By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter First, Ministers announced that the consultation on gay marriage would not be whether to carry it out but how to do so. Next, they confirmed that they do not supporting the claimed right to wear a cross at work. And today we learn that George Osborne has decided to […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter There's a poll in the Sunday Telegraph today showing attitudes towards gay marriage. The population at large favours gay marriage "in principle" by 45% to 36%. More relevant to the Government is the question of whether people think the Coalition should prioritise it over issues like the economy. The […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Lynne Featherstone's Daily Telegraph article this morning – and Lord Carey's response to it in the accompanying report – help to explain why the Government is winning the debate about gay marriage. The former Archbishop of Canterbury has previously said that "the honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Clever Trevor Phillips has correctly identified the real target of Sayeeda Warsi's speech at the Vatican earlier this week. It was widely reported as applying to Britain (or England, at any rate). But it was aimed far more directly and forcefully at continental Europe. Note the hard examples that […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter The human rights and equality challenges of former Liberal Democrat councillor Clive Bone failed in court yesterday. I will repeat that sentence. The human rights and equality challenges of former Liberal Democrat councillor Clive Bone failed in court yesterday. The point has not been all that easy to spot […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. It's not been a good week for Church/Tory relations. The week began with Anglican Bishops voting against Iain Duncan Smith's attempt to bring sanity to the welfare system and ends with the Archbishop of York warning the Prime Minister that he's behaving like a dictator in wanting to introduce […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. YouGov found (£) (PDF) that 69% of British people, including two-thirds of Labour supporters, either support the Coalition's benefits cap of £26,000 per household or think it should be even stricter. Only 16% want a more generous cap or no cap at all. The cap is one of the […]
By Joseph Willits Follow Joseph on Twitter With the release of 'The Iron Lady' last Friday, political commentary has focused on feminism, and women in politics a great deal. This morning in a Telegraph blog, Cristina Odone discusses the superiority of Tory feminism. She writes: "Blue feminists don’t go in for the tokenism their red counterparts support. They […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Islamic persecution of Christians is a massive global issue. It has grown with instability across the Middle East. The Middle East Forum's record of violence and intolerance in November alone includes: In Nigeria, "Islamic militants shouting "Allahu Akbar" carried out coordinated attacks on churches and police stations, including opening fire […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter In a speech on Friday – to borrow Alastair Campbell’s famous phrase – David Cameron ‘did God’. In very welcome remarks to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible the Prime Minister claimed Britain was a Christian country. He also said that the values of the Bible weren’t […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. Earlier today, David Cameron gave a keynote speech to Church of England members at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. It was an unashamedly moral and pro-Christian speech. A flavour of what followed came in the introductory remarks, when Mr Cameron said "we […]
By Joseph Willits Follow Joseph on Twitter In an address to the European Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, Tory party Chairman Baroness Warsi spoke of the ever increasing need to tackle antisemitism. Jewish people, she said, "are at once targeted by the far left and the far right. And they are at once branded superior and inferior […]
By Joseph Willits Follow Joseph on Twitter In a speech tomorrow, Ann Widdecombe is set to criticise David Cameron, and put pressure on both him and William Hague over the persecution of Christians. Speaking at the annual conference of international charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Widdecombe will accuse the Government of double standards in promoting […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter David Cameron fought the last election on a manifesto theme that was never tested with voters. "An invitation to join the Government of Britain," it proclaimed – but no-one seems to have tried to find out whether the electorate would like to. At first glance, it is surpassingly baffling […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP, and Frank Field, a Labour MP, jointly tabled an amendment to be debated when Parliament returns this month. The amendment's aim is to break the stranglehold on abortion counselling of certain groups which Dorries and Field say have a financial conflict of interest in […]