It’s that time of year again when we get the annual silly season story about whether the patriotic songs (Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia) are going to be removed from The Last Night of The Proms. Well as someone whose interest in classical music is stuck firmly at the popular end of… Continue reading Last Night of The Proms and the annual patriotic hymns controversy
Category: Opinion
Re-mapping the Gender Role debate
We tend to describe the debate about gender roles in church and the family as divided between egalitarians and complementarians. However, I have been wondering whether this properly captures the nuances of the discussion. So, here is an attempt to remap where the agreement and disagreement is. I am starting with the assumption that the… Continue reading Re-mapping the Gender Role debate
The responsibility of universities and the A- Level results scandal
So now the fall-out from the response to the fall out starts. Attention has moved from our concern about the impact of last week’s grading debacle on students to how it will affect Universities. Universities are now being presented as the new victims. They had no choice but to offer places to those who met… Continue reading The responsibility of universities and the A- Level results scandal
The A Level Results scandal – a moral issue
I have written already about some aspects of the A Level results fiasco. So far I’ve written about the political fall out and the technical and administrative errors. It is important when we consider things that we think through all the implications. However, central to the scandal is a moral issue. The moral issue is… Continue reading The A Level Results scandal – a moral issue
The A Level Results scandal – a political disaster
Whatever you may think of previous education secretaries, I suspect that even the most controversial (Ken Baker, Ken Clarke, David Blunkett or even Michael Gove) would not have made such a horrendous hash of exam grades during the pandemic. First of all, they would not have come out and said that exam grades based on… Continue reading The A Level Results scandal – a political disaster
Why I still think #EatOutToHelpOut is wrong … but what it might achieve
I have been arguing since it was announced that Rishi Sunak’s “Eat out to help out” scheme was a bad idea economically. You see, the assumption seems to be that the measure will encourage people to start eating out in restaurants again. The problem is that the thing that has stopped people eating out over… Continue reading Why I still think #EatOutToHelpOut is wrong … but what it might achieve
Don’t lose sleep over it
Apparently I’m cold and unfair! What has provoked this? The answer is that I choose not to lose sleep over the challenges that the private school sector face as a result of COVD-19. The Economist has written an article explaining that schools have been hit financially and the ongoing crisis is likely to lead to… Continue reading Don’t lose sleep over it
We won’t beat COVID-19 if we don’t understand the problem
This is a fascinating report from the BBC on Coronavirus on my home city, Bradford. I had already seen some reports of smaller towns and villages which are included within the metropolitan district complaining that they had been included in measures because the local authority did not want to make distinctions within its boundaries. Meanwhile… Continue reading We won’t beat COVID-19 if we don’t understand the problem
If 30% of the public did not comply with lockdown then what good will future lockdowns do?
Here is a nugget from the Telegraph’s COVID-19 live feed. “Only 71 per cent of Brits, Americans and other English speakers around the globe followed guidelines set by their governments during the Covid-19 lockdown, according to a new study from Durham University Business School. This was drastically lower than French and Italians – where 89 per… Continue reading If 30% of the public did not comply with lockdown then what good will future lockdowns do?
Herd Immunity – on avoiding conspiracy theories
If as Christians, we want to engage with the world around us, it is important that we engage with the facts and stay clear from conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories ask us to believe that we cannot believe the evidence in front of us because secret, malign forces are at work. A good example of this… Continue reading Herd Immunity – on avoiding conspiracy theories
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