British Evo's and the shape of national life

An article recently published in Prospect magazine under the header The Marshall Plan, has a lot in it that seems well noted and there's a degree of sympathy in the writing, allowing for it to transcend being simply a 'hit piece'. As someone who has commented on allied matters on this very blog over the years, it is interesting to see some lacunae of mine closed with further information. I've been on the edge of the kind of Evangelical-Charismatic Christianity examined in the article most of my adult life. So I do recognise the truths in this description.

I think there are two things I want to pick up from this article. One is to note the way that the narratives of this particular brand of Christianity are pulled to the political right (and need not be). The other is to consider how (or maybe if) it can be called more fully into a better force for the good of the "least and the lost" to borrow a phrase that is popular -ish in such circles. 

I'll pick some quotes from the article to comment on.

The first one is a 'credit where credit is due' sort of thing. "...he is worth around £800m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List—Marshall lives relatively modestly." And that is good to learn. Though 'relatively modestly' is an elastic concept, I don't doubt that it involves not retaining all his income for himself and his family and investments. I do think that there are wealthy evangelicals who do indeed take seriously biblical teaching about modesty and almsgiving.

The next quote is both to affirm and to question. "Marshall is worried by the displacement of the Christian ethic in society. He has said that “traditional British liberalism rests on the Judeo-Christian understanding that we are all, in moral terms, fallen creatures... Somewhere amid the arrogance of the Enlightenment, we lost this sense of fallenness” that is ultimately the consequence of the sins of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. On this view, we are all sinners, redeemed only by Christ’s death for us, so anything we have is an undeserved gift from God. What we do with our time, money and talents is a response to what God has done for us. This outlook reminds me of what Jesus said to his disciples in Luke 12:48: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”

I think that I recognise this from my years of insider acquaintance with this brand of Christian discipleship. Both the worry about 'liberalism' and the core focus on fallenness of humanity (it's in most evangelical bases of faith). I also recognise -with sympathy and gladness- the sense of responsibility and humility that this engenders. This fruit is Evangelical Christianity at its best. That said, I would want to do a bit more work with the fretting about 'liberalism' and the heavy lifting it is doing in a culture wars /moral panic sort of way. I'd also want to think more about the way that the fall narrative is functioning and whether it is a fair theological move.

I pick up comment on the phrase "Judeo-Christian" further down the article. It's also important to pick up the issue of the work that the Fall is pressed into ideologically.

Marshall is quoted as saying in 2012: “I am a committed Church of England Christian, I believe we are all made in God’s image, that we all have gifts and that education is the key to realising our potential.” And again, I want to affirm something of that: making a starting point with being made in God's image and recognising human giftedness. I think that this might not be doing all the work it should, however, in this kind of world view.

Politically speaking it is interesting to learnt that "he co-edited The Orange Book, which was a plea for a return to the core liberal philosophies of choice and freedom" This is important, I think, because it already indicates a capture by right-wing talking points and I think is probably symptomatic of a lack of rigour in theological thinking. The Orange Book was was enabled the LibDems, essentially, to go into coalition with David Cameron's conservative government in 2010 (was it?) enabling support for austerity politics and economics.

 Of great concern to me is to read the following. 

Marshall invested £10m in GB News, taking over as interim chair when Andrew Neil—who had been the founding chairman—jumped ship. The following year, with the station in financial and technical chaos, Marshall stepped in with a further multi-million-pound investment and gained, with others, significant control of the company. Most of the rest is owned by Legatum Ventures, a private equity firm and cousin of the right-wing Legatum Institute, 

This is recent history and as such is concerning in that it may indicate a trajectory more fully into the political right, if not fascism -at least that form of paternalistic and individualistic moralism that gave cover for some Christians in the 1930s to support Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. I think that some sentences from later in the article raise similar concern: 

Marshall’s latest reform project is the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (the acronym serving as a second take on the Ark theme). Its glitzy inaugural conference, attended by 1,500 people last November, culminated with a keynote speech from Jordan Peterson in the O2. This Arc is crewed by right-wing politicians, activists and influencers, whose aim is to repair what their research describes as “the fraying of the social fabric”. While not explicitly religious, it is clear that faith—in its Judeo-Christian expression—underpins the enterprise. Once again, Legatum is providing finance and infrastructure for the movement

Fascism, of course, won't arrive saying "Look, we think Mussolini got a bunch of stuff right". No, it's going to talk about traditional values, citizenship and it's going to pick up and amplify fears about the fraying of the social fabric and suggesting that we need to discipline people for their own good. -Without, of course, noting that the fraying is pretty much a direct result of the financial shenanigans let loose by 40 years of financialisation, privatisation etc which is driven by these same Old-school-Tie-ers making millions in usury, derivatives and hedge funds and eroding the safety nets and protections for the many vulnerable and precarious members of society. No, (they think): better redirect concern to personal morality and culture-wars and in doing so find a way to ridicule and blame those most concerned and who have ideas to address the inequalities that fray the fabric. (I note that Pickett and Wilkinson's thesis, based in good research, about inequality and worse social outcomes remains a standing rebuke to right-wing political postures -somehow Marshall et al manage to 'miss' that addressing this societally would actually help with a lot of the fraying they claim they are fretting about).

But of course, the blind spot about what works is probably rooted in a blind spot shared by background. 

"Culturally, Holy Trinity is rooted in the public school system and the ethos of English exceptionalism. Several of the clergy who have led the church into its current dominant position are Old Etonians, like Welby, and have been friends since meeting at Cambridge in the 1970s." 

And unfortunately, the Christianity that is sincerely and wholeheartedly taken up by these folk is so focused on individual salvation and evangelism that it cannot see the social except very blurrily. Their position in large part depends on not knowing the social. I know, because I've been there -not as public school product but by trying to be part of the Christian Union at university and beyond that, being in circles which were often significantly influenced and led by the public school Evangelical networks. These networks are very suspicious of people who don't 'fit' unless they have done the necessary gymnastics to pass soundness tests and the 'one of us' social-fit tests. This resonates with what is said later on in the article: "The view from Brompton Road is that the Church is divided between those who champion the true faith and those who do not, and that God is blessing the faithful." -Interestingly, the latter is a precarious proof, for many biblically aware Christians know that persecution is rather to be expected for being faithful. They then look at themselves and wonder why that's not the case, and wanting to justify themselves they find tiny little frictions where people disagree or push back against them and try to make out that this is persecution -so "See! We are the faithful". Never mind that much of the time they bring these 'persecutions' on themselves by being insensitive, not reading the room, arrogant and even bullying. It's a 'heads we win, tails you lose' sort of situation. See below in the quotation where Michael Gove is mentioned, it ends with 'signs that God is at work'. So heads -we are blessed by God and tails -we are persecuted, so we know God is at work with us which is also a blessing.

I'm also a bit suspicious of the work that the term "Judeo-Christian" is doing in this discourse. I think that the term is probably meant to capture something that is judged to be common to the two religious traditions, and the Hebrew scriptures and particularly the 10 Commandments probably lies at the bottom of that. "Judeo-Christian" is probably code for the 10 Commandments for the most part. I think too that for those in power, the more individualist morality of the commandments is congenial. What is omitted in this framing is the more social dimensions and redistributive elements as well as the ban on usury -charging interest, for example.

