Pravda!

'2 killed as Koreas exchange live fire'

- headline in the Morning Star. It's reassuring to see that some things never change.

Suspended by the chasubles

So the Right Reverend David Spart, Bishop of Neasden, has been suspended. Quite right, too, and I trust the incandescent +London has selected a suitably sensitive part of the anatomy to suspend this prize twerp by.

I had a long republican phase and am still by no means an ardent monarchist, though my respect for the Queen is considerable. I hope, however, that even as a Trot I would not have been quite mean-spirited enough to derive satisfaction from predicting the demise of somebody else's marriage before it had started.

What's not to dislike about Bishop Spart's remarks? I don't know which is worse, the smug schadenfreude or the no less smug assumption that he can be an outspoken red republican whilst simultaneously holding high office in an institution headed by the Queen.

Says Spart:-

“I think we need a party in Calais for all good republicans who can't stand the nauseating tosh that surrounds this event.

“I managed to avoid the last disaster in slow motion between Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll, and hope to avoid this one too.”

Well, I avoided it too. I spent an agreeable day with my comrades in Boulogne (note to Bishop Spart: nicer than Calais). As I recall, the local Communists laid on some kind of reception, but apart from them and the lefties from across La Manche practically nobody was out and about. Royalty addicts are nowhere thicker on the ground than in Europe's republics.

That was of course nearly thirty years ago. One would hope that having done a certain amount of growing up in the meantime would be an indispensdable qualification for a bishop - even the Bishop of Neasden.

And then he invaded Belgium...

Inevitably much instantly forgettable comment on The Engagement, but I did enjoy this slice of history from Christopher Howse:-

'The service, in St George’s Chapel, was full of copes, scarlet robes, ermine, silver trumpets, tabards, choirs and quizzing-glasses. But it was something of a shambles. The Garter Knights became entangled in a mêlée, Disraeli had to sit on his wife’s lap on the train back, and the four-year-old future Kaiser threw his jewelled dirk across the chapel in a tantrum, biting the leg of one of Bertie’s brothers when told off.'

Prophetic, did they but know. Bertie, the bridegroom, was the future Edward VII, and let's hope that William proves to be husband material of rather better quality than him.

Islamophobia (the real thing)

As ever. Just the kind of story to make you feel extra good about our civic duty to hand out passports to hate preachers.

Unbeliever On Board

Just walked past a car with a sticker in the back window declaring "ATHEIST" in big red letters. I just find this such a strange thing to do. What message is it meant to convey? That the owner considers himself (and I dare say it is a he) a better person than those of us who believe in fairy stories? Or a happier one? What, then, should I do with this information? Sorry, but I can't just decide to stop believing.

I could understand if it was saying "if you're one too you're not alone". But why, then, does the sticker also feature a fish logo cancelled by a diagonal red bar? It is not enough for our atheist to declare his own belief in nothing, he feels the need to point to somebody else's belief and actively reject it. What for?

And why, if you're going to do that, pick on the fish? I'm not the kind of Christian who puts a fish logo on his car, and not only because I don't own a car. For me those fish have always had a faint whiff of the Masonic handshake about them. But in point of fact I don't know of any actual harm attaching to them whatsoever. So in what way does our atheist feel that fishy types have got it in for him? It can't be, surely, that he suspects them of wanting to blow up a Tube train while he's inside it.

Or even of being liable to scratch his paintwork or let his tyres down. And that's the real irony, isn't it? The sticker suggests both a theoretical belief that Christianity is the root of all evil and a complacent assumption in practice that Christians are utterly harmless. I suppose as a Christian I should feel flattered that we're seen as such safe enemies to have. But I must confess to a degree of irritation.

Coincidentally, when I came home from my walk I started leafing through the Catholic Herald and came across their Thought for the Week:-

'If there were no God, there would be no atheists'
(G K Chesterton - of course)

If I ever do acquire a motor I'll be very tempted to put that in the back window, anticipating many stimulating conversations. Atheists are, after all, mostly harmless.

Waitrose don't preach

For a blogger of my stripe there is practically endless material to be found in food packaging. I've been meaning for ages to devote a post to the Co-op's instructions for preparing a carrot for consumption.

The other day Frau Grumpy brought home a bag of Waitrose potatoes adorned with the slogan "Grown with care by farmers who share our values". This really must not be allowed to pass without comment.

Let me first put before you the image of a gaggle of Fenland farmers being examined in their catechism by the local Waitrose buyer. Diverting, is it not?

Then let me suggest that Waitrose have clearly determined that our appetite for corporate sanctimony is so insatiable that we will tolerate it even when it is utterly, 500% vacuous. For these are not even organic potatoes. They are the ordinary, bog standard variety (indeed, since they come from Curmudgeshire it is very likely that they were grown in a former bog).

Our newly rediscovered compulsion to be preached at is, you might suppose, good news for the churches. Well, perhaps, but they will surely blow their chance if, as all too often seems to be the case, they confine themselves to preaching about exactly the same things as Waitrose. It's a contest they are unlikely to win. Just before the Papal Visit I was vastly entertained by a Catholic Herald piece penned by a chap of liberal leanings who'd decided there must be some good in the old boy after all on learning that he has had solar panels installed on the Vatican roof. Parody is redundant.

A final thought: with the Equality Act now in force, are Waitrose not skating on thin ice? I foresee an action brought by potato farmers who are ******ed if they're going to parrot the Waitrose creed and don't see why they should be discriminated against...

A warm welcome to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

At least that's what I call him. What Stephen Fry and friends call him is "Pope Ratzinger".

