The “Assisted Dying” (Terminally Ill Adults- End of Life) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons at the end of November, 330 votes in favour, 275 against. But without adequate debate and amendment to provide safeguards it is unlikely to become law. Fears of the later widening of the law (as happened…
Category: Discussion
First Thursday November 7th 2024
Daniel chapter 3 tells how Jews in exile were required by the Babylonian king to worship a golden statue he set up, under threat, if they refused, of a “furnace of blazing fire” (verse 6). They reply that “our God” could save them “out of your hand”- but even if not, “we will not serve…
First Thursday, October 3rd 2024
Why has Keir Starmer acquired the epithet “Undertaker”? Perhaps because he has deliberately “buried” elements of Corbynism in the Labour Party, to ensure Labour’s “electability” in our first-past-the-post system. A more representative system could allow for a far more creative political debate, even given the inevitable complications and uncertainties of government by coalition. And any…
September 5th 2024 First Thursday
The Report into the Grenfell Tower disaster was been published. In all twelve volumes of exhaustive detail- Volumes Two and Three give 240 and 194 pages of often harrowing accounts (including photographs) of people’s lives through the fire of 14th June 2017. It is clear that the tragedy was the result of 50 years of…
First Thursday August 1st summary
Politicians need to be careful and take responsibility for the words they use- although some are “careful” enough to provoke a reaction (for example Nigel Farage’s hint that the police were not telling the full story about Southport- did this encourage the English Defence League-led riots?) Riots usually come from disenfranchised groups who see no…
First Thursday July 4th 2024
Our discussion was on the morning of the General Election, after a campaign full of sound-bites, and a legacy of lies. James O’Brien: “How they Broke Britain”; Michael Roberts: “Broken Britain”; Jeffrey Scheuer: “The Sound-bite Society”; Digby Anderson: “Faking it”; Nick Davies: “Flat-Earth News” and a Cardiff University Paper: “Immediacy, Convenience or Engagement? An Analysis…
First Thursday June 6th 2024
Amid all the news of the UK General Election (including Nigel Farage’s late intervention in Clacton), the D-Day 80th Anniversary celebrations, and the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, the Ukraine War continues. In his book “How the West brought War to Ukraine: Understanding how the US and NATO Policies led to Crisis, War and the Risk…
First Thursday, May 2nd 2024
Ilan Pape was a Senior Lecturer at the Middle Eastern History Department and Political Science Department of the University of Haifa, Israel, from 1984 to 2006. Following his endorsement of the boycott of Israeli universities, he left Israel in 2007/8 to work as a Professor at the University of Exeter. His major 2006 work “The…
First Thursday April 4th 2024 summary
Gaza today is reminiscent of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, when the Red Army stood back and allowed the Nazis to massacre the Polish Home Army- today Israel’s “allies” mouth calls for “restraint” while they arm the bombing and slaughter. The UK shares in this with £300 million of parts manufactured in Scotland for US…
First Thursday March 7th 2024
Summary of the discussion In October 1893 the Chicago Evening Post journalist Finley Peter Dunne, in his weekly column, quoted his fictional Mr. Dooley that, “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”. We might say the same of the Church. But we have to recognise that people who…