The Church's Stained Glass Ceiling.

 

That the Church of England announced arguably the most progressive Archbishop appointment to date, and failed to give their blessing to women bishops in almost the same breath, perfectly illustrates the challenges that the institution, and its incoming caretaker Justin Welby, must face.

The current Archbishop of Canterbury told the General Synod that the church had lost “a measure of credibility” with the vote against women bishops, and may appear “wilfully blind” to the priorities of the society it serves. Visibly deflated, and all too aware of how the result would be perceived in a secular society in which the absence of equal opportunity is duly regarded as discrimination, Rowan Williams concluded the Church of England now has “a lot of explaining to do.”

The disenchantment, bordering disbelief, on the faces of the “yes” campaign perhaps requires a little less explanation however than the feelings and philosophy underpinning the apparent aversion to women becoming bishops.

Pete Myers, from the campaign group Together 4ward, penned an article on the Channel 4 News website, in which he outlined his support for the decision. Whilst regretful of “the pain” the outcome had caused, and conceding that women bishops were essentially inevitable, he believes the bible advises otherwise. Like many of a similar opinion, Mr Myers points the finger at the apostle Paul, who wrote in 1 Timothy 2:12; “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.”

That section of scripture certainly does seem to support Mr Myer’s position, however he does not quote the complete sentence. After asserting that a woman should not have authority over a male counterpart in church, Paul goes further, concluding; “she must be quiet.” Now, why, I wonder, did Mr Myer not include that bit? If you want to ignore 2000 years of historical and socio-political context, then why stop at just an ecclesiastical glass ceiling? Paul actually advises that ladies should not only leave the altar duties to the gents, but also keep mum till they’re back in the car park.

In addition, if we are going to play things strictly by the book, then Leviticus 21:5 says; “Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.” That rules out tattoos and skinheads, and any vicar without the full Father Christmas chin warmer! If you can’t have women bishops, then the same goes for clean-shaven clergy, unless of course, you just plucked the scripture to justify a bit of good old fashioned sexism.

Certainly, the vote has been an embarrassment to many in the church, since it was passed by the priesthood, only falling foul of the laity. This army of able assistants occupies an array of non-professional positions in the Church of England, is predominantly female, and yet a fairly modest number of its membership were able to avert the advancement of women up to bishop status, thanks to an alarmingly laughable electoral system.

Personally, I find the entire debacle simply the latest example of the Church of England’s commitment to self-destructive marketing. The Christian faith should be something you could not give away fast enough, but when your PR campaign features celebrity endorsement from Bush and Blair, and the occasional mailshot with unwelcoming messages around abortion and homosexuality, you are making yourselves a pretty hard sell.  

The apostle Paul has indeed been a useful blueprint for many Christian believers, but like all the pioneers of the early church he is refreshing and accessible exactly because he was not perfect. When a religion is more head than heart, people tend to get hurt, and to really get to the heart of any movement, you don’t focus on the followers, but the one they are following. From what I have read, you would be hard pushed to find Jesus advocating church division through segregation of opportunity. Given a room full of people he would make a beeline for the disenfranchised, was moved by compassion not customs and tradition, and considered each case on merit. If there is a PR HQ for the C of E, the way forward might be getting back to basics, more Jesus focused, less jam making and judgemental. He He nnnnnn

Elected Police Commissioners, Expensive Political Codswallop?

As Oscar Wilde deemed democracy as simply “the bludgeoning of the people, for the people, by the people,” I would love to learn his take on the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners. When the people have been passed the baton to decide which other people will hold to account the people who carry the batons, isn’t that just getting too many people involved?

Around 40 million adults in England and Wales are eligible to vote for commissioners in 41 police forces, although, as widely anticipated, at least 70% seem caught up in a wave of national apathy and have not actually bothered to do so. The lowest recorded electoral turnout to date was for the European Elections of 1999, so for those answering former Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair’s rallying cry to veto the vote and stay at home, the number to beat is just 23%. Those of us living in London have a reduced power to protest through non-participation however, as we have no vote to veto, the role being part of Boris Johnson’s in-box as Mayor already.

The stated aim of a Police and Crime Commissioner is not to actually commission crimes, as the title would suggest, but to engage with the public, including victims of crime, and ensure the budget is spent “where it most matters”. Now, the question of what matters most suggests an agenda, and this is where the process becomes regretfully yet predictably political. Only 54 out of the 192 candidates are not actually badge wearing brokers of a particular political persuasion, and these independent hopefuls are even less likely than their rivals to have been heard of beyond their own breakfast tables. So, in most cases, those doing the hiring and firing of the country’s top coppers will have a “where it matters most” position aligned at least in part with their respective party principles, which can hardly help what Sir Hugh Orde, Head of the association of Chief Police Officers, referred to as “inevitable tension” around “the allocation of resources”.  

