Archive for July, 2006
Cry: St George for England, God and Harry — even!
Posted by David Conway in Political Correctness, Religion on 07/07/2006
It has been widely reported in the media this week that an Anglican vicar is in the process of garnering enough support from his fellow clergymen and women to be able to table at the General Synod of the Church of England a private member’s motion calling for St George to be replaced by St Alban as patron saint of England.
His ostensible reason for seeking the change is his claim that, of the two purported Christian martyrs to receive canonisation, it is the fourth century British-born Alban who is far more likely to have actually existed and lived in England than George, supposedly a third century Christian Roman soldier born in Cappadocia, now in Turkey, and who, according to legend, was beheaded in Lydda, Palestine, on orders of the Christian-persecuting Emperor Diocletian, after refusing to renounce his faith.
I cannot for the life of me see what entitles the Revd to his apparent confidence that St Alban more probably existed than did George. Granted as pure legend the latter’s victorious tussle with a dragon, that no more shows George never to have existed than does Jesus not accompanying Joseph of Arithemea to England show Jesus never existed.
Given the Reverend’s purported grounds for wishing to retire George as England’s patron saint, are we to assume that, should he have his way, we would next read about him calling for the removal from his church’s hymnal and its wider place in English national life of William Blake’s wonderfully evocative and inspirational poem ‘Jerusalem’?
Save the NatWest Three until we get the IRA terrorists
Posted by Robert Whelan in Uncategorized on 06/07/2006
No British Prime Minister has ever gone farther out on a limb in support of US public policy than Tony Blair. There is no doubt the his present level of extreme unpopularity with both the electorate and the Labour Party is closely related to his adherence to every nuance of US foreign policy with regard to Iraq.
Whether he was right or wrong to take us to war over the ‘weapons of mass destruction’, there is no denying that Blair was ready to sacrifice his own political prospects in support of his position. In return, the Americans have paid him the compliment of actually knowing who he is. A lucrative career on the US lecture circuit awaits him as soon as he hands in the keys to Downing Street.
However, even Mr Blair’s most disingenuous apologists (Sid and Doris Bonkers) have been taken somewhat aback by his readiness to agree to an extradition treaty that allows the US to extradite British citizens for trial in the USA, without producing any prima facie evidence and on charges that may not constitute criminal offences in this country.