Christians for Ukip? A Plausible Ethical Perspective

Published by Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics

Christians UkipThe United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) has made some significant electoral advances since the 2010 General Election, when they secured 3.1% of the popular vote. Not only did the party go on to win the 2014 Elections to the European Parliament with 24 MEPs elected on 26.6% of the vote, but they currently have 430 councillors across 76 local councils, and recently secured their first elected MPs to Westminster following Conservative defections and victory in two volitional by-elections. At the time of writing they are regularly scoring between 12-15% in opinion polls. Christians are deeply divided about the party’s perceived ‘undercurrents’ of racism, nationalism and isolationism which, some aver, put them beyond the pale of religious respectability. But despite episcopal denunciations(1), the party is attracting Christians from across the denominations, including the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church(2). Continue reading

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Self-Referral to Hospital? No Thanks!

Published by Breitbart

Hospital self-referralI’ve had terminal cancer five or six times in my life, all cured by the same remedy – a swift visit to my GP. I scare myself quite easily, you see – a consequence of a very real life-threatening diagnosis I was given in my mid-20s which involved months of investigations and eight hours of major surgery. Continue reading

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Is 24/7 access to my GP on your Christmas List?

Published by ConservativeHome

GP access

If we’re all good boys and girls this Christmas, the Department of Health has some treats in store for us next year. Santa Hunt (Jeremy Claus?) is promising improved access to our GPs seven days a week, which is sure to put a smile on a lot of faces if not thousands of votes in the ballot box. That old fashioned, corner-shop style of Primary Care is just no longer fit for purpose, you see. We all now want 24/7 access to GPs like Tesco gives us to microwavable creamy carbonara. Continue reading

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GP reform – please give up your seat to the elderly, pregnant or infirm

Published by ConservativeHome

Carry On DoHRight across the political spectrum, there is now broad acceptance that there’s a real and truly worrying recruitment and retention crisis in General Practice. Not only are experienced GPs retiring in droves; new medical graduates are avoiding that branch of the profession like a bout of Ebola. Surgeries are starting to close because of their inability to find replacements for retiring partners, with the inevitable knock-on for surrounding surgeries who have to adopt the dispossessed and abandoned patients. Continue reading

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The looming manpower crisis in GP-land

Published by ConservativeHome

GP crisisQuestion: “What is the Government doing to ensure there will be enough GPs in the future?”

Answer: “We’ve set up a quango.”

It’s not really an adequate response, is it? But that essentially is what Earl Howe, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health, told the Bishop of Norwich last week in response to a parliamentary question. The Bishop was concerned about “the age profile of current practising GPs, their increasing role as commissioners, and the impact of the introduction of revalidation for all doctors”. The Minister played a straight bat, explaining that the Government has “set up Health Education England (HEE) to deliver a better health and healthcare workforce for England”. Continue reading

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Prime Minister Boris – tactics and strategy

Published by Daily Mail

Boris back in CommonsOnly the chosen ever attain the level of fame or notoriety which propels them to first-name familiarity with the wider public. I’m not taking about the manufactured pap of celebrity pop – those who are thrust onto the world stage all carefully processed and packaged, like Rihanna, Beyonce and Bjork (though with a surname like Buomundsdottir, I can understand why she dropped it). No, I’m talking about those whose mononymous identity emerges organically, as recognised by the people. In antiquity, one thinks of names like Galileo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Dante and Raphael, not to mention Jesus and Mohammed. In modern times, there’s Cliff, Oprah, Vangelis, Diana…

And Boris.

How many politicians rise to such dizzy heights of popularity that the whole country knows them by their first name? Of course, you get ‘Call me Dave’ (Cameron) contempt, or ‘Gideon’ (Osborne) scorn. But mention the name of Boris and eyes dilate with visions of huggable amiability: people glow inwardly at the mere thought of his aura; they are endeared to his eccentricity. Continue reading

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The Colorado shooting is a Groundhog Day tragedy

Published by Daily Mail

Aurora Colorado vigilIt was a casual midnight massacre in a cinema during a screening the new Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. And now, just as with every passing mention of Pearl Harbour, Dunblane, or September 11th , this film will most likely be forever synonymous with the tragedy.

Clad in gas mask, ballistics helmet and body armour, the audience thought the shadowy figure was part of the theatre experience, until he released gas-emitting devices and opened fire. But the story is a familiar one: a lone and unsuspected gunman enters a building and fires indiscriminately, targeting whatever moves – men, women and children, this time including a six-year-old girl.

And so the United States of America is (once again) in mourning. The number of dead and injured makes this incident the largest mass shooting in modern US history: Aurora, Colorado, 2012 (70 victims) now follows Fort Hood, Texas, 2009 (37), which followed Northern Illinois University, 2008 (21), which followed Virginia Tech University, 2007 (59), which followed Columbine High School, 1999 (39), which followed Springfield, Oregon, 1998 (25), which followed Killeen, Texas, 1991 (45), which followed Jacksonville, Florida, 1990 (14)… Continue reading

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UKIP condemns EU anti-Semitism

Published by Daily Mail

Member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage, left, gestures while talking to the media  with colleague Roger Knapman, right, leader of the UKIP party upon their arrival  at the European Parliament in Brussels, Wednesday June 23, 2004. (AP Photo/Thierry Charlier)Day by day, minute by minute, speech by speech and word by word, the United Kingdom Independence Party looks and sounds increasingly like the Conservative Party in exile – on the economy, law and order, education, defence, patriotism, Christianity, immigration, over-regulation, tax reduction, and their support for private enterprise, traditional marriage and the family, and (of course) the thorny question of the European Union. There is no longer any credible assertion that UKIP is a ‘single-issue’ protest party or pressure group.

And now, just as we have our long-held suspicions confirmed that the Foreign Office is essentially Arabist and ever so subtly anti-Israel, with government officials outrageously asserting that Benjamin Netanyahu uses ‘the incitement issue as a delaying tactic in peace talks’, we hear that Nigel Farage is confronting the ‘strong bias’ against Israel that exists within the European Union. Continue reading

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