Whatever eventual reality emerges from the £100 million election, it is unlikely to echo the Prime Minster’s original prescription. Falklands veteran and author Simon Weston, amongst others, pulled out of the process because it was “too political”, and Mr Cameron’s campaign for a “big job for a big local figure” seems destined to be consigned to the Big Society cul-de-sac of good intentions.

My dad entitles any trip to the polling booth as a chance to “exercise his democratic right”, and in some sense every election can be seen a symbolic affirmation of our hard-fought for freedoms. However, by Thursday, a good many of us will have voted on X-Factor, Strictly, and that carry-on up the jungle, not to mention venting pithy opinions via Facebook, text and Twitter, before using up our monthly mobile minutes on a chin-wag with a chum. We are hardly starved of having our say, so leaving hearth and HD TV for a cause few care for, is a box barely any will be ticking.

Encore Obama or Millionaire Mitt?

 

If the bible states it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, then Mitt Romney’s $200 million may not get him past the pearly gates, but his odds look better on the White House.

 

If he were to wake up on Wednesday as the next incumbent of the Oval Office, Governor Romney would become the second richest American President of all time, after George Washington. The first US President’s plentiful prosperity came courtesy of the family business, a wholesome blend of tobacco and slavery, and what he didn’t have by birth, he married into. Whilst slavery seems thankfully absent from the Romney portfolio, tobacco is certainly not. He was CEO of Bain & Co, the consultancy that turned around Marlboro’s flagging fortunes, forcing the price war which repaired the balance sheet of parent company Philip Morris. Who knows, maybe he can do for the world’s biggest economy what he did for one of the world’s biggest killers?

 

Much political capital has naturally been made of the campaign promises on which Obama has yet to deliver. US troops left Iraq, but have yet to fully discharge their duties in Afghanistan. Despite signing an executive order to effect its closure, Guantanamo Bay is still very much open for business. The Democrat dream of health coverage for the uninsured was duly delivered, Osama Bin Laden was caught and killed, but global warming legislation predictably ran into a Republican road-block in the Senate. However, to negate Obama’s achievements is to forget both the depth of the depression he inherited, and the apparent absence of bipartisan potential in Washington. Indeed, warm praise for the President’s efforts in the aftermath of storm Sandy from Republican Governor Chris Christie raised eyebrows on both sides of the Senate.

 

If the Sunday papers were anything to go by, Barack Obama would be a shoe-in for a second term if the ballot was based on this side of the pond. Even right wing newspapers in the UK have not been able to bring themselves to endorse Mitt Romney, preferring to view another four years of Obama as the safest dish on a dodgy menu. Across the Atlantic most states seem to stick to historical allegiances, with the outcome of only the half dozen “swing states” considered genuinely up for grabs. The beleaguered residents of these battlegrounds have therefore been campaigned at to within an inch of their lives by both presidential candidates and their armies of ardent affiliates, and now 24 hours should tell the tale.

 

Barack Obama was elected on the promise of change and a wave of hope that has now admittedly broken. Mitt Romney famously said of fires in aeroplanes that “you can’t find oxygen from outside the aircraft...because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that.” One might say that America would be in better shape if Obama’s actions could have matched his message, but imagine the mess if Romney was given the power to put his reasoning into practice.  

Leveson's recipe for a happy medium?

 

With Lord Leveson’s recommendations increasingly imminent, the Prime Minister kicked off the routine rally of political pre-emptive striking with a warning against pre-judging the findings of his inquiry into the culture, practises and ethics of the press. Undaunted however, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles leapt like a salmon into the fray, swimming upstream against the Downing Street directive, and lending his weight to the anti-legislation lobby by quoting Thomas Jefferson. “For a free society to operate,” he said, “the river of a free press had to flow without restriction,” and as principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson knew a bit about freedom.

However, if Mr Pickles had looked instead to another American heavyweight, Mark Twain, he would have found the former journalist saying of his own profession; “there are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.” No doubt a sentiment with which Hugh Grant, and others on the serrated end of the hacking scandal, would concur.

