  One solution gaining interest and scrutiny is Universal Basic Income, through schemes which guarantee everyone enough for their minimum needs….

DEVELOPMENTS IN YEMEN – 2021 One of the first insights into new developments in the Middle East in 2021 and of the foreign policy of the new President Biden, specifically in the area, has come in his announcements on Yemen. As Pierson puts it however, just because the US President says a war has ended,…

the Protestant Churches of Nauen District, Brandenburg      PROTECTING THE CHURCH At the time Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the parishes of the Nauen District were led by Superintendent Grasshof, who had been in post for less than a year.  But two years later ill health forced his retirement, and he was…

the Protestant Churches of Nauen District, Brandenburg    OPPOSITION TO THE GERMAN-CHRISTIANS In the first part of this series we looked at the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power that came from many members and pastors of the Protestant churches of the Nauen District near Berlin, an enthusiasm which persisted with some pastors,…

the Protestant Churches of Nauen District, Brandenburg  Twenty-five miles west of the centre of Berlin, and eleven miles outside its city limits, is the municipality of Nauen, in the Havelland district of Brandenburg, with eighteen thousand people living in the town and its surrounding villages.  Havelland is a mainly farming and not densely populated part…

“How often do you go to the mainland?” asked the Christian Aid Partner from India, on a visit to the UK. It took a moment to realise what he meant. After all, we rarely think of Britain as a small offshore island. More common is the (alleged) 1940s newspaper headline: “Fog in Channel- Continent cut…

From “BLACK AND BRITISH: A FORGOTTEN HISTORY” BY DAVID OLUSOGA, (pages 491-6) In June 1946 the British Cabinet Manpower Working Party determined that in order to meet her post war target, Britain would need 940,000 additional workers. By the end of the year they had raised their estimate to 1,346,000. To help fill this enormous…

…. “and so do white lives”, someone will instantly reply. Of course they do, but the point is that when some lives have been valued less, justice demands action to redress that inequality. We may applaud the present government’s intention to “level up” the North (even if we question its analysis and proposals), and no-one…

The last mailing summarised Thomas Piketty’s account of how we got into our present position. This looks at his final chapter, where he puts forward proposals for a better economy and society in the future. He says: “New forms of social ownership will need to be developed, along with new ways of apportioning voting rights…

My Lent reading this year has been nothing explicitly “religious”: it was Thomas Piketty’s new book “Capitalism and Ideology”, published in French last Autumn and translated into English earlier this year. Though not religious or “spiritual” I would argue that it is at least as theological as some other books I was urged to read….