Today I’m in Ukraine with Joshua Searle, practising ‘peacemaking in wartime’.* His organisation Dnipro Hope Mission offer a retreat for embattled Christian workers – momentary reprieve from three traumatised years under Russian siege. What to say, when I lead devotions for them this morning? I dare not lecture courageous people in the midst of fighting......
Read
Joe Biden’s mercy is not like God’s mercy. Whether or not the President should have pardoned his son, Hunter, is a question for others. Either way, this episode helps us to think about mercy and justice – and helps us to see just how different our human understandings of those things are to God’s. It......
Read
On August 20th 2020, Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Vladimir Putin. That’s where his recently published autobiography begins. The poisoning was no surprise. Putin murders opponents, and Navalny was then the most effective domestically and the best known internationally. But Navalny survived, thanks to Merkel persuading Putin to let him be treated in Germany. The......
Read
On Tuesday, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, resigned. Following on from an 11,000-signature strong petition, his resignation came after the release of a report damning the decades-long abuses by Christian leader, John Smyth QC. While the abuse was before he was archbishop, Justin knew of the cover-up, failed to seek justice and protect victims,......
Read
In 2016, as results came in that indicated Hillary Clinton was in fact heading for defeat, there were a range of different reactions. I wonder what yours was. Personally, I remember how sick I felt in my stomach. As an idealistic politics undergraduate, Donald Trump’s first election felt, in a strange way, like a personal......
Read
I’ve spent the last six months surrounded by death and dying, and in a couple of weeks I will be at my dad’s funeral. I will be joining family and friends to grieve and give thanks for a wonderful life well lived. I am thankful that Dad’s suffering is over, and I am so grateful......
Read
Before coming to LICC, I led the secretariat for the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) on Dying Well. A cross-party group of parliamentarians, campaign groups, researchers, and medics all united around the proposed change in the law and their desires to oppose it. ‘Kill the Bill, Not the Ill’ are the words inscribed upon the......
Read
Newly elected prime minister Keir Starmer wasted little time in announcing his first cabinet following the Labour Party’s general election victory on 4 July. Amidst the flurry of appointments, one in particular caught the media’s eye: the new prisons minister. James Timpson is CEO of the ‘Timpson’ retailer, and until very recently, chair of the Prison Reform Trust. He’s now facing the task of fixing a creaking prison system. Projections from the Institute for Government suggest that the UK’s prisons could be just ‘days away�...
Read
Labour has won the general election, with a forecasted ‘supermajority’ of 174 seats – gaining 411 seats at the time of writing. Keir Starmer will soon be the UK’s fifty-eighth Prime Minister, after he visits the King later today. The composition of the Houses of Parliament will look very different from after the 2019 ‘Brexit’ election, when Boris Johnson secured a majority of 80 seats and Labour suffered its worst result since 1935. Commentators at the time struggled to see how Labour could get back into power, but five years is ...
Read
They say a week is a long time in politics. First, allegations emerged that one of the prime minister's closest aides placed a £100 bet on a July polling day. Now those under investigation include several Conservative MPs, the party’s director of campaigning, and its chief data officer. Elsewhere, Labour suspended a candidate who is being investigated for betting against himself in the election. Politicians have long had a reputation for lacking integrity, but it feels public trust is currently at an all-time low. A 202...
Read
