I have blogged at Liberal Review on the Stern Review on global warming.
A summary of the review can be found linked from this page, just above where it should say Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but this pdf may crash Firefox making you retype that whole blog post from memory.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
Filling infidel quotas
The government has backed down on requiring new faith schools to admit 25% from outside the faith, having extracted promises from Anglicans and Catholics that they will do it anyway. Muslims schools such as there are, are willing to join in too, although there is, as expected, little interest from non-Muslim parents.
Guido seems rather skeptical of the Catholic promise. And the small print seems to support him.
Er, so why have you just promised to do exactly that? Is this just part of a face-saving formula for a government U-turn? Looks like it.
Tory spokesbod Nick Gibb adds that the Conservatives had always believed the faith school issue had been one "for schools themselves to decide". I guess he is forgetting his leader's speech that kicked this debate off by calling precisely for these new quotas.
Lets remember that we're only talking about new faith schools here. And this is at a time when the polls are suggesting majority opposition to any new faith schools on the grounds that they are divisive and bad for social cohesion. Some bright spark comes up with the quota idea to make these new faith schools more palateable, but even this modest suggestion offends Catholic preciousness - perhaps because non-Catholics might be using their toilets - and the Catholic church has enough muscle to get the government to drop it.
Lest we forget how modest this proposal is, what about the thousands of existing faith schools. Up and down the country we have doctors mowing vicarage lawns, teachers sweeping the church, professors of metallurgy polishing the candlesticks* so that they can get their children into the only local school that other middle class children go to. It is an outrage that clerics are given gatekeeper status to publicly funded services, and we should not be surprised that these are the consequences. Whatever we think about the choice agenda, schools choosing pupils is not what we want.
(*OK I am making this up, but we have all heard the stories.)
Perhaps I have insufficient appreciation of what faith schools can do, and what I advocate is an assault on their essence and character. It is easily claimed, but I think such a claim needs some justification. Any school would be able to do well if it can select the pupils that it wants. If the essence is selection, it is no big deal.
And I find it difficult to credit a style of education that relies on children being already "sympathetic" to the subject. How many are sympathetic to mathematics, biology or geography? We can't teach you unless you already believe in (or are at least sympathetic to) calculus, evolution or plate tectonics?
My suspicion is that much Catholic education is simply too heavily Catholic to be at all appropriate for non-Catholic children to be subjected to. That there would be complaints about the stories of hellfire, about guilt manipulation, that the schools would have to suffer bad press or adapt. In which case, I would have to ask why we want to fund this sort of religious instruction out of taxes at all. If people want their children to fear hellfire and feel guilty about the death of Christ, can't they arrange this themselves? Shouldn't public money be focussed more on the sort of thing that we can all agree is useful for children to learn?
Tag: Faith Schools
Update: Pickled Politics quotes Sarah Teather.
Guido seems rather skeptical of the Catholic promise. And the small print seems to support him.
Vincent Nichols, the Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, said Mr Johnson understood it was "quite unacceptable to force into a new Catholic school 25% of people who were not particularly sympathetic to that faith".
Er, so why have you just promised to do exactly that? Is this just part of a face-saving formula for a government U-turn? Looks like it.
Tory spokesbod Nick Gibb adds that the Conservatives had always believed the faith school issue had been one "for schools themselves to decide". I guess he is forgetting his leader's speech that kicked this debate off by calling precisely for these new quotas.
Lets remember that we're only talking about new faith schools here. And this is at a time when the polls are suggesting majority opposition to any new faith schools on the grounds that they are divisive and bad for social cohesion. Some bright spark comes up with the quota idea to make these new faith schools more palateable, but even this modest suggestion offends Catholic preciousness - perhaps because non-Catholics might be using their toilets - and the Catholic church has enough muscle to get the government to drop it.
Lest we forget how modest this proposal is, what about the thousands of existing faith schools. Up and down the country we have doctors mowing vicarage lawns, teachers sweeping the church, professors of metallurgy polishing the candlesticks* so that they can get their children into the only local school that other middle class children go to. It is an outrage that clerics are given gatekeeper status to publicly funded services, and we should not be surprised that these are the consequences. Whatever we think about the choice agenda, schools choosing pupils is not what we want.