Isn't the oafishness of that the most revealing moment in their letter? It reminds me of nothing so much as the Koran-burning antics of Pastor Terry Jones. The same gratuitous bad manners, betraying the same inability to deal on a human level with the existence of persons who sincerely hold different beliefs from oneself - in a word, intolerance.

Unlike Jones, though, Fry and Co. are members of a cultural and intellectual elite who have no excuse for ignorance. Also unlike him, they have not and will not trigger a frantic damage-limitation exercise. They will not need to lose any sleep over the possible consequences of sticking two fingers up at a billion Catholics.


Well, it ought to have at least one consequence. The ayatollahs of secular liberalism have it in for all Christians who are not prepared to swallow their agenda whole; the Pope is just a particularly potent symbol. Deo volente I'll be in the West End tomorrow evening to wave to him, and I hope to have plenty of non-Catholics for company.

NO POPERY: a liberal fatwa

With the round robin letter published in today's Guardian, the anti-Pope campaign cranks up to a shrill crescendo (I'm sure there's worse to come over the next few days, though). That not just the likes of Stephen Fry and Johann Hari but so many of the Great and the Good have deemed it worthy of their signatures is a depressing commentary on the state of intellectual life in Britain.

Practically every sentence cries out for fisking, but I'll be selective.

Among the misdeeds laid at B16's door is...

'Opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of Aids.'

So if you come from a large family in a poor country, you can rejoice in the knowledge that all these movers and shakers consider you surplus to requirements.

Here, of course, we have plenty of condoms and plenty of Aids. Is it too much to ask for just a little humility from the ayatollahs of secular liberalism?

Another grievance, and a decidedly bizarre one:-

'In any case, we reject the masquerading of the Holy See as a state and the pope as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to amplify the international influence of the Vatican.'

Riiight. So how, exactly, do we identify proper states? By the blushing diffidence with which they surrender any claims to international influence?

This one goes without saying:-

'Failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation.'

Now because this is a debate in which no benefit of the doubt is ever extended to anyone who speaks up for the Pope, let me say at once that this is a serious matter which has been dreadfully mishandled by the Church. However, the accusation that he has failed to address it is simply untrue.

And let us take a look at the glass house from which the stones pour forth. Did I mention that Peter Tatchell is one of the signatories? Did I need to? In fact I strongly suspect that the wording is his. Now in 2008 Mr Tatchell had an article published in an Irish paper in which he argued that the law should allow adults to have sexual access to fourteen year olds. As he points out in the article, this is an issue on which he has campaigned since the 1990s. In 1997 the following appeared in a letter to the Guardian from Tatchell (at least Peter Hitchens says it was a letter, I remember it as an article):-

'The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy.

'While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.'

I'd really like to see some of the Professors, Baronesses and Lords who have signed the round robin letter confronted with this quote and asked to defend their association with its author in a campaign ostensibly motivated by concern over child abuse. If this happens on the BBC or Channel 4 (which recently screened a hatchet job on the Pope fronted by... Peter Tatchell) I'll eat my hat. Mr Tatchell is Teflon Man incarnate.

Doubtless the Professors, Baronesses and Lords would, if put on the spot, counter by asking what this has to do with children being raped by priests. But that would be sophistry. The roll of shame of priestly rapes (and however much exaggeration of the figures has gone on the real ones are shocking enough) includes every case where a child was subjected to penetrative sex. Consent is irrelevant since the law deems children incapable of giving it.

Change the law, though, and you convert large numbers of priests from abusers to legal lovers. For example, in one of the US cases which was talked up in the hope (I use the word 100% advisedly) that the Pope could be incriminated, one of the victims recalled that he hadn't liked to say no because the priest was such a nice guy. Well, consent is consent. Plenty of adult sex happens on the same basis. Of course he had subsequently regretted it, but you can't have it both ways. If consent is valid you can't allow those who have given it to retrospectively cry "rape".

I would not dream of suggesting that Peter Tatchell has ever had nefarious designs on fourteen year olds. If he had, though, he could hardly have supplied himself with a more perfectly self-serving argument than this one (from the Irish Independent piece):-

'This sexual disempowerment of young people [by an age of consent set at 17 in Ireland] plays into the hands of adults who want to abuse them. Guilt and shame about sex also increase the likelihood of molestation by encouraging the furtiveness and secrecy on which abuse thrives.

'One way to protect young people against unwanted sexual advances is by promoting sex-affirmative attitudes which challenge the idea that sex is something sordid, and by empowering teenagers to stand up for their sexual rights. Sexually informed and confident youngsters are more likely to resist sexual exploitation.'

So the way to protect kids from abuse is by redefining it so that adults who succeed in persuading them that they want sex aren't guilty of it at all.

Sexual empowerment is for adults. Children have one sexual right and it is the right to be protected from sex. Blur that distinction and you start sliding towards the rationalizations of the paedophile in denial.

To sum up: I'm not the only person who remembers reading the Guardian in 1997. You can bet that 80-90% of the signatories to the letter did. If the campaign against the Papal Visit was really about protecting children, they'd have quietly ensured Peter Tatchell wasn't invited to sign. My suggestion is that they didn't because it isn't.

I have more on the letter but this is already a longish post. Another to follow, time permitting.

The rules for them and the rules for us

A senior Islamic cleric is about to pay Britain a visit, so the BBC marks the event by polling British Muslims on whether their faith has been shaken by the scale of Islamist terrorism. You can just see it, can't you?

Nein, danke!

What have I done to deserve this? Here's the latest offering that amazon.de is trying to interest me in:-

Can't help feeling the title comes over as ever so slightly sinister in German. That and the author's choice of shirt colour...