AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Gothic cathedrals have been having a bad time lately, what with the Notre Dame fire, and now Salisbury Cathedral, which currently has a giant Gaia hanging in the nave. It dominates the view as you come in and is there for the annual festival. Its presence proclaims how the Church of England has forgotten what it exists for, and what the cathedral was built for in the first place. Christianity deals not with the earthly realm but with the heavenly one. The Gaia would have been perfectly in place in the Cathedral Close or even in the cloister, only not inside the cathedral itself. There is not even a scriptural text to set it in its context, such as, ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’, or ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof’, or ‘Heaven and Earth are full of Thy glory’. The Bishop, Dean and Chapter need to think more carefully about what is allowed to take place in their cathedral. Its primary purpose is not as an arts ve...

“Islamophobia” is a dishonest neologism which has been used to shut down discussion of Islam and label critics as racist. There has been discussion of the subject recently, in an attempt to define it, perhaps as a prelude to making it a crime. A phobia is an irrational fear. Christians and Jews have had good reason to fear Islam for the past 1400 years. Mohammed himself was responsible for a notorious atrocity against Jews, Banu Qurayza, when 600 men were beheaded on his orders, and the women and children taken into slavery. Since Islam venerates him as the perfect man, fear of Islam is anything but irrational. Christians and Jews have rarely been well-treated under Muslim regimes. The recent experience of Christians under ISIS is not an exception to the general case; 3 million Greek and Armenian Christians were murdered in Islamic genocides in the 20th century alone. This is not to deny that dislike of Muslims has a racist component, since most Muslims are foreigners with dark skins...

The posters for the Swedish election to the European Parliament have produced the usual crop of platitudinous virtue signalling. For democracy, against division and extremism. (Social Democrats) Our grandchildren come first - every country should take responsibility for the climate (Social Democrats) Take a stand for secure jobs, not pay cuts (Social Democrats) Oil lobbyists versus climate activists (Vänster) Our fight against right-wing populism is needed in Europe (Centre Party) Hope instead of hate (Green Party) Yes! Vote out extremists and nationalists (Liberals) They give the impression that they have been generated by a computer programme.

Apparently, the silence on Christian persecution is due to fear of offending trading partners like Saudi Arabia, not political correctness. So says the Guardian’s Religious correspondent, Andrew Brown. That is an interesting angle. It does not explain why the persecution, which is systematic, is confined to certain countries. There is none in Japan, or Thailand, for example, and there was little in India until recently. Brown manages to avoid naming the principal persecutors and their motivations, which are grounded in their own religious, or stringently non-religious, ideologies. It is amazing the lengths that some people will go to in order not to state the obvious.

It is amazing how an article in the Guardian , reporting the publication of a study about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, fails to mention the M-word. Who do they think is responsible for this persecution?

The Union originated due to the Scottish having lost a vast amount of money in an ill-fated colonial project. It will not break up unless the money settlement works. Scotland in the EU, but England outside it would not work. England is the main source of goods imported to Scotland; they would become more expensive as they would be subject to the EU tariff, which would lead to cross border shopping in places like Newcastle and Carlisle. This in turn would lead to long tailbacks down the A1 and M6, as cars and HGVs waited to clear the EU customs barrier that would go up. There are also issues over who would pay for defence. The Scots would do better to focus on the highly concentrated pattern of land ownership in the country, and to use the freedom that already exists to apply a land value tax. However, Scottish politicians do not seem to be particularly smart or they would not be operating policies such as higher income taxes in Scotland.

My friends live in a house overlooking this lake, about 15 km from Gothenburg. The lake is man-made, having being created by the construction of a dam. A few hundred metres downstream from the outlet is the remains of a mill. Further downstream still, there was yet another mill; the present owner retains the rights to the flow of a certain volume of water. These rights were acquired in the 1920s, when the government (foolishly) gave away water rights in exchange for an undertaking to construct electricity generating facilities. However, this particular facility, is, I am informed, barely functioning, and even if it was, it would make little use of the head of water that is potentially available and is consequently inefficient. In dry weather, as we have had recently, this owner complains of insufficient flow, and water then has to be released from the lake. Prolonged dry weather results in a significant fall in the water level and the exposure of unsightly areas of mud. Loss of...