On the other side of the fence from Eric Pickles, and characteristically not sitting on it, Harriet Harman said the current system of self-regulation had “failed” and advocated the establishment of a “truly independent” body to look into press complaints. After the phone hacking furore, reported payments to police officers and public figures, and the closure of the News of the World amid wider questions over editorial ethics, it is increasingly more difficult to disagree. However, hands up who is “truly independent”?  

Speaking to Andrew Marr earlier this month, David Cameron politely declined an invite to guarantee implementing the Leveson findings in full, prior to their publication, reiterating his desire to maintain a “free press”. The Prime Minister’s warning against “heavy handed state intervention” engendered echoes of the “light touch” regulation rumoured to be in the running. ‘The Australian’ newspaper reported that Lord Justice Leveson was leaning towards the system used in the Irish Republic, with legislation extending solely to the establishment of a new press council, with an ombudsman to address complaints.

Exponents of a “free press” label legislation as a last resort, but surely it’s a large and unlikely leap from press regulation to state media censorship. Self-regulation is almost an oxymoron anyway, some will behave because they feel they should do, but many just because they must. The threat of sanction is a necessary motivation for standards. A civilised society needs a free press, but not at any cost.

What differentiates us from China, apart from population, cuisine, and global economic dominance of course, is the courage of democracy to permit criticism from within. At its best, the media provides an unfettered forum that serves the population in holding its leaders and institutions to account, at its worst, a parasitic entity that regurgitates the baser actions of its consumers to feed their own voyeurism. Finding a framework to further the former whilst limiting the latter is the challenge from which the current crop of Westminster tenants must not shrink.  

Yours, grovelling Gove of Surrey.

Michael Gove’s apology to his former French teacher is relatively refreshing. Most politicians, presumably to make space for the letters ‘M’ and ‘P’ after their name, choose to abandon any apparent sense of humility.

 In an open letter, published in this week’s Radio Times, the Education Secretary describes the scene in Mr Montgomery’s classroom at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen as a maleficent melee of “pathetic showing off” and “clever-dick questions”. Perhaps not a prime study scenario, but perfect preparation for Prime Minister’s Questions.

 Acknowledging that his apology is tardy to the tune of 30 years, the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath referred to himself and his classmates as “a cocksure crew of precociously assertive boys”. An appraisal as accurate as it is eloquent perhaps, and apt of a man earmarked in his early years as a “future leader of the Conservative Party”, by a teaching colleague of Mr Montgomery.

Mr Gove delivers an enthusiastic eulogy to the educative efforts of his former schoolmaster, although referring to him as ‘Danny’ could be deemed an unnecessary effort to adjust their erstwhile status gap. He concedes; “you were trying, patiently, doggedly, good-humouredly, to broaden our horizons. You were, without any pretension or pomposity, attempting to coax a group of hormonal lads to look beyond familiar horizons and venture further.”

 Depending on who you speak to, young master Gove may indeed have learnt the lesson of ‘looking beyond familiar horizons’, although apparently backwards, and he may have been absent for the without ‘pomposity’ part. Politically, his Education White Paper produced a predictably mixed reaction, and when questioning members of the profession itself, as politicians all too rarely do, the responses range from suspicious to snarling. 

Having said that, breaking what John Bangs, the former Head of Education at the National Union of Teachers, referred to as high-stakes commercialism in the GCSE exam board system must be a plus. When it came to light that some examiners were selling seminars, offering insider info on teaching to the tests, Mr Bangs said the boards were in “the last chance saloon.” Calling time on that cash cow may be widely welcomed.

In addition, Steve Sinnott, the NUT General Secretary welcomed the commitment to more personalised learning, which the union itself had previously advocated. But, his overall response to the reforms was rather less than rapturous. “The pity is,” he said, “that hidden amongst outlandish ideas, the White Paper has some genuinely good proposals.” His deputy at the NUT, Kevin Courtney, felt that Mr Gove was too quick to level unjustified criticism at the achievements of both teachers and pupils. This, he said; “serves the Education Secretary well in securing headlines,” but “alienates and demoralises the profession which strives day in and day out, often in difficult circumstances, to achieve the best for all their pupils.”

 So, riding that self-made wave of tepid togetherness and absent enthusiasm Mr Gove rallied the troops in February with a warning that the reforms risked fewer kids passing exams and more headteachers being sacked. Now that’s how to motivate the education profession.

 Whilst his epistle of apology to Mr Montgomery is admirable, if Michael Gove seeks to say sorry to every teacher he has left disgruntled and disrespected, he’s going to need a bigger pen.

 

 

Defending, the Beast of Bosnia.