In relation to redistributive strands of the Torah, the vision is clearly of levelling, preventing the accumulation of power through the accumulation of wealth, enjoining a duty of the better-off to care in practical terms for the less well-off and so forth. To this end the laws of Sabbath and jubilee envisage a return of land acquired to the original holders, this would have had the effect of re-distributing wealth and re-levelling the playing field -by giving all families access to means of production- as well as putting back the accumulation of wealth and power to more equal terms. I find it funny-sad that the spirit of these laws is rarely invoked in evangelical Christian discourse about social and economic relationships and governance while far more marginal and dubious laws are made shibboleths for orthodoxy. 

I'd like evangelicals to consider the example of John Wesley who supposedly had an annual income of £28 when he started out and although his income rose during his life, he still lived on £28 pa and gave the rest away (hat tip to Howard Snyder, I think it was this book that first tipped me off about Wesley and money: New Wineskins ).

Going now to banning the charging interest as part of the actual Judeo-Christian traditions (and recall that it was only in the medieval period that usury was redefined by the Church as 'excessive interest'). This alone should give pause to many of the bank-roll-ers of western evangelical endeavours. It seems from this article that many of them are deep in the practices that the Judeo-Christian laws against usury are arguably meant to disallow or curtail. These would include the idea of making money from money rather than from production or offering goods or services. Money should 'stand for' actual goods and services and the licensed gambling in money markets, derivatives and the like should be very much looked at askance by inheritors of the Judeo-Christian traditions. It's salutary to read David Bentley-Hart's Jacobin article in relation to this.

Whatever we might make of wealth and usury in relation to modern life, I think we who claim to be Christians should be wary of straying too far from the concern for the perils of wealth accumulation and exploitative means for doing that. Since much of the political right wing is essentially about defending wealth accumulation and has shown itself extremely sanguine about unjust and exploitative practices which enable it, I think that as Christians we should be very wary, at peril of our souls, of supporting the political right.

Of course, we should look at the theological justification for supporting right-wing political-economics. This is where the prioritisation of the Fall comes in. The line of thinking takes greed and selfishness as givens in human affairs and these are taken to be signs that "Since the fall, the whole of humankind is sinful and guilty..." (UCCF Doctrinal Basis) and the harnessing of these fallen characteristics by the theory of free-market capitalism is taken to be a happy mitigation in a 'fallen world'. Never mind that the theory is a crock and the actual results of following that theory tend towards accumulation of wealth and power on the basis of injustice and exploitation. The point of the correlation being made is to provide cover for the mammonists to continue serving Mammon and to head-off measures that might substantially restrict that service or seek to make a more just and fair social settlement in relation to the common goods that God has bestowed upon the earth. 

"Don't resist this greed, make it work for the common good" is what they say, in effect -ignoring that the Market doesn't, in fact, do that. In fact, it's made into a way to avoid doing justice and loving mercy (Micah 6:8) -matters which would overwhelmingly benefit the poorer, the marginalised, the least. These are in such dire straights because of the injustice and lack of mercy in the political economy of the West. Shouldn't we rather be taking the idea of the Fall to mean that we need to set up systems to disable greed from producing such disparities, misery and unfairness? Shouldn't we rather follow the example of the Torah in putting in place measures to capture ill-gotten gains for re-distribution back to the society which actually enables the wealth so captured? -Especially to the poor and vulnerable who are often those exploited and extorted of their just rewards. That we are all 'undeserving' theologically, does not mean that those who are defrauded should continue to endure the fraud while the perpetrators get away with it.

And, let's also note that 'bearing false witness against your neighbour' covers maintaining falsehoods that prop up a system of extraction from the most powerless of our neighbours. That's a Judeo-Christian principle for you but the big money uses its muscle to commission think tanks to sow seeds of doubt about markets, inequality (and don't forget climate change) which is already impoverishing and immiserating many globally. I note 'against' in that commandment; a special emphasis on the harms that such falsity brings about?

"The resentment industry"

Germane to that prior observation, is this following quote which I have also seen and heard echoes of among Evangelicals I have been in fellowship with.

"He believes that large parts of the leadership of the Church have fallen captive to what his friend Gove, speaking in a broader context, has called “the resentment industry”. But in evangelical theology, attacks—whether from outside or inside the church—are to be expected. In fact, they are a sign that God is at work."

Let's notice what work Gove's rhetoric is doing and hiding: he doesn't argue but merely labels something as 'resentment'. By that he seems (in common with many on the political right) to imply that people noticing wealth and privilege and seeking ways to address the injustices produced and the lack of mercy involved, are acting from resentment. It's not a new accusation: I heard the like back in the Thatcher era to disparage the idea of taxing the rich at higher rates. In Gove's discourse "resentment" is a framing of legitimate concerns about inequality to imply they are not legitimate and the sour grapes of the losers -as if it was a 'fair competition' in the first place rather than the rigged 'game' where "to those who have, more will be given". A better word than 'resentment' might be 'fairness'. And once we've noted that, let's note too, that there might be actual resentments, and that they might be well deserved pointing to a need for redress. I may resent someone having stolen from me, disparaging the resentment doesn't make the injustice go away. It also obscures the possibility that a resentment might be just: you've had your efforts and fruits of your labour misappropriated by others through bullying tactics or systemic discrimination -that would be just cause for resentment, would it not?

So, there's no real reason to think that church leaders (which?) have fallen to the "resentment industry" -rather those that champion the poor and social justice are simply doing two things. One is to attempt to apply the teaching of Jesus and Torah in a world of system-built inequalities. The myth being constructed behind this word in Gove's discourse is that church leaders should be pushing the lines 'rich man in his castle/ The poor man at his gate/ God made them high and lowly/ And ordered their estate'. -A position which gives a free pass to the immoral means by which wealth and power were obtained and maintained. A position which elevates the expediency of the powerless to an eternal virtue -disallowing redress even when it is legally and strategically possible.

The second thing is to bring the truths about how inequality and poverty is formed and maintained in a world that is really pretty abundant. The actual resentment, it seems to me, is that of the rich at having their self-congratulatory narratives challenged and shredded by those they consider less worthy than themselves. The claim of those church leaders that Gove so dislikes is that the actual 'resentment industry' -more properly designated as movements for social and environmental justice- are a sign that God is at work: anointing people to bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind, setting prisoners free ...

British evangelicalism going forward

I hope that Graystone is right when he writes the following.

Despite all this, we’re not likely to see the emergence of a religious right in Britain comparable with the evangelical movement in the US any time soon. The historic social liberalism of the Church of England means the identification between evangelicals and the political right is nowhere near as potent. In the forthcoming UK general election, very few politicians will campaign on issues such as abortion rights, and few British pastors would dare to instruct their flocks how to vote.

 I think that in many ways this is correct. I hope it is right that British evangelicalism may resist the capture that we see in much of USAmerican evangelicalism. However, I'm not quite as sanguine about it as Graystone seems to be. There is clearly money being deployed from the USA to influence things on this side of the Atlantic. It's worrying that MP Steve Baker, a member of an evangelical church in High Wycombe, has become meshed in with climate denialist and oil-extraction interests.