(*OK I am making this up, but we have all heard the stories.)
Perhaps I have insufficient appreciation of what faith schools can do, and what I advocate is an assault on their essence and character. It is easily claimed, but I think such a claim needs some justification. Any school would be able to do well if it can select the pupils that it wants. If the essence is selection, it is no big deal.
And I find it difficult to credit a style of education that relies on children being already "sympathetic" to the subject. How many are sympathetic to mathematics, biology or geography? We can't teach you unless you already believe in (or are at least sympathetic to) calculus, evolution or plate tectonics?
My suspicion is that much Catholic education is simply too heavily Catholic to be at all appropriate for non-Catholic children to be subjected to. That there would be complaints about the stories of hellfire, about guilt manipulation, that the schools would have to suffer bad press or adapt. In which case, I would have to ask why we want to fund this sort of religious instruction out of taxes at all. If people want their children to fear hellfire and feel guilty about the death of Christ, can't they arrange this themselves? Shouldn't public money be focussed more on the sort of thing that we can all agree is useful for children to learn?
Tag: Faith Schools
Update: Pickled Politics quotes Sarah Teather.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Defender of the defender of faiths
It may look like I've been asleep for a few days, but I've taken to watching Question Time a little. Until I see it I can be oblivious of what rot people out there are thinking and the need to put them straight.
So Prince Charles wants to be "Defender of Faith" rather than defender of the faith. Some people hate this, some love it. Paddy Ashdown on Question Time was emphatic that it is the right thing to do, that it better reflects one of the strengths of today's society.
I find the whole debate of what Charles ought to do, as putative head of the Church of England and whatnot, somewhat uncomfortable. I think Charles, like everybody else in the country, should be free to say what he believes in, and not be required ex officio to subscribe to particular beliefs handed to him on a plate. That is not how belief works, if we are honest, and if we want our king to be honest.
If that means the monarch and the church would one day no longer like to be so close, well that is fine. I don't see any reason for an obligation on either party to get, theologically, into bed with somebody incompatible.
There is a debate to be had about the role of religion in society, and about the pre-eminence of Christianity, or anglicanism. But this is not a debate that can be sensibly had in the text of a coronation ceremony. It is not one in which we should take a lead from the monarch. And it is not one that should be too political.
And if one day we get a monarch who follows the Bahai faith, or humanism, or Wicca, or a postmodern mishmash, or even Roman Catholicism we should not disbar them or demand that they lie. That would be a denial of civil rights. And hardline monarchists, in particular, should accept whatever monarch the hereditary lottery gives them, and like it. If you show any inclination to pick and choose your monarchs, or tell them what they ought to do, you are not much of a monarchist.
Tag: Prince Charles
So Prince Charles wants to be "Defender of Faith" rather than defender of the faith. Some people hate this, some love it. Paddy Ashdown on Question Time was emphatic that it is the right thing to do, that it better reflects one of the strengths of today's society.
I find the whole debate of what Charles ought to do, as putative head of the Church of England and whatnot, somewhat uncomfortable. I think Charles, like everybody else in the country, should be free to say what he believes in, and not be required ex officio to subscribe to particular beliefs handed to him on a plate. That is not how belief works, if we are honest, and if we want our king to be honest.
If that means the monarch and the church would one day no longer like to be so close, well that is fine. I don't see any reason for an obligation on either party to get, theologically, into bed with somebody incompatible.
There is a debate to be had about the role of religion in society, and about the pre-eminence of Christianity, or anglicanism. But this is not a debate that can be sensibly had in the text of a coronation ceremony. It is not one in which we should take a lead from the monarch. And it is not one that should be too political.
And if one day we get a monarch who follows the Bahai faith, or humanism, or Wicca, or a postmodern mishmash, or even Roman Catholicism we should not disbar them or demand that they lie. That would be a denial of civil rights. And hardline monarchists, in particular, should accept whatever monarch the hereditary lottery gives them, and like it. If you show any inclination to pick and choose your monarchs, or tell them what they ought to do, you are not much of a monarchist.