 

The war crimes trial of Radovan Karadzic at The Hague was never likely to be the definition of swift justice, and judging by the opening statement of the former Bosnian Serb leader as he begins his defence, it may run for as long as he did. In a meandering monologue, the man previously dubbed the ‘Beast of Bosnia’ referred to himself as “a tolerant man with great capacity to understand others.” He now has 300 hours to prove that.

Arrested in 2008 in Belgrade, while working in alternative medicine under the alias Dragan Dabic, the former Bosnian Serb war-time president had been on the run for nearly 13 years. Karadzic stands accused of war crimes reportedly committed in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia, which include arranging the murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995 that left 12,000 dead from starvation and sniper fire, and taking 284 United Nations peacekeepers and military observers hostage, to be used as human shields.

Responding to multiple allegations, including the persecution and extermination of Bosnian Croats which gave rise to the term “ethnic cleansing” Mr Karadzic said; “instead of being accused, I should have been rewarded for all the good things I have done.” Such claims were greeted with cries of “he’s lying!” from the public gallery, yet Radovan Karadzic certainly appears to believe every word he says. Convincing the judges however, may prove a tougher task.

The Karadzic trial began three years ago, and that of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ended up lasting longer than he did. These length litigations may force a postponement of any potential sense of collective closure for those affected, and yet the need for justice endures.

Many families of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster refused to collect the death certificates pertaining to their lost loved ones, unable as they were to reconcile themselves to the authenticity of the inquest they emerged from. With the announcement this week from Dominic Grieve QC that he will apply to quash the original verdicts of accidental death, those actions now feel vindicated.

John F. Kennedy said that every time a person “strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” and when you add the ripples together, we can “build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” 

Amen mate.

A parent's worst nightmare.

The Indian physician and author Deepak Chopra wrote; ‘There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.’ Although you can’t fully insulate the innocent, and maybe you shouldn’t, recent events can barely fail to thrust into an ever sharper focus, the delicate balance parents face in policing those doorways.

It was a wearyingly familiar sight, hope palpably draining from the faces of the tireless ranks of volunteers and rescue professionals as the search for April Jones made its sad, semantic shift to a murder inquiry. The only suspect, Mark Bridger has now been remanded in custody, to appear on January 11^th, charged with April’s abduction, murder, and attempting to pervert the course of justice through the assumed concealment of her body. The painstaking process of evidence gathering will continue, as the world watches on, helpless but for empathy, pondering how to permit our kids the adventure of independence, whilst protecting their passage through childhood.

For me, those grainy CCTV images of little James Bulger being lead away by the hand linger long in my conflicted consciousness, making objectivity unlikely when my daughter bemoans her perceived absence of personal freedoms. I trust her, it’s everyone else that bothers me. Statistics surrounding child abduction are not absolute, however in May of this year the Sun claimed one goes missing every three minutes. These figures naturally feature runaways, and those that return home, often unreported, yet it is believed that around 150 children are taken by strangers every year in the UK. Perhaps the lasting legacy of the unimaginable limbo in which Kate and Gerry McCann now exist, is an increased awareness of abduction when navigating the daily dilemmas of family logistics. One wrong decision might be all it takes.

Although no surprise to some, the snowballing revelations surrounding the late Sir Jimmy Savile have sent further shivers down the spine of a society at pains to protect its most vulnerable. If even half what is alleged proves accurate, we face another collective failure to have missed the signals, and maybe worse.

Widespread suspicion of Savile’s sexual preferences seems evident, but as a leading establishment entity, not to mention a well-connected and commercially significant figure, this was an inconvenient truth. Many in the media would not readily bite the hand that feeds, whatever the dirt under its finger nails. Even some of Savile’s prolific charity work can now be deemed uncomfortably cynical, given that many of the victims of his alleged abuse were reportedly recruited from children’s homes.

That his own family have consigned his headstone to landfill is as close to a conviction as it comes. This posthumous punishment seems the only suitable sanction, since the called-for stripping of his knighthood is apparently not applicable. Such honours are deemed to exist solely for the duration of a person’s live, naturally expiring on death. That said, the question remains as to how the honours system conferred the knighthood, potentially dignifying the actions of an abuser, against what now appears to have been a background of serious and widespread allegations.

 If children embody hope, walking symbols of the latent potential of an unwritten future, then taking the life, or indeed the innocence of a child, is the bitter final refuge of one whose hope has gone. The final betrayal of the victims would be our collective failure to confront not only those directly responsible, but also those who turned a blind eye.