British evangelicalism has been increasingly influenced by USAmerican evangelicalism through the greater output of books, songs, and other media products. Many of them are innocuous in themselves but by building brand loyalty and on-selling techniques, enable exposure over time to more noxious content veiled as Christian but in fact betraying the spirit of Christ and the church of the first centuries in relation to wealth and power and keeping faith with the spirit of the parable of the good Samaritan.

The veiling is accomplished through bringing to the fore less weighty matters with a particular spin on application and pushing them in such a way as, over time, to make them central in the consciousness of evangelicals to the point where the position so named can be activated without dissonance to what should be central matters of faith expression like compassion, mercy, neighbour-love and so forth. Abortion is a good example. 

I suspect that the abortive Franklyn Graham evangelistic campaign which was being planned in 2018-19 (if memory serves aright) was less an evangelistic campaign (and let's face it, the format is largely unsuccessful and a waste of money and effort, be honest; it's more a test of orthodoxy than a means to win hearts and minds of unbelievers) than a means to network British evangelical leaders with a significant chunk of USAmerican-based right wing pressure-groupees. I resent that our faith and notions of fellowship are being viewed as social capital for recruitment to causes that betray the spirit of Christ.

I think British evangelicals are not sufficiently aware and wary of these overtures and avenues of capturing the evangelical mind and I fear we may have reached a tipping point. In part this tipping point is because there are numbers of ex-evangelicals who have left evangelical churches or Christian corporate practice altogether and the drivers of the exodus are the increasingly uncharitable, insensitive, unnuanced teaching they are hearing, the bullying and abuse they experience and see and the failure of large evangelical churches to be able to resource spiritual growth beyond a certain point (so people leave for more spiritually nourishing churches). At this point my evidence is experiential based on the number of people I interact with who report having been evangelical at some point but left for the kinds of reasons implied by what I've just mentioned. I visit churches where people tell me this, I interact with students in ministerial training who have this in their personal history. There are a lot of ex-evos out there.

Philanthropy, power and democracy

As I was thinking about this article, I found myself considering Jesus' words in the gospels to 'sell all you have and give to the poor'. This because 'give to the poor' is a different dynamic to 'set up a charity to do things for the poor', though at first it might seem like they are outworkings of the same thing. The latter is actually a form of paternalism while the former actually puts the poor in charge of how they use the money given to them. The latter is usually based on a fear on the part of the donor that the poor will spend it frivolously or harmfully, and so a means to give is devised that prevents that but leaves the donor in charge and often breeds resentment. We should bear in mind that there is research to indicate that putting the poor in charge of their own affairs is actually better in general terms. This relates to the issue of philanthropy more generally. Philanthropists mostly give money for pet projects but do not open up a democratic door into the donation and use processes. "Nothing about us without us" should apply to receipt of charity and is generally regarded as good practice in third sector work while paternalism is rightly frowned upon. I note also that the same power-divesting dynamic is at work when Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him to the villages and towns around and effectively tells the disciples (12 at one point and 70 or 72 at another) to rely on the hospitality of those they are proclaiming to, to be vulnerable to their welcome. 

The other dimension of this is trickier for many of us which is the 'Sell all you have' bit. This is reinforced by the example of the church in Acts where people sold stuff and shared the proceeds with the church. It's also clear in the background of the epistles that there was quite a lot of looking after the poor going on.

At the very least, I think we should consider what it would look like to encourage discipleship built on John Wesley's example, mentioned above where the money is genuinely given away or at least put into democratically-run trusts like Marlene Engelhorn did with her inheritance.

My suggestion for Marshall, his fellow evangelical Old Etonians and their networks is to decide what the equivalent of Wesley's £28 per annum is and give away everything in excess -preferably by giving it over to citizens' assembly-like trusts (Christian or otherwise) drawn from the ranks of those likely to be beneficiaries. This latter because other research indicates that simply giving aid directly to the homeless or the poor results in better use of the money or assets. It may be that Marshall is doing this. However, I get the impression that his lifestyle far exceeds what could be afforded on a median-sort-of income which might be a better starting point for consideration. I would commend taking in the insights of limitarianism as a starting point.

Fall theology as ideology

As mentioned above, Marshall is quoted: “traditional British liberalism rests on the Judeo-Christian understanding that we are all, in moral terms, fallen creatures... Somewhere amid the arrogance of the Enlightenment, we lost this sense of fallenness”.

Ironically, as I mentioned above, the "sense of fallenness" has been selective: happy to see it in political opponents of mammonism but giving a pass to those benefiting from the channels of wealth accumulation and retention which are normally the flip side of misappropriation, wage-theft, and the use of power to suppress claims for just reward or fair shares. As long as the latter is dressed up with a veneer of legality, it is ignored. The Hebrew prophets and many a psalm would disagree that this is moral.

I guess that the "arrogance of the Enlightenment" is meant to be the idea that 'man (sic) is the measure of all things' and/or that reason is somehow not subject to fallenness. In the case of the latter, I think that this is in need of more nuance. Reason is properly a collective rather than individual matter, Enlightenment reason is the idea that some version of peer review will over time solve problems and come to better and better understandings of things -but the key is not to allow the formation of pockets of group-think, epistemic privilege or shared prejudice. I agree that probably considering that 'man is the measure' is a problem but mainly because it cuts us loose from our (God-given) ecological roots and embeddedness. In practice it also makes wealthy white males the actual measure of all things and without a sense of accountability (to God, ultimately) ends up justifying genocide, ecocide, misogyny, racism and so forth -basically treating other humans as lesser and forming systems of life and habits that sustain the lessening of these others. In Christian terms, this is neglect of love, justice and mercy -the weightier matters of the Law.

 A sense of fallenness would seek a Tower of Babel resolution -that is to decentralise power. It would put in place robust means to prevent the accumulation of wealth and power (and recognise that the latter is often a product of the former) or mechanisms for the removal of excess wealth and redeploying back into the ecosystems and social networks that enabled it to be created in the first place. And the means and mechanisms would themselves be scrutinised democratically.

Beware the Liberalism my son...

It's worth noting that the term is used in a weasely manner. 'Liberalism' can be a kind of way of thinking about politics, human rights, government and in the quotes above that is to the fore. However, we should notice that for evangelicals it is more frequently a boo-word designating churches and theologians who go 'too far' in adapting Christian thought to the culture and times. So we should be aware of this double-entendre when hearing evangelicals speaking. Part of what is being done often is activating the framing which disposes evangelical hearers well-trained in their tradition to put the concepts or ideas into the mental rubbish bin -and by association, the people who use the concepts and ideas. It is a logical fallacy but since it rarely reaches conscious thought, it is not seen as such and it then becomes simply a part of the outlook.

It's actually more a felt thing most of the time and because it's not fully conscious it is deployed inconsistently and hypocritically quite a lot.

In practice 'liberals' are Christians who might not express Christian ideas in vocabulary that fits the evangelical norm (this despite a professed desire to not speak or write 'Christianese'). One is becoming liberal if (too many and too hard) questions are asked about received ideas in the evangelical traditions -this despite setting up enquirers' processes which claim that any question is allowed; at some point one must put up or shut up.  Liberals are people who "don't accept the bible as God's word" this is a lie in many cases. I've come across many people who are looked at askance or written off by evangelicals who take the bible with utmost seriousness as an artefact which conveys to them the voice of God. And because thy take it seriously, they find they have to think about what kind of communication it offers, how to think around the inconsistencies it has in it and what those differences one part to another mean for how we need to read and receive it as God's word. (And, btw, never mind that the Word of God is theologically speaking, Christ primarily). Too often those who don't treat the bible as a kind of textbook are regarded as liberals and metaphorically booed. These 'liberals' are people who are often putting The Quiet Time into practice, and if you enquire of many of their evangelical detractors -these latter are often only reading scripture when they attend church or a bible study and relying on others to tell them stuff rather than hearing God for themselves in scripture.

Evangelicals may agree that "God has yet more light to break out of His Word", but all too often they are discouraged (both by authority figures and from internalised self-censorship) from actually listening to discern whether this might be so.

Explicit link to article: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/65415/the-marshall-plan-paul-marshall-gb-news

Further reading: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/christianity-poor-debt-jesus-moses-wealth/   

https://discipleshipresearch.com/2017/02/millennials-bible-readers-or-bible-admirers/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13644-013-0109-2

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2021/04/evangelicals-and-their-politics-dispatches-from-the-field/ 

"Here again we see that more Bible reading is positively related with higher scores on the liberal policy views scale." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235410637_Reading_the_Bible_in_America_The_Moral_and_Political_Attitude_Effect

Comment on evangelical recent history in USA by Barbara Bass Butler.

Innoculating British Christians against USAmerican rightist ambitions

I just read this:

Franklin Graham invested $10 million of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s money in his 2016 Decision America Tour to each state house in the country. Billed as “nonpartisan” prayer rallies, these gatherings framed the “moral crisis” as a decision between progressive atheist values and God. After the election, Graham called Trump’s victory an answer to prayer. 

The reason I'm concerned is that about 2 years ago, we nearly had a BGEA tour of the UK headed up by Franklin Graham. I was concerned at the time and this has made me more so. I was concerned that Graham was at least as much about networking so-called Christian right personnel with British Evangelicals with a view to creating a bridge-head to amplify an approach to values consonant with the USAmerican right-wing agenda. I wondered whether I was being too 'conspiracy theorist', but now reading this, I'm minded to think it would be precisely that bridgehead-building.

The article goes on to say this:

Today these influences — the Christian and religious nationalist organizations, religious capitalist and prosperity gospel movements, and independent charismatics — have access to the current administration in the form of its “court evangelicals.” The Values Voter Summit has become an important focus point for this coalition and its narrative. Through federal contracts and student aid, Liberty University has become the largest private Christian university in the country 

I'm thinking, having thought over the last 5 years in British politics, and recalling things I've read about the increasing reach of the American right into funding campaigns in Europe and further afield, that this is precisely an aim of Graham's deployment of the BGEA in this way. I think that they see an opportunity to leverage the current situation to build a stable if smaller base of right-wing support using somewhat Christian themes in the way they have in the USA.

As such I think that we need to be moving away from naivety in British Christian, especially evangelical and charismatic circles. We need to be in a position to resist Graham's next overtures. I'm pretty sure they will come once the dust is settling after the pandemic emergency.

So, my question is what do we need to do now to enable British evangelicals in particular to see through the rhetoric to the political agenda? To understand that this isn't the relatively benign BGEA of the 1980s and '90s but rather a vehicle for right-wing agendas which would struggle to answer 'WWJD' with responses that weren't more like responses to 'WWCD' (what would Caesar do?). There are UK evangelicals and charismatics who would covet the 'court evangelical' role, how do we pre-empt that? How do we innoculate against the cunning use of single issues to marginalise more Godly values (check out here for further reflection). It is a characteristic of some of the Pharisaism that Jesus criticised -maybe that's the way to pursue? (WWPD? -what would Pharisees do?)

My hope in this is that it seems that British Evangelicalism has tended to be more focused on justice and mercy than the USAmerican counterpart. I hope I'm not wrong in that, and I hope it is not too shallowly rooted.

This is going to be occupying some of my prayer-time for weeks or months to come.

And for the record, I think that such cynical usage of evangelism and co-option of the good will of those concerned for sharing the Good News of Jesus is despicable. If this is what Mr Graham is doing (and it does look likely given the history) then I think that puts him and those others who do it in the place of those pharisees and sadducees whom Jesus laid into for misleading the poor and the seeking. At the best they may be acting the part of 'useful idiots' at worst ... shudder ...

Source for initiating quotes: Our Demands – Poor People's Campaign:

Spiritual but not religious in Britain

This article The Brains Behind Spirituality : RSA blogs makes some good observations. First, the big picture:

Post-Religious Britain: The Faith of the Faithless, a 2012 meta-analysis of attitude surveys by the thinktank Theos, revealed that about 70% of the British population is neither strictly religious nor strictly non-religious, but rather moving in and out of the undesignated spaces in between. While the power of organised Christian religion may be in decline, only about 9% are resolutely atheistic, and it is more accurate to think of an amorphous spiritual pluralism that needs our help to find its form.

In a sense nothing surprising there. What is interesting about that quote is the thought about the amorphousness needing to be given form. That becomes a reflection on the role of (organised) religion. The point being that religion  could have an important role to play:

we are relatively starved for forms of practice or experience that might help to clarify our priorities and uncover what Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan calls our immunity to change

 This is religion in the sense of something that gives form to spirituality in entities that have legal status and the ability to make collective action efficient and effective and which can help direct effort and educate participants and draw them into practices and perspectives that have proved helpful and healthy in the past. Of course that is religion at its best. Part of the problem is that many people in the early C21 are more aware of the negatives relating to religion: its vulnerability to capture by vested interests and misuse by office holders, its tendencies to bearing down on people in a life-diminishing way and its failures to help people to understand in terms relevant to their lives how spirituality can contribute to their flourshing. I myself tend to be suspicious of 'religion' for just these reasons. But I do balance my skeptical tendency in this with an awareness that corporisations do have a potential to marshal human collective efforts for the general good and well-being. Churches are, whatever else they may be, corporisations.
The article captures the situation thus:

those who value spiritual experience and practice are often suspiciously quick to disassociate themselves from belief in God and religion, as if such things were unbearably unfashionable and awkward, rather than perhaps the richest place to understand the nature of spiritual need

 The RSA article offers us an interesting foil to think about this:

is it not the sign of a spiritually degenerate society that many feel obliged to define their fundamental outlook on the world in such relativist and defensive terms? Compare the designations: ‘educated, but not due to schooling’ or ‘healthy, but not because of medicine’.

 Which helps us to note that the place for religious expressions in our kind of society has to be in relation to a bottom-up rather than hierarchical practice of religious spirituality. Hierarchy worked in a context where deference to perceived and institutionally-honoured expertise was normal. That's no longer our context.

Jonathan Rowson, the author of the linked to article, suggests that the fundamental issue of spirituality to which religion needs to address itself is

to know oneself as fully as possible. For many, that means beginning to see beyond the ego and recognise oneself as being part of a totality, or at least something bigger than oneself.

 I think that's probably right as far as it goes. It's a project that will seem too minimalist for many with more definite spiritualities and/or expressing their spirituality reasonably happily in the context of a religious corporisation. And part of the critique might be to ask why on earth we might want to start with that issue as the way into spirituality. The argument would presumably be that this is where, existentially, most people start. I wonder whether that is right. I suspect we might actually want to start with meaning-making in relation to our place in the universe with a view to supporting good, healthy and convivial living. In fact, putting it that way ties into the calling, as I see it, of corporisations in general to serve the individual and common good. And this in turn may relate necessarily to the shared noetic space that humans collectively generate which is is big part (I hypothesise) of the make-up of corporisations. That shared noetic space is what enables us to share our thoughts and to collectivise our acting in the world..

On this account, another function of 'religion' at its best would be to enable us to think ethically about our participation in corporisations and give us support to challenge and change them when they fall short of their purpose.

Christianity is 'broad shouldered'

Yeah, we thought so.

BBC director-general Mark Thompson has claimed Christianity is treated with far less sensitivity than other religions because it is ‘pretty broad shouldered’.

Actually it's a compliment. And it's as it should be in the sense that it's a more Christlike image. That doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the inconsistencies and call people to account: but we should do so assertively not aggressively. My fear is that many Christains when it comes to the public arena become shrill and aggressive and don't knlow how to be appropriately assertive -which involves respecting the other parties.

It's interesting to consider this:  

“I complain in the strongest possible terms”, is different from, “I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write”. This definitely raises the stakes.’

The question is whther we should be giving that kind of privilege to that kind of implied threat. I think not. Geese and ganders probably ought to be served with the same media sauce...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106953/Christianity-gets-sensitive-treatment-religions-admits-BBC-chief.html#ixzz1o4Qt9u7P
And a later article in the Guardian is worth a look too, picking up as it does on the implied point I make in the previous paragraph.

Christianity gets less sensitive treatment than other religions admits BBC chief | Mail Online:

Teenagers begin high court challenge against tuition fee rise

I don't think they'll succeed, but it'll be interesting if the case enables the facts to be heard. See here: Teenagers begin high court challenge against tuition fee rise | Education | guardian.co.uk:

Two teenagers have begun a case in the high court against the government's decision to let universities almost treble tuition fees next year

It will all hinge on two main challenges:

(1)... the rise in fees is in breach of the right to education protected in the Human Rights Act 1998. That right does not guarantee free higher education, but it does place curbs on steps that limit access to higher education ... and

(2) ... the government failed to give "due regard" to promoting equality of opportunity as required under the Race Relations, Sex Discrimination and Disability Discrimination Acts.

I don't think either will succeed because I suspect that the conditions under which the finances are actually granted are likely not to be considered a bad deal. In the case of the first objection, the fact that the student finance arrangements are arguably better than the previous arrangements (and I would say, in effect, closer to grants and a graduate tax) and in relation to the second objection; it's not debt as we normally understand it: it is written off if unpaid by a certain point, it is only payable on a PAYE basis once ones income reaches a (higher than present) certain point. It's in effect, a hypothecated graduate tax. The odd thing is that a Conservative administration has swallowed the idea -it's occured because it has been dressed up to look like a safely capitalist loan. But in effect, if the investment doesn't produce a graduate with the kind of lifetime increase in earnings usually predicted, well, the government picks up the bill. That's the real worry: sometime in the future, the books may not balance ...

But perhaps I've misunderstood something.

Of course, that is not to say anything about the rights and wrongs of various approaches to financing HE.

While we're on the topic, however, I think it may be worth considering an article about the future of HE. In this case in the USA, but I think some of the issues are transferable.

http://faithoncampus.com/four-disruptions-that-could-shake-up-college-ministry/ I'm particularly interested in the demographic issue combined with the issue of whether HE will continue to be considered a good investment. And on that issue, it's also worth having a read of this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/31/university-open-days-soar; the consumer approach is finally coming home to roost; the faint beginnings have been with us a little while, but it seems to me that here it arrives in fulness.

The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London

This is a somewhat scary expose:

The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

In it we learn that democracy is a non-starter in the Square Mile:

"among local authorities the City of London is unique". You bet it is. There are 25 electoral wards in the Square Mile. In four of them, the 9,000 people who live within its boundaries are permitted to vote. In the remaining 21, the votes are controlled by corporations, mostly banks and other financial companies. The bigger the business, the bigger the vote: a company with 10 workers gets two votes, the biggest employers, 79. It's not the workers who decide how the votes are cast, but the bosses, who "appoint" the voters. Plutocracy, pure and simple.

Indeed:

The City of London is the only part of Britain over which parliament has no authority. In one respect at least the Corporation acts as the superior body: it imposes on the House of Commons a figure called the remembrancer: an official lobbyist who sits behind the Speaker's chair and ensures that, whatever our elected representatives might think, the City's rights and privileges are protected. The mayor of London's mandate stops at the boundaries of the Square Mile.

We also learn:

The City has exploited this remarkable position to establish itself as a kind of offshore state, a secrecy jurisdiction which controls the network of tax havens housed in the UK's crown dependencies and overseas territories. This autonomous state within our borders is in a position to launder the ill-gotten cash of oligarchs, kleptocrats, gangsters and drug barons. As the French investigating magistrate Eva Joly remarked, it "has never transmitted even the smallest piece of usable evidence to a foreign magistrate". It deprives the United Kingdom and other nations of their rightful tax receipts.

It has also made the effective regulation of global finance almost impossible. Shaxson shows how the absence of proper regulation in London allowed American banks to evade the rules set by their own government.

Monbiot suggests that one interesting effect of trying to draw up a written British constitution would be to expose some of this jiggery-pokery; after all, how would one possibly defend this in order to put its preservation on a 'proper' footing. It certainly makes one wonder if the Occupy LSX protest should be attempting to bring some of this into the light of day. Indeed, is the stuff with St Paul's cathedral some clever diversion?

Kicking the Geordies when they're down

I was intrigued by this article because its account of the North East (my adopted region of work and residence) is not one I readily recognise. Here's the heart of what I 'incomprehend':
"political and economic developments have been paralleled by a resurgent culture of stereotyped nastiness directed at the region's inhabitants."
You see, I look at the media and see Geordies being used in advertising in a way that seems to presuppose that the accent connotes solid family values and fun-loving-ness. Or have I missed something? This is far from nastiness towards the NorthEast, rather a kind of role-modelling.
"As the British working class has increasingly become an object of ridicule for a technocratic London elite, public figures from the predominantly working-class north-east have become special targets for media humiliation. From Gazza, the archetypal proletarian drunk, to Cheryl Cole, who risks becoming a Jade Goody for the 2010s, Geordies are consistently portrayed as half-articulate buffoons – figures of fun at best, ritualised scapegoats at worst (witness the glee with which certain members of the media followed the 'manhunt' of gunman Raoul Moat in July 2010)."
Again, I'm not sure I'm seeing it. Admittedly Gazza was pitied and reviled, rightly so; but I'm not sure that it was particularly associated with his Geordie-ness -was it? (Maybe I missed it). I get the impression that Cheryl Cole is still widely liked and the recent USA thing brought something more like amazement over the USAmerican supposed inability to cope with the accent and some sympathy about that and some sense of identification with the plight of a Brit in the miscomprehending States. But again, I may be missing something.

And as for Raoul Moat, I don't think the Geordie-thing was part of the glee -after all the heroic police officers are also Geordies for the most part. Where I think that the article may be right is with the portrayal of the working class. Though I'm still not convinced that this is the right label for the phenomenon: I think that the term 'working class' is obsolete and that there are several cultures represented by what would once have earned the label including some that pretty much buy into "middle class" values. Where, then, I think that it gets it wrong is trying to make a full link between the term 'working class' and 'Geordie' or 'north east'. I won't wash. This is an article ostensibly about the North East but mainly about perceptions of certain kinds of economically disadvantaged groups in Britain.

So there is some truth in this:
"In a politically correct era, light condescension and Little Britain-style caricature stands in for outright bigotry, a process that mirrors the discreet economic bias visited against areas such as Tyneside and Teesside by shrewd Westminster policymakers."
There is some truth in the accusation of bias and it may be that the London chattering classes are disdainful of anything regional. Only a thorough-going decentralisation to the regions can combat that. I think that what has happened in Scotland over the last 10-20 years begins to tell us what can be achieved. If Scotland becomes independent, I'm wondering whether the ancient Northumbria should be re-united (it once stretched from the Forth to the Humber) this time looking to Edinburgh rather than London.

Kicking the Geordies when they're down | Alex Niven | Comment is free | The Guardian:

Two-tribe politics is over -or it can be

What I liked about this article Two-tribe politics is over. But the likes of John Prescott can't see it is the brief rehearsal of the pros and cons of AV:

Proponents of change will contend that first past the post awards parliamentary seats in a way which is wildly out of proportion with votes cast and that weakness has become so pronounced in recent years that MPs can now get elected with the support of fewer than three out of 10 voters. (They will be right.) Opponents of reform will say that AV can also distort the will of the electorate. (They will be right too.) Supporters of the status quo will insist that the current voting system has the great merit of producing reliable parliamentary majorities for single party governments. (That it does – except on those quite frequent occasions when it doesn't, as it didn't at the last election.)
Campaigners for change will say that AV gets rid of tactical voting, forces candidates to seek support from at least half their electorate and gives everyone the chance of their vote counting for something. (That it does.) Those hostile to AV will say that preferential voting privileges the supporters of smaller and fringe parties over mainstream parties. (This may be their best argument.)

So how would we decide in the referendum? Well, we really do have to recognise that any voting system is a judgement of balance between competing desirable characteristics. But what we have to bear in mind, I believe, is that our political culture has decisively changed and is now ill-served by a two-party system:

The alternative vote is not a perfect adjustment to this transformation, but it does at least recognise that, for millions of voters, their first choice is neither Conservative nor Labour. AV also has the merit of tending to reward politicians who try to reach out to as many of their constituents as possible. It better aligns how we vote with how most of us now think about politics. A declining minority of people identify wholly with one party. For the majority, any choice is a compromise, there are more colours in the rainbow than just red and blue, and cave-dwelling tribesmen belong in TV documentaries not modern British politics.

And the point therefore is to start moving our political system to a less-adversarial more plural-recognising one. AV isn't the best solution, but it is a step in the right direction especially of a system that encourages politicians to seek to work with a range of people and constituencies (note small 'c': I'm not meaning simply parliamentary constituencies here). That is so much better, surely, than knowing that the governing party is enjoying an absolute and terrifying majority with less than 40% of the popular vote: that scarcely counts as democratic.

Resist the argument to vote as if this is a referendum on how you're feeling about the coalition policies at the moment. Something much more important in the long-term is at stake. Tactical voting is less than transparent in conveying intentions -as we already know because for so many of us elections have been an invidious choice between two or more 'evils' and the unelectable.

Toad of Toad Hall meets the speed camera

You remember: Toad loved to speed and it caught up with him. This is an interesting article in terms of bringing some useful stats to bear on a debate that suffers from a lot of ignorant prognostications (exposed in the article). For evidence of the real war involving motorists, look in the mortuary | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian The thing I'd wonder about is Monbiot's insistence that the decision to take down speed cameras is about toffs getting caught or not. I actually think it's a cheap bit of attempting populism which may backfire when figures such as this are put into reverse in towns and villages up and down the country: "19% fewer people were killed or seriously injured at accident black spots after speed cameras were introduced, above and beyond the general decline in accidents on the roads." In fact the figures could be even more stark: "A study conducted by the Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership, across the whole county over three years, found that after speed cameras were installed there was a reduction at those sites in deaths and serious injuries of 69%."
Just imagine if you are living near to a speed camera on an accident blackspot and you have children, and you see that statistic ...

Abolish Control Orders

Check it out and give your rating ... Abolish Control Orders — HMG - Your Freedom Why be concerned? Because: "The legal procedures by which control orders can be challenged are gravely unfair. The court will consider secret evidence which is not disclosed to the person concerned or their lawyer of choice, preventing them from effectively challenging the allegations against them.
In effect, the control order regime bypasses the ordinary criminal justice system by severely restricting the rights of people suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activity, including those who have never been charged with any terrorism-related offence and those who have been acquitted at trial."

10:10 campaign: keep BST all the year round

There's a green reason to go for this:
"'We need better alignment with the way people spend their time,' Dr Garnsey said. 'At 4.30am on 21 June most people will still be asleep – that's an average of three hours' wasted daylight.'

Garnsey said that, compared with other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency and renewable technology, changing the clocks would be extremely cheap.

She said: 'Advancing the clocks would be a one-off administrative change and would save energy in all succeeding years. Many ways of reducing carbon emissions inevitably need investment in new infrastructure, none of which are required to advance the clocks.'"

Via 10:10 campaigners push to keep summer time all year round | Environment | The Guardian

Reforming votes

Why am I supporting this given that I do not think that the AV system is such a good idea? Well, I see it as a possible staging post. If we also get a largely elected Lords with STV, then I think that this may lay the groundwork for a fuller reform a bit further down the line. It'll get English voters used to the system and I suspect that it will start to feel more legitimate than the AV system for the Commons over time. The only thing AV has going for it is it should normally result in the election of the least dispreffered candidate. However, as the Electoral Reform Society's guide to voting systems points out, the AV system is likely to result in an aggregated national vote which is even more disproportional. Any FPTP system is likely to do this as they only really deliver proportionality in a two party system.

So I-m hoping for a more proportional reformed Lord's too. Vote for a Change | Tell David Cameron: We Need a Timetable for Reform

Intelligent ‘mulling’ of floating voters points to PR?

Worth pondering at this time: RSA The intelligent ‘mulling’ of floating voters : Social Brain: "I think it unlikely all floating voters are ‘irrational’. I think rather that many of them are ‘mulling’ over what is a very complicated choice: there are policy trade-offs, tactical-voting trade-offs and personality/character trade-offs. Not to mention trade-offs between these three sets of issues, as well as trade-offs around how long a party has been in power and whether this is healthy from a governance point of view.
In other words, voting is bloody complicated if you are not ideologically aligned. Waiting and mulling is a way of letting your automatic brain whir through all the possibilities and permutations below the surface of consciousness. The ‘hunch’ a floating voter may end up with as a result of this process can be a highly nuanced and intelligent decision. It’s just that the decision wasn’t a consciously controlled one. So what?"
I see this as a potential argument for a more proportional system. What we have in FPTP increasing the trade-offs needing to be considered because it effectively reduces the choice to two candidates. With only two choices (and this is the dynamic of the infamous 'two-party squeeze') then the likelihood is that each candidate is going to be a rich mix of the various concerns a voter may have; rarely will a candidate have a critical mass of a good majority of all the considerations and policies that a voter will want in a representive.

This relates to voting reform in this way: by making the system more effectively pluralist it is easier for a voter to find a candidate who has a critical mass of policy and characteristics whom they would feel more comfortable representing them in parliament AND, crucially, would feel would have some chance of actually representing them.How Should We Vote?: Democracy and Voting Reform in the UK (Democratic Audit Paper)

Working class under attack from health paternalism?

Well, it's an intriguing take on the matter: Working class are under attack from health paternalism | Patrick Basham and John Luik | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "Working-class culture is under assault by political elites seeking to denormalise a way of life."
I'm very sympathetic to the notion that the nation/state might be stigmatising a set of pleasurable behaviours on the basis that they are associated with a certain class. But I'm not entirely convinced that this particular kite will fly. The main 'evidence based' aspect of it, which should be the clincher is the unjustified and unsupported assertion that (unspecified) assaults on (unspecified) WC pleasures are often based on (unspecified) junk science. I'm left wondering what is being referred to; the only things I can think of that might constitute this "war" on WC pleasures are smoking and cardiovascular health matters (involving promoting exercise, less fat and salt consumption etc). These are not based on junk science.

So, it doesn't stack up. And there are other problems too.
First off: which working class are we being invited to consider here? I know working class households who would not really identify or be happy with the version which I think may be being defended in this article. I'm suspicious of the hegemonic normalising of a particular version of working class and I'm suspicious of the ideology at work in using class warfare motifs in defence of 'lifestyle choices' which are not, arguably, in the best interests of those taking them. In fact, follow the money: who will benefit from people continuing to smoke and eat badly ...

Secondly, doesn't the author recall that culture is a dynamic and evolving thing? The working classes' cultures now are different in various ways to those of, say, 30 years ago. Some of those differences are 'natural' responses to changes in material culture, some of it has been engineered or at least encouraged by advertising. We should remember too the insights of research and study that the 'dis-empowered' are still able to make their pleasures in resistance to and playing off dominant and hegemonic forces. They can and do make up their own minds; they can and do respond to what they perceive as being in their interests or otherwise. 'Denormalise a way of life'? Ways of life are constantly denormalising and renormalising. Why shouldn't the common good, the health of individuals and the insights of research and evidence be fed into the complex dynamical system which is a live (sub)culture?

Thirdly, do we not have a duty-of-care to encourage people to look after their own health? We, as a nation, already do this in terms of various citizenship initiatives at schools (and have done since I were a lad) not to mention all sorts of education campaigns such as (to choose ones that are now relatively well accepted) wearing seat belts in cars and helmets on motor cycles. Not to mention that if certain sections of a community routinely take risks with their health and then the consequences are treated and cost the rest of us money, then do 'we' not have a right and a duty to point out that this is the case and is not fair? Is it not a fair idea to try to save money, time and effort for the benefit of the common good?

Labservative defence of minority government

David Cameron exhibiting a lack of understanding of the issue. Nick Clegg: I could work with Labour, just not Gordon Brown | Politics | The Guardian: "Cameron accused Clegg of wanting PR 'so we have a permanent hung parliament, a permanent coalition, so we never have strong and authoritative and decisive government'"
So, what he's suggesting, by implication; is that we should continue to be governed by a bunch of people who have only gained the confidence of 30-40% of the voters. That it's okay for a government to by absolutely in charge when their share of the vote is potentially around 30% (in theory fptp could give a 'strong government' on, say, 20% of the vote). I call that dictatorship not democracy. A system which often requires parties to work colloboratively works very well in many countries. 'Strong government' is a cipher for letting non-electorally-majority governemnts ride roughshod over the majority of voters. Strong government is usually what is offered by dictatorships ...

I would be happy to see a system that would encourage collaborative government. Not a 'hung parliament', not even a 'balanced parliament' but a collaborative one. I think that's what people want: it's why we are turned off by the mud-slinging and negative campaigning. We want politicians to spend less time picking holes in each other and posturing and more time working for the good, listening and finding common ground. More truly proportional voting is more likely to deliver that as experience in, for example, New Zealand (who in the 90's went over to PR from a fptp system) would seem to indicate. Why the positive experiences of other countries are totally ignored; does Germany have an indecisive government? Not noticibly so yet it is a coalition government and has been since WW2.So let's have less of this apparently ill-informed scaremongering, or worse this well-informed but playing-on-general-ignorance scaremongering.

My MP has definitely lost my vote

I wrote recently to all the candidates in my constituency. As regular readers will know, I think that reform of our voting system is a key component of a raft of needed reforms to make politics more accountable to the people.
Anyway, I wrote thusly:

Dear PPC's,

I live in the Blaydon constituency. I would like to know if you understand the need for real change in this election.

I think that among the most strategic issues in this election, because it affects so many other areas of urgent concern is the following.

According to recent polling, there's a possibility that a party that comes third in terms of share of the vote will actually have the largest number of seats in Parliament.

Whatever your party, I hope you agree that this is grossly unfair to voters and a perversion of democracy. First-past-the-post is increasingly unfair and limits electoral choice. We need and demand change.

As a voter in your constituency, I want you to know that I will only support a candidate who will commit to a referendum on the introduction of a proportional voting system during the next Parliament.

Will you make that commitment? (I should also point you to the research of the electoral reform society that the AV system would be even less proportional).

I got a good reply from the Lib Dem candidate (no surprise there, given their manifesto). I was a more than a little disappointed in the response of the incumbent Labour candidate:

will commit to the issues that are in my Parties manifesto and that means arguing fior a referendum on an AV system.

I understand the demand for change and I feel we in Labour are responding to that demand. But changing to a system that produces leaders like Silvio Berlusconi would not be progressive change.

If he'd just stopped with the party policy ... anyway my reply probably tells you how cross the tone and content of that made me:

Thank you, Dave, for your response.
I understand your reluctance to go beyond your party's manifesto.

However, you should have stopped there; if your argument against considering a more equitable system for voting is Silvio Berlusconi, then I will have to conclude that you do not really understand the issue or are being dismissive. As someone with involvement in teaching, I'd have to say such an answer, especially in its implications, would not pass muster in GCSE citizenship. As Marge Simpson said: "There are so many things wrong with that, I don't know where to begin." I would hope that a professional politician would be able to engage in such a fundamental area of debate in a more knowledgeable way.

If you do decide to go beyond party policy and debate the merits of electoral systems, then please don't make dismissive and cavalier remarks. Ironically, it seems to illustrate the problem of an candidate in a safe seat not having to engage with other perspectives and finding convenient arguments to keep the system pretty much as it is.

I hope I'm wrong on that last point.

As things stand, I am disturbed to find that the 'value' of my vote in this constituency is far less than one and I would hope that my elected representatives would want to do something substantial to restore our democratic rights. (See http://www.voterpower.org.uk/).

