Society

Sunday

James McGrath

The mystery of the Mandaeans, the gnostic sect that worships John the Baptist

Gnosticism – the belief that the creation of the material world was a mistake, and the creator deity a bungling lesser entity distinct from the supreme God – has been vigorously opposed by both Jews and Christians down the centuries. Yet even when censured, the gnostics’ views retained a certain appeal. They said that human beings have a spark of light from above and, with the right preparation for the journey, can hope to ascend beyond this broken material prison to the celestial realm of light. We can see the impact of that viewpoint in popular thought about the afterlife, even among those who reject Gnosticism’s other teachings as heresy.

Robin Ashenden

Where did the Christmas magic go?

It’s late December 1982 or thereabouts, and I’m standing in a Suffolk church before hundreds of people, wearing a cassock and surplice, with a churning stomach. This year, at my prep school carol service, it’s my turn to sing the opening solo to ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. The trouble is, the solo is sung acapella – the organ will give you the opening note, but if you go a semi-tone off-kilter halfway through before the full choir come in with ‘He came down to earth from heaven’, there’ll be the most awful discordant balls-up and everyone will know. Luckily it went off well, my final note dovetailing neatly with

Saturday

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Rishi’s rule will end with a whimper, not a bang

That best-selling 1970s toy Action Man proved the power of evolution. First, the painted hair on the initial models was superseded by ‘realistic’ flock hair and then came an ‘eagle eyes enhancement’ that allowed the eyeballs to be moved back and forth via a lever at the back of the head.   One is put in mind of this by the current photograph of Keir Starmer in combat fatigues standing in front of some especially fierce-looking British soldiers. Fixing the camera with a steely gaze and benefiting from his square jaw and Martin Sheen-style Hollywood hair, the Labour leader comes across as a later series commanding officer Action Man. I dare

Jawad Iqbal

When will the Premier League stop treating football fans with contempt?

The Premier League’s television paymasters, who plough billions into football, invariably get what they want. That is surely why the decision has been taken to schedule the Wolves-Chelsea match at Molineux stadium in the Midlands tomorrow, on Christmas Eve: so that it can be shown live on Sky Sports. The Premier League has made ‘special provisions’ to play the game at 1 p.m. – rather than the typical later kick-off time on a Sunday. Ostensibly this has been done to ease travel for supporters, in particular, Chelsea fans trying to get back to London in time for Christmas. But the bigwigs behind these decisions really don’t get it, do they? Without

Senay Boztas

Who wants Amsterdam’s mega brothel on their doorstep?

Amsterdam’s red light district is an uncomfortable place for a woman to walk at night. Drunk tourists from all around the world wander the streets, leering into the red-lit windows where prostitutes rent a space and ply for trade. Thanks to years of problems, the city’s residents are demanding action. The local government coalition was elected on a plan to roughly halve the number of sex worker windows, and to move them to an ‘erotic centre’. But there’s a problem: no one wants it on their doorstep. At the city’s NDSM Wharf on Monday evening, the letters EC (‘erotic centre’) were set on fire. This Docklands site in north Amsterdam had been shortlisted to

Friday

Rupert Darwall

What’s the true cost of Britain’s biggest offshore wind farm?

The world’s largest offshore wind farm is coming to Britain but there will be only one winner from the scheme – and it isn’t electricity consumers. Wind energy giant Ørsted had raised doubts about the Hornsea 3 offshore project earlier this year. But after securing more generous subsidy arrangements from the government, the Danish firm is pressing ahead with the project. Soon, another 230 turbines will fill the North Sea due east of Hull. The news this week is being hailed as a boost for Britain’s net zero strategy but don’t be deceived: the true cost of this scheme will be enormous. Last year, Ørsted won a contract for difference – which is

Andrew Tettenborn

Why was this Christian teacher hounded for her views on LGBT issues?