Tag: Prince Charles
Friday, October 20, 2006
Veritas in 2040
What will the veritas party be like in 2040, if it still exists? Or UKIP for that matter. For a history lesson, we need only look at an embryonic political party, in the early 1970s, initially called PEOPLE, whose colours were red, white and blue.
Inspired by an article in Playboy, featuring Teddy Goldsmith, can you guess what it is yet?
I will post the link to the full article at the end of this post, but first here are some gems:
Derek Wall, the author of this excellent history, is most agreeable in person, but as a Marxist, quite wrong, even by the standards of the Green Party.
Tags: Green Party, Greenpartywatch
Inspired by an article in Playboy, featuring Teddy Goldsmith, can you guess what it is yet?
I will post the link to the full article at the end of this post, but first here are some gems:
Right-wing zoo owner John Aspinall supported the campaign, supplying dozens of canvassers drawn from his London casino. Goldsmith disguised his mainly longhaired student supporters as Arabs and borrowed a camel from Aspinall to launch a highly visual assault on the soil erosion, which to this day is turning Sudbury into a region of the Sahara.
The first thing that Goldsmith’s handout stressed was that his father, Major Goldsmith OBE, had been Conservative MP for Stowmarket”, noting that there was “nothing to be proud of there”. The leaflet contained ... very Conservative statements amongst the prophecies of doom”, including attacks on women who worked and thus neglected “essential maternal duties” and the “all pervasive welfare state” that “mollycoddles the population”, as well as support for the family unity as a means of discouraging crime and dissent.
Derek Wall, the author of this excellent history, is most agreeable in person, but as a Marxist, quite wrong, even by the standards of the Green Party.
Tags: Green Party, Greenpartywatch
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Moral panic on Madonna
Adoption is a noble act. Giving a family to a child with none is just about the best thing that can be given. It is a great commitment and sacrifice. Rewarding, yes, but a noble act beyond what most of us will ever achieve.
It is not something I have done and I will not criticise anybody who does. It would be mean spirited to say to any adopter - you could have done it differently; you should have adopted somebody else; I impute shallow motives to you.
Madonna attracts this kind of attention because of her celebrity, and a little notoriety. We like our celebrities to be shallow. What a disappointment when they are not.
Lifting a child out of extreme poverty into extreme wealth is a good thing to do. Why does it make us uncomfortable? If we fail to praise the good when we see it, due to some inarticulable discomfort, it is our own motives we should be examining.
Due process? Give me a break! Get some perspective! There are miscarriages of justice, people's lives ruined by lack of due process. One life is being unruined. Is that your priority?
The child will lose contact with his culture? Perhaps. I take the view that people own cultures, cultures do not own people. When he develops interests in his origins he will be able to explore them. But he is not the property of his origins, he is a baby who needs a family.
If you or I were adopting a child and were subject to this media circus and moralistic indignation, we would be outraged. Adoption is a personal family matter, where celebrities should be shown the same respect as anyone else. Butt out, people.
Tag: Madonna
It is not something I have done and I will not criticise anybody who does. It would be mean spirited to say to any adopter - you could have done it differently; you should have adopted somebody else; I impute shallow motives to you.
Madonna attracts this kind of attention because of her celebrity, and a little notoriety. We like our celebrities to be shallow. What a disappointment when they are not.
Lifting a child out of extreme poverty into extreme wealth is a good thing to do. Why does it make us uncomfortable? If we fail to praise the good when we see it, due to some inarticulable discomfort, it is our own motives we should be examining.
Due process? Give me a break! Get some perspective! There are miscarriages of justice, people's lives ruined by lack of due process. One life is being unruined. Is that your priority?
The child will lose contact with his culture? Perhaps. I take the view that people own cultures, cultures do not own people. When he develops interests in his origins he will be able to explore them. But he is not the property of his origins, he is a baby who needs a family.
If you or I were adopting a child and were subject to this media circus and moralistic indignation, we would be outraged. Adoption is a personal family matter, where celebrities should be shown the same respect as anyone else. Butt out, people.
Tag: Madonna
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