In case you're wondering what is wrong with it...
first off, the implication is that a PR system produces corrupt politicians. Well, the facts don't support that -neither in terms of looking at countries with PR systems or in terms of making a direct link between PR and the way that corruption originates and is sustained in that case -reading the news etc it doesn't seem to be down to PR but to more ordinary abuses which could be shared in a fptp system. In fact, it's arguable that Berlusconi is able to act corruptly (assuming the allegation may be correct) because of the kinds of forces in society, media and process that can be paralleled in our own country (and indeed could be magnified by the fptp system).

Then there those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Surely a party system that can impose unpopular decisions having gained a parliamentary majority for 40% of the vote -or less! When we have a system that allows votes to count roughly equally, then we can criticise another country's democratic decisions. Remember which party and which system took this country into Iraq.

And then, it ignores the fact that there does seem, both factually and in terms of logic, to be a link between MPs in safe seats and dodgy practice in terms of expenses. Not universally, but enough to suggest that a system that creates safe seats is a 'rotten borough' system and should be reformed.

Furthermore, I am not advocating we adopt the Italian system, necessarily. But New Zealand and Germany don't seem to do too badly with it, or Japan. If PR is so bad why have we allowed it for EU, London, Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland? Why did the Labour government's own commission recommend a version of it? (Not the one being proposed for plebiscite by Labour now, btw, but rather one rather like Holyrood). Indeed, 'we' with the USA imposed it on Germany as part of the post-war settlement because it's a good democratic system and likely to work against elective dictatorship. Sauce for the goose ... ?

Winston Churchill is meant to have said once that 'democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time'. Well, that kind of goes for the electoral systems: PR is not perfect, but the alternatives really are worse and of those fptp and AV are the worst of the worst.

Dave Anderson - Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Blaydon, UK, official website

Voter Power Index results for Blaydon

This is a bit depressing.
Voter Power Index results for Blaydon: "The average UK voter has 1.1x more voting power than voters in Blaydon."
It does show the need for a reform of the electoral reform: my vote should have roughly equal weight to anyone else's, but it doesn't ... And folks, the only way to deal with this issue is to vote in such a way that a balanced parliament is more likely and/or the moral case for reform is more poignant; that's our best chance for proper reform.

Labour's offer of a referendum on AV is actually not going to help; in fact AV would be worse, potentially. What we need, at the very least, is AV+, better still STV in multimember constituencies. Accept no substitute!

Coalition government? Everyone has one.

We have always had them: the major parties have always been coalitions. The Conservatives have most recently been a coalition between one-nation Tories and NeoCons. The Labour governments have been split between various kinds of democratic socialists, co-operativists and social democrats. These pre-electoral coalitions are put together because the first-past-the-post system encourages it. We need a system that allows more nuance to be more accurately voted for, but we haven't got it and that will give very unfair results in a fptp system. We need a proportional system.

What that will do will probably make the coalitions more transparent. The coalitions won't be pre-electoral but post-electoral. People can vote for the things they most value and their elected representatives will then do their best to get those concerns into law or to modify law and policy by arguing and debating and discussing with others.

However, some worry that this may give 'weak' government and the worst case scenarios of coalition-building figure large in some imaginations. So let's recall that many countries do fine with 4 or more main parties. For example:

"a country that operates a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy very much like our own. New Zealand consistently rates at or near the top in international assessments of the effectiveness of its democracy, yet no New Zealand government has enjoyed an overall parliamentary majority since 1996."

Hung parliaments can be effective, too | Bryan Gould | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The article goes on to point out some further advantages of explicitly coalition government:

The real significance of non-majority government is the change that it brings to the process of government. The New Zealand experience has been that government ministers are constantly engaged in a process of negotiation; each piece of legislation, each major policy decision, has to be preceded by discussions to ensure that a parliamentary majority exists to support that particular measure. Curiously, this does not seem to have meant that the government's programme is hopelessly delayed or frustrated. It has meant, at times of course, that legislation cannot be introduced until the necessary deals have been done, but the corollary is that the passage of more thoroughly prepared and carefully drafted legislation – once introduced – is smoother and takes less time. An even bigger plus is that the legislation – appealing as it must to a wider constituency than that represented by just one party – is often more soundly based and widely supported, with more of its contentious rough edges rounded off,

You see the difference and the similarity to Westminster at the moment? At the moment whips do all that work of trading off concerns and strongarming support. And we don't necessarily know or like what we get as a result (remember Iraq? ID cards? ...). In an explicitly coalition situation, that happens more often ahead of time and consensus building is more important than bullying and wheeler-dealing by whips.

If you keep on being disappointed that you vote for, let's say, socialism and only get insipid reform, its because the electoral labelling is shoe-horned into a leftish coalition party: you've been kidded about the brand you're voting for. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that with parties now noting that only 200,000 voters actually 'matter', they're encouraged to seek 'power' rather than a programme and so head more and more towards a middle-England mish mash of policy. The rest of us can go hang. Well, I reckon it'd be better if they went 'hang' -a hung parliament looks like our best bet for important matters of reform to be on the agenda for the next five years: be sure that neither of the normal majority parties is offering anything more than cosmetic and faint response. If you want change, use your vote to get a hung parliament if at all possible; it's our only chance.

Perhaps I've not been as clear about that as I'd like, so how about reading a professional writer saying what I pretty much think.

electoral reform is British politics' most fundamental issue. The politics to which millions of Britons take exception is directly traceable to FPTP, a system that inflates the importance of mere thousands of voters who happen to be resident in a relative handful of (mostly) English constituencies, and tend to hold contradictory opinions that the main parties contortedly try to accommodate. Better public services and less tax? They'll try. All the benefits of mass immigration with none of the pain? Why, of course. Meanwhile, the huge share of Britons whose opinions sit somewhere else are given a few crumbs, but essentially ignored.

A real debate -your part in it?

Check it out:
A real debate: "The party leader TV debates between the leaders of the three main parties appear to be just another exercise in spin. Politicians don't want to risk being made to look stupid so close to the election, so they'll be carefully stage-managing every detail of the events. So we're breaking through the spin, and have teamed up with the Guardian to hold a proper debate between the manifesto writers from the three main parties."

Those nice people at 38 degrees have an online poll to vote for the questions that get put to them. You can vote...

Join Cameron's government of Toy Town? Perhaps not

I read this and found it articulating many of the worries about and responses I have to the Conservative rhetoric. I have to say the slogans are very appealing but then I start to think the same sort of things that Hilary Wainwright clearly does (and if you were bored enough to search through this blog on 'economics' or 'justice' you'd probably find I've often said similar things in general (that is not specifically addressing the Tory manifesto but the way of thinking that lies behind it):Cameron's 'big society' is a toy town | Hilary Wainwright | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
In sum it seems to come down to this: "In other words, without economic democracy – and the constitutional reforms needed to enable the people to control executive power – Cameron's invitation to join the government conjures up a toy-town democracy, a patronising attempt to divert our anger from the real centres of power."
It all talks big but really comes down to side shows that leave the real issues untouched and the way clear for elites to continue being elites without being challenged by the people they are supposed to represent, work for and are given licence to, supposedly, create wealth and jobs for.