Who’d be a teacher these days? Until about 50 years ago, your outlook didn’t matter very much provided you were reasonably competent. Today the profession is coming close to saying that anyone who doesn’t profess progressive and morally relativistic views shouldn’t bother applying. Glawdys Leger, an experienced Catholic teacher in a Church of England state school, expressed her views on LGBT issues during a religious education lesson. Leger also raised objections to teaching LGBT material. She was sacked by Bishop Justus CofE School in Bromley, south London, in May 2022, but her troubles didn’t end there. Leger also had her case sent to the statutory teachers’ disciplinary body, the Teaching Regulation Agency

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Raymond Arroyo on the joys of a Sinatra-style Christmas

22 min listen

In this festive episode of Holy Smoke, we’re taken back to the Christmasses of the 1950s and 60s by Raymond Arroyo, Fox News and EWTN presenter, whose enemies in the Vatican have been trying to silence him for years.  They’ve failed, thankfully – and now silencing him is even harder. Raymond, who trained in musical theatre, has produced an album entitled Christmas Merry and Bright in which he sings well-loved Christmas songs and carols in spectacular big-band arrangements inspired by one of his musical heroes, Frank Sinatra. And in one track, ‘Feliz Navidad’, he’s joined by its composer – his friend the legendary José Feliciano. I hope you enjoy this conversation as

Tuesday

Jay Bhattacharya

Defending science from ‘cancel culture’

27 min listen

Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental tenets of a liberal democracy, and yet threats to freedom of speech today don’t so much come from authoritarians abroad as they do from within. The idea of ‘no-platforming’ those you disagree with, or ‘cancelling’ them, has taken root in all forms of public debate, and increasingly so in science. The word ‘science’ can today often be a shorthand for ‘truth’, which creates an orthodoxy where diversity of opinion is not welcomed. Science is meant to be ongoing process of finding truth, where what each generation takes as given may well be overturned as we discover more. On this podcast, we will

Debbie Hayton

This transgender schools guidance leaves a lot to be desired

The government has finally published its transgender guidance for schools. Teachers have been waiting a long time. We were promised we would have this document ‘for the summer term’. Well, it has arrived just in time for Christmas. But was it worth waiting for?  On the surface, this long awaited document looks like it will please nobody, upset everyone and leave schools still unclear about what they should do when parents get on the phone and explain that their son John is now their daughter Janet. It’s all well and good to advise that schools do not have a duty to let children change their gender identity but, when it

Tim Stanley

The Pope’s pursuit of relevance is embarrassingly outdated

The Pope is old and unwell. In whatever time he has left, he surveys his years as pontiff and counts only failure. What does he leave behind? Collapsing attendance, theological confusion, a few sentimental encyclicals and a positive meeting with Whoopi Goldberg. Francis called a synod and it gave him nothing. So, in a last throw of the dice, he declares that priests can bless gay relationships – sorta, kinda, maybe not. It’s all a muddle. The priest is not blessing the relationship but the partners; it must have no ritual; weddings are ruled out, for the teaching on marriage is unchanged. To effect this fudge, Francis has broken with

Andrew Tettenborn

The CofE’s same sex blessings stance is even more illogical than the Vatican’s

Traditionalists in the Church of England and the Catholic church don’t, of course, always see eye to eye. But on the issue of gay marriage and same-sex relations they may have found some common ground. In a landmark ceremony last week, the Church of England blessed a same-sex couple’s relationship for the first time. Prayers for two women – Catherine Bond and Jane Pearce – were held at St John the Baptist Church, in Felixstowe, Suffolk. As if by chance, this week we also heard about the same issue from the papal Dicastery, the Vatican body tasked with maintaining sound doctrine. Five conservative cardinals had submitted a dubium (i.e. awkward question) about whether

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Bring back schmaltzy songs

Christmas pop song lyrics play by different rules. Children, food and family togetherness are never mentioned in pop songs from January through November. It would be unthinkable for a non-Christmas pop song released in the last 50 years to mention ‘Children playing having fun’ or God forbid, anything religious. But this was not always the case. The pop music of the pre-rock and roll era is, to our ears, often indigestibly schmaltzy and even holy. Let’s have a quick look at some big hits of the 50s. Eddie Calvert sings of his father: No one could be, so gentle and so lovableOh, my papa, he always understood. Frankie Laine tells

Peter Wood

Harvard’s plagiarism hypocrisy

Claudine Gay is the self-declared ‘transformational’ president of Harvard university. She campaigned for the job by promising to retire the old Harvard of privilege and patrimony and to bring into being a new Harvard founded on principles of anti-racism and social justice. How is she doing?  At the moment, she is a bit distracted by allegations of plagiarism in her slim portfolio of publications. But she has a whole sea of troubles to take arms against. Let’s let her rest a moment on the shore and consider a small story from the not-always-illustrious past of America’s greatest university.   In 2007 Harvard admitted as a transfer student a young man, Adam

Monday

Jawad Iqbal

How Britain failed Jimmy Lai

There is something shameful about the government’s reluctance to publicly call for the release of Jimmy Lai, a British citizen and democracy campaigner, held in solitary confinement in Hong Kong. Lai, the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, and one of the most prominent critics of China’s Communist Party, has languished in prison for more than 1,100 days. His trial, on national security charges, finally got underway today. Yet it is only now that a British minister has summoned up the courage to properly condemn Lai’s prosecution for the politically motivated sham it undoubtedly is. Lord Cameron, the foreign secretary, said he was ‘gravely concerned’ about the trial, and joined the  United

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Is identity politics to blame for the rise of anti-Semitism?

Anti-Semitism is surging among the young. It is now positively hip to view Jews as ‘problematic’. Consider the recent Harvard/Harris poll which found that 67 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the US view Jews as an ‘oppressor class’. If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, then I humbly suggest you read a few more history books. The poll results have horrified observers, as well they might. ‘Do you think that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors or is that a false ideology?’, people were asked. ‘Oppressors’, answered two-thirds of the Gen Z respondents. Welcome to the era of TikTok fascism.

Sunday

Andrew Watts

How serious is Cornish nationalism?

The Office for National Statistics has been publishing interesting insights from the last census – perhaps to counter the bad press that censuses get at this time of year, forcing pregnant Jewish women to travel to municipalities in the West Bank – and its latest release shows that 18.1 per cent of people in Cornwall identify as ‘Cornish’.  Whether as their national identity, ethnic group or, in a tiny fraction of cases, their main language, this is an increase from 13.8 per cent in the last census, in 2011. All of these were write-in responses – despite a campaign by councillors and local MPs in Cornwall, there was no Cornish tick-box – and

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The admirable humility of Japanese sports stars

Who is the best paid sportsperson in the world? Cristiano Ronaldo perhaps? Or Kylian Mbappé? Lionel Messi? Novak Djokovic? LeBron James? Well, no. As of last week, it is someone even reasonably well-informed sports fans may not have heard of – a certain Shohei Ohtani, Japanese slugger and pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ohtani’s ten-year, 700-million-dollar contract is the most lucrative in sporting history. Except technically Ohtani will not be the best paid sportsperson in the world, or at least not until the end of his term, as he has chosen to defer nearly all of his salary so that the bulk of the money can be invested by

Geoff Norcott Geoff Norcott

Are men really that difficult to buy for?

With Christmas rushing at us like a bull in a Westfield, many blokes of a certain age will have already been told ‘you’re difficult to buy for’. On Christmas Day, while everyone else stacks a nice little pile of desirable things, you often end up the proud owner of some new socks and a 600ml bottle of Peroni (which you aren’t even allowed to drink immediately to numb the disappointment). ‘You’re difficult to buy for’ sails dangerously close to what modern progressives might call ‘victim blaming’. The truth is the present buyer could have given it more thought. They might have looked at what you bought for yourself throughout the

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Don’t cry for Shane MacGowan

Shane MacGowan’s death and his star-studded funeral captured the headlines this week. But the fawning and fanfare felt oddly dissonant to me: was I the only person in the media who never cared for him? I’m used to not holding the same opinions as most people in my profession; this is quite understandable, as only 19 per cent of British journalists were educated at comprehensive schools, as I was, and a minuscule number swerved ‘uni’, as I was blessed to. But I’m sceptical that many of those amongst my people of origin, the English working class, shared the media’s adulation for MacGowan. To us, MacGowan was a phoney